The Role of Direct Communication with the Consumer in Identifying Hidden Vulnerabilities in Business Processes

The article is dedicated to the analysis of direct communication with consumers as a mechanism for identifying hidden vulnerabilities in business processes. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing digitalization of customer contact channels and the increasing reliance on automated process monitoring systems that often fail to capture experiential distortions. The scientific novelty lies in conceptualizing direct communication not as feedback, but as a multi-level diagnostic infrastructure capable of revealing structural misalignment between formal process design and lived consumer experience. The work describes communicative micro-failures, complaint-based meso-level instability, and macro-level governance tensions associated with process transparency. Special attention is paid to the divergence between interface corrections and systemic adaptation. The goal of the research is to conceptualize direct consumer communication as a structural diagnostic mechanism for identifying latent vulnerabilities in business processes. Comparative analysis, structural synthesis, and interdisciplinary source analysis were used. The conclusion demonstrates that communication data enables earlier detection of vulnerabilities than aggregated performance metrics. The article will be useful for researchers in business process management and practitioners responsible for digital service design.