When Support Fails, Culture Speaks Loudest - Xist4

January 22, 2026

When Support Fails, Culture Speaks Loudest

Bad Culture Wears a Boiler Suit

11,000 customers. Most of them vulnerable. Left without their energy bill discounts...

That was the high-voltage failure over at OVO, one of the UK’s biggest energy providers (reported here).

Let’s not sugar-coat it: when people who rely on support are left out in the cold—literally—it’s not just bad ops. It’s bad culture with a customer-facing mask. And in the world of recruitment and leadership, the lesson hits painfully close to home.

Because whether you’re a COO scaling a cloud first fintech or running BI and analytics in a mission-led SME, your hiring is your culture, and your culture is what shows up when stuff hits the fan. Just like it did for OVO.

The Crisis Mirror: What Mistakes Reveal

The interesting thing about a cock-up like this is what it surfaces. I’m not just talking about process gaps or overdue discounts. I’m talking about what it tells us about organisational DNA.

When things go wrong—really wrong—people stop performing, and start revealing. It’s true in teams. It's true in leaders. And it’s painfully true in customer experiences.

If your culture is shallow, scrambled or sugar-coated, a crisis is going to serve you up on a plate—no garnish needed.

And the energy sector? It’s dealing with complex systems, vulnerable users, high-compliance environments. That’s not a world where culture is fluffy. That’s a world where it runs the game.

So what can smart leaders and teams take from this roadside crash of a headline?

Real Leadership Starts on Quiet Thursdays

OVO says they’ve compensated the customers affected. Fine. But real leadership isn’t just about reacting to a PR emergency. It starts on the quiet days—those Thursdays when nothing’s on fire, but you're building systems and hiring people who can think outside the script.

Here’s the punchy truth: you don’t deliver for vulnerable customers by accident. That’s a result of designing your team culture to act empathetically, lead responsibly, and take personal ownership—long before anything goes tabloid.

So if you’re a founder, CTO or People lead, ask yourself:

  • Are we hiring people with bias for action—and compassion?
  • Do our escalation paths empower support staff—or box-tick them into a corner?
  • Where does our customer experience actually live? The slack thread? The Miro board? Someone’s head?

Recruitment as a Cultural Insurance Policy

I’ve been in recruitment long enough to tell you this: you can’t policy your way out of a cultural vacuum.

You can have all the safeguarding guides and compliance playbooks in the world—but if your hires don’t get the mission, or worse, don’t care... it bleeds out through every process you build.

This is why, at Xist4, we bang on about hiring not just for CVs, but for real-world context alignment:

  • Can your cloud architect think like a product owner and a user?
  • Does your data lead go off-script when the dashboard feels dodgy?
  • Will your support hire flag a moral concern—even if it’s awkward?

Culture is not what you write. It’s who you hire, reward, and promote. So if your organisation says, "we care about vulnerable customers"—make damn sure you’re building a team that acts like it when the lights flicker.

Taking It Home: Questions Every Leader Needs to Ask

This OVO story isn’t unique. It’s just public. And that’s what’s so useful about it. A big provider made a big error—and it gives all of us a crystal-clear test:

If this happened in your company, how would you have responded?

To help you self-audit before the lights go off, here’s a mini-framework I use with exec teams I support:

The “Oh Sh*t, It’s Us” Audit:

  • Responsiveness: How fast can we spot and escalate real customer pain?
  • Empathy Signals: Do staff know why caring isn’t optional?
  • Autonomy: Can people fix problems without legal sign-off every time?
  • Follow-through: When we pay compensation—or apologise—what else actually changes?
  • Reputation Radar: Who in the team is spotting systemic failures before the PR team has to?

If your answers feel flimsy, don't panic—but do act. Culture doesn’t change with a workshop. It changes with every hire you make from here.

Final Thought: Culture Is a Utility, Not a Luxury

What separates decent companies from world-class ones isn’t just how they operate when things go right...

It’s how they behave when things go very, very wrong.

In a storm, your culture is either your shelter—or your shambles. That’s why you can’t shortcut your hiring DNA. The team you build today is the reaction force you’ll deploy tomorrow.

Need help building a team that acts with speed, empathy and ownership—even when things break? You know where I am.

Gozie out ⚡



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