The TOM Trap: Why Traditional Operating Models Kill Customer Loyalty

Your organisation is probably trapped in what I call the TOM—the Traditional Operating Model. And it’s killing your customer relationships without you even realising it.

The TOM operates on a simple premise: maximise efficiency, minimise cost, standardise processes, and measure everything that’s easy to measure. It’s how most businesses have operated for decades. It feels safe, logical, and financially prudent.

It’s also why your customers feel like account numbers rather than partners.

Here’s how the TOM Trap works: You create a process designed for operational convenience. You measure things like call handling time, processing speed, and cost per transaction. You incentivise your team to move customers through the system efficiently. Everyone hits their targets. The numbers look good.

Meanwhile, every interaction reinforces to your customer that they’re being processed, not valued. Efficiency trumps empathy. Speed beats understanding. Metrics matter more than relationships.

I’ve spent years developing Extreme Thinking methodologies to help organisations escape this trap. The shift isn’t about abandoning efficiency—it’s about recognising that operational excellence is merely the entry fee, not the winning strategy.

Consider this: Your competitor might be 10% less efficient than you. But if they create moments where customers feel genuinely understood, they’ll capture loyalty whilst you’re left wondering why your superior metrics aren’t translating into superior retention.

The TOM Trap manifests in countless ways: automated responses that miss emotional context, rigid scripts that prevent authentic connection, approval processes that prioritise internal convenience over customer urgency, measurement systems that reward speed over impact.

Breaking free requires deliberate design of what I call the MOT Engine—a systematic approach to creating moments of truth that transform transactions into relationships.

Because at the end of the day, customers don’t remember your efficient processes. They remember how you made them feel.