Beyond bots and quick fixes: The future of advertising platform support
Transforming ad support through AI-driven solutions and early issue detection to enhance customer trust and efficiency
Why the old support model is dead
Many online advertising platforms face rising complexity, skyrocketing support volumes, and increasingly frustrated customers — from small advertisers and creators to major brands and agencies.
But here’s the truth: most platforms are struggling with outdated service models. They lean on adding more agents, leveraging chatbots that only deflect, and layering in new tools without fixing the core problem, enabling a better experience. The support experience is not designed for the customer; it’s designed for the company.
The result? Bloated help centers full of jargon; Long wait times for human help; Opaque, trust-eroding decisions; and revenue leakage and rising churn.
We believe it’s time for a full reinvention — not incremental tweaks but a fundamental redesign — of how online ad platforms deliver customer support. In this article, we look at six of the most common problems with current service models and propose the best ways ad platforms can tackle them.
Key design elements for CX and UX in customer support and help centers
To make these changes stick, platforms must embed world-class customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) principles into every layer of the help experience:
1
Plain language, not jargon
Simplify content, responses, and policy explanations into clear, human language. During onboarding, provide users with actionable steps, checkboxes and a progress bar to reduce uncertainty for users.
2
Embedded help, not just external links
Place help directly inside key workflows e.g., ads managers, billing dashboards, and creative tools.
3
Recognition, not recall
Make objects, actions, and options visible to reduce memory load, striking a balance by combining images, icons, and video tutorials, reducing cognitive load and improving readability. Feature an autocomplete search function that predicts relevant articles and then presents a summarized solution generated by AI.
4
Proactive notifications with clear actions
Send warnings and include immediate action buttons or guided fixes. Keep users informed about what is happening with clear feedback.
5
Clear visual hierarchy
Use design signals (color, layout, progress bars) to show where customers are in the journey. Include clickable breadcrumbs at the top of each article, improving navigation by indicating users’ current location within the help center. Provide shortcuts for experienced users.
6
Personalized recommendations
Surface relevant next steps or resources, driven by customer behavior and context. Incorporate a diagnostic survey that helps identify user challenges and offers tailored, scenario-based solutions. Include notes throughout help articles, offering best practices, tips, and case studies. This helps users avoid common errors and learn from real-world examples.
7
Customer feedback
Allow users to submit feedback on specific sections of an article as well as on their general experience with solutioning. This approach ensures more targeted and effective content updates.
8
Mobile-first experiences
You don’t win customer loyalty by answering more tickets you win by eliminating the need for tickets in the first place. You don’t win by adding more agents you win by making your systems smarter, your processes clearer, and your human talent more strategic. The platforms that rethink support now will own the next decade of customer trust, growth, and market leadership.
How KPMG can help
Instead of just throwing more agents or bots at the problem, KPMG helps you challenge the entire system by:
- Treating customer support as a product design challenge, not an operational patch.
- Focusing on automation that resolves, not just deflects.
- Helping teams reduce support demand by fixing underlying issues, not scaling busy work.
- Designing human roles to maximize strategic impact, not fill gaps left by broken systems.
- Embedding trust and transparency into every process, making the help center a competitive differentiator.
We help reinvent your programs for online advertising support through:
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