As 2025 wraps up, we sat down with our CEO, Daniel Slade, to reflect and review on a year that saw technical support playing an even greater role in reducing waste and keeping products in use for longer.
Daniel shares the wins, the surprises and why he believes sustainability doesn’t always require a sweeping strategy. Often, all it takes is a real person on the other end of the line who gets it and knows how to fix the problem fast.
Q: When you look back on 2025, what stands out the most?
Interestingly, what stands out isn’t one huge initiative. It’s the accumulation of countless moments where our teams have helped to keep products working.
We always believe support should do more than solve a problem; it should prevent a return before it ever gets that far. In 2025, we have seen even more examples of how that belief has been turned into reality. Great support really can reduce waste in the real world, not just in theory.
We’ve had fast resolutions and high satisfaction scores this year – but what made me really proud was knowing that thousands of products stayed in customers’ homes instead of heading into a returns process or worse, landfill. That matters.
Q: Your team prevented more than 116,000 unnecessary returns this year. How does that happen in practice?
It begins with simply appreciating that every interaction has the potential to make a big difference.
A customer calls, something’s not working and the default response might be, “this needs replacing.” But nine times out of ten, it doesn’t. The product might just need the right guidance, the right reset, the right update, or sometimes just someone who genuinely takes the time to listen.
That’s what our teams do brilliantly. When we prevent a return, it’s a win for everyone – the customer keeps a product that works and the brand avoids a cost they didn’t need to carry. And of course, the planet wins too when we avoid emissions and waste from shipping, repackaging and disposal.
Behind every number is a human being solving a problem with empathy and expertise. That’s the real engine of the impact.
Q: TMTI’s contact centre handled more than 180,000 inbound calls this year. What does that say about the role of your team?
It shows they’re central to everything we deliver. Many of these calls were complex technical challenges which can be an emotional experience for customers. We completely understand that. If something is broken or not working, it can go beyond frustrating and potentially ruin someone’s evening.
Our teams have a skillset that’s hard to automate. They have technical understanding, patience and emotional intelligence.
When they turn a stressful situation into a great outcome, that’s where sustainability and customer loyalty quietly unfold. What could have potentially been a returned product becomes a product that’s still loved and working in someone’s home.
Those moments never show up in glossy corporate reports, but they’re the wins that truly matter to us.
Q: Can you share a standout example from 2025 where support really changed the outcome?
One that comes to mind is when a major TV software update rolled out with a glitch. It disabled the smart features for everyone on that operating system. This could have turned into panic with customers frustrated, returns spiking and retailers overwhelmed.
Instead, our AI tools and technical teams quickly pinpointed the issue, crafted a clear fix and guided customers through it.
Within a short time, people were logging back in, streaming again and moving on with their day.
No mass returns and no logistical chaos. Just calm, fast problem-solving.
It’s a great example of something we’ve proven again and again: When a customer feels supported, they stick with the product and waste is avoided.
Q: TMTI has been investing heavily in proactive and data-driven support. How did that evolve this year?
Massively. Our dashboards and analytics now give us a live pulse on product trends to see what’s changing, what’s causing friction and what we can get ahead of.
It means we can be more proactive and say:
We’re seeing this issue emerging in the data. Let’s fix it before it becomes a wave.
We combine machine insight with human experience. AI spots the pattern; our people understand the context. With this combination at play, support becomes smarter, faster and far more effective.
Q: When you talk about sustainability, where does TMTI see its biggest influence?
In the simplest place: keeping products working.
More than half of the CO₂e savings we contributed to this year came from fixes that happened directly with customers. There were no engineers, no trucks, no replacements, no reverse logistics. Just great troubleshooting.
People often picture sustainability as giant infrastructure changes or manufacturing overhauls. But sometimes, it’s someone on the other end of a call to a customer, carefully guiding them to a solution. Suddenly, a product has years of life ahead of it again.
That mindset is shared across our teams, our clients and the customers we help. It’s integral to our culture.
Q: And what excites you most heading into 2026?
We’re moving in the right direction, and now we want to go further. This is exciting for the year ahead.
We’re continuing to invest in proactive support, richer digital tools and new ways of helping products stay useful for longer.
Every saved return is real progress and every successful fix is a small environmental victory. Every product kept out of landfill is another step toward a more circular way of supporting customers.
We want 2026 to be the year where everyone sees support as a sustainability engine, not just a cost centre. And we’re on our way there.
If you want to reduce waste, improve customer experience and prove sustainability isn’t just a slogan, we’d love to talk.
