During the Christmas and New Year shutdown period, Approved Systems introduced AI-based call handling to manage inbound calls while staff were offline and on approved leave.
This decision was not driven by novelty, experimentation, or trend-following. It was driven by necessity.
The people behind Approved Systems needed uninterrupted time away from screens and phones to rest, reset, and return prepared for the year ahead. Sustainable service delivery depends on healthy, focused professionals — not permanent availability or informal after-hours escalation.
What the AI revealed during this short holiday window was both measurable and confronting.
Why AI Was Introduced During the Shutdown
The Christmas–New Year period has traditionally been viewed as a low-activity window. In practice, modern customer behaviour no longer aligns with this assumption.
AI call handling was introduced to:
- Ensure inbound calls were acknowledged rather than abandoned
- Provide structured triage during a declared shutdown
- Protect staff from unnecessary interruptions while on approved leave
- Capture objective data on customer expectations during non-operational periods
- Distinguish genuine urgency from convenience-based requests
The result was not just operational coverage, but visibility into how support is being perceived and used.
Holiday Period Call Statistics
Data Sample Period:
19 December 2025 – 29 December 2025 (10 days)
Despite a clearly communicated shutdown period, inbound calls continued across all days and times.
- Calls Managed: 259
- Successful Call Handling Rate: 99.6%
Call Breakdown
- General enquiries: 26
- Requests to speak with a specific person: 57
- Hosted PBX time condition change requests: 9
- Change requests during shutdown: 74
- Requests scheduled for the New Year: 14
- Christmas Day support requests: 8
- Accounts and billing enquiries: 21
- Miscellaneous / other: 44
- Dropped calls: 6
This volume was recorded over just ten days — during what many still assume to be a quiet operational period.
Key Findings
Over-Concentration on a Single Individual
Of the 57 calls requesting a specific person, 100% were directed to the same individual — who was on approved leave and taking a holiday.
This highlights a serious operational risk:
- Support expectations are often centred on one person
- Leave boundaries are ignored or bypassed
- Business continuity becomes fragile
- Staff wellbeing is compromised
This model is unsustainable. No individual should be expected to remain perpetually accessible.
Quite simply: give the poor person a break.
Christmas Day Requests Were Not Business-Critical
A review of Christmas Day calls revealed:
- 2 calls asking how to connect a new device to home Wi-Fi
- 1 call for assistance setting up a new work laptop received as a Christmas gift
- 1 call requesting help changing settings on a personal iPhone
- 1 call asking how to transfer data between phones
In every case:
- There was no expectation of paid support
- Requests were convenience-based
- None related to critical business outages or failures
This reinforces how blurred the line has become between managed business support and personal technology assistance — particularly during public holidays.
What the AI Made Clear
The AI exposed a growing mismatch between:
- Customer expectations of instant, personal, on-demand support, and
- The operational reality of a professional services business deliberately offline during shutdown periods
People are the core resource of any service business. People require rest. Expecting uninterrupted, free, or informal support during shutdowns is neither realistic nor economically viable.
The Outcome
The introduction of AI delivered clear and measurable benefits:
- Callers received immediate acknowledgement and guidance
- Non-urgent requests were correctly deferred
- Genuine urgency was separated from convenience-based noise
- Staff were shielded from burnout during a defined shutdown
Automation did exactly what it should do:
- Absorb noise
- Enforce boundaries
- Protect the humans behind the service
What This Means for the Future
These findings will directly shape how Approved Systems operates moving forward.
Support models must evolve to remain sustainable in an environment where expectations continue to rise, while margins and staffing realities do not.
AI will not replace people — but it will protect them.
Boundaries are not optional.
They are essential.
Important Notice: Updated Support Policies
Approved Systems has tightened its support policies and procedures moving forward to ensure clarity, sustainability, and fairness for both clients and staff.
All customers are encouraged to review the latest policies, including General Terms & Conditions and service boundaries, at:
👉 https://approvedsystems.com.au/legal/
These policies exist to set clear expectations, protect service quality, and ensure Approved Systems can continue to deliver reliable, professional support well into the future.