Enterprise Support Moves Past Band-Aid Fixes Into Orchestrated AI-Supported Operations

Enterprise support is entering an orchestration phase, where the challenge is no longer deploying AI but getting systems, workflows, and data to operate as a coordinated whole. Years of layering tools across CRM, ERP, and support channels have created fractured visibility, slow handoffs, and gaps between what AI can automate and what the business can actually execute. The focus is now shifting toward a unifying layer that connects platforms like SAP and Salesforce, preserves context across every interaction, and enables AI to operate with full awareness of the end-to-end process, especially in environments where digital workflows must align with real-world outcomes.

Ivo Koster, Director of Commercial Support at Precor, a Peloton company, is a veteran CX leader with a track record of scaling global support operations in complex environments. He previously spent years at Microsoft leading customer experience for Xbox and consumer services, overseeing more than $60 million in annual support spend and earning recognition for launching the company’s first AI and machine learning-driven support chatbot. He carries that perspective into his current role, where he says the challenge isn't about replacing one with the other, but bringing out the best in each.

“Designing a hybrid support workforce isn’t about replacing humans with AI. It’s about orchestrating each to complement the other’s strengths,” says Koster. He explains that Precor's unique challenge to doing this is rooted in the physical journey of its products.

• Operational precision: “The complexity is not so much in the technical realm where we were at Microsoft," says Koster, "but really in the logistical realm: are we sending the right thing at the right time to the right gym?” The mission is to deliver operational precision for a diverse commercial customer base, from single-gym owners to large franchise networks with countless equipment variations.

• Two-track approach: Koster's plan involves two parallel tracks. The first is tackling immediate, high-friction problems like manually processing emails into Salesforce cases. Koster then sees these types of issues as symptoms of a second challenge. He notes the high-tenure support team is resilient at creating workarounds for challenges as a byproduct of their dedication to helping customers, but that these workarounds signal deeper root issues. “This team has made things happen despite shipping problems, systems problems, the economy, and COVID. It's interesting to see they'll make it work, which also has a dark side: they have a lot of Band-Aids, and those Band-Aids are now standard operating procedure.” Koster's insight into the team's process directly informs his approach: provide immediate relief while building a foundational orchestration layer that makes those workarounds obsolete by better enabling AI-driven workflows.

• Trust, not tickets: His philosophy frames the purpose of commercial support around a single objective: creating trust. “The vision is to shift our people toward building trust and relationships, while automation ensures the promises we made are kept. We can let automation handle operational tasks like answering simple questions, executing shipments, and managing orders, and really have the humans work on the relationship with the gym owner or franchise.”

That change in mindset helps lay the foundation for a hybrid workforce model that fundamentally redefines customer experience. In Koster's vision, a new generation of AI agents handles the high-volume, repeatable operational tasks: order management, shipment tracking, and parts validation. The result is that human agents are free to focus their efforts on what they do best: building relationships and managing difficult escalations.

• Bot overload: This preference for a unifying layer comes directly from his time at Xbox, where having siloed bots for each channel created massive content management and accuracy issues. Because of this, he is now looking for a vendor that can build the connective tissue between channels and the fragmented back-end systems like SAP and Salesforce, a move that reflects a wider industry trend as more companies adopt AI automation. “At Xbox, I had a bot for Twitter, one for chat, one for Weibo, one for WhatsApp. That creates a lot of content management and accuracy issues for customers. It also reduces the speed of personalization, because the real power of this AI is in that personalization and integration.”

• Groundhog Day: Koster explains that preserving customer context across every single handoff is vital for delivering a seamless experience. At Precor, a simple parts order can be passed from a quoting team to an ordering team and then to dispatch, with context lost at each step. “A classic failure is when a bot hands off to an agent who has zero context, with no conversation history or record of what the customer clicked on the website. The interaction is broken because the agent is forced to start from the beginning by asking the customer to explain everything they have already done.”

Ultimately, Koster’s strategy extends far beyond the support department. The goal is to use this orchestration of systems to empower the entire commercial organization. When a customer success manager has a holistic view of shipping issues, or a sales representative knows the precise moment a client is ready for a renewal based on their service history, the entire relationship can be strengthened.

“The goal is to ensure that whoever talks to the customer represents the entire company and has the full context of that customer,” Koster concludes. Managing this logistical puzzle across a globally distributed team—with a tier-one BPO team in the Philippines, domestic tier-two specialists, and remote tier-three leads—underscores why Koster sees orchestration as such a top priority.