October 22, 2024 • 25 mins
Text me with feedback or questions!
In this special crossover episode, Sarah Caminiti teams up with Mat Patterson, host of Help Scout's The Supportive, to dive into one of the hottest topics in customer service: the future of self-service and AI. As businesses evolve, so does the way we support customers, and self-service is quickly becoming the go-to solution. But what does that mean for support teams, leadership, and customer experience?
Bring a notebook and listen as Mat breaks down the critical role self-service plays in streamlining operations, enhancing customer satisfaction, and freeing up your team for more complex, impactful work. From ancient vending machines to modern AI tools, Mat explores how tech is reshaping customer interactions and why human empathy remains irreplaceable.
Sarah also jumps in throughout the episode to offer her leadership insights on how to navigate the transition to AI-powered self-service without losing the personal touch that defines great support. If you’re a leader, CX professional, or just curious about the future of work, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways on using AI and self-service to empower your team and elevate your customer experience.
Tune in for a forward-thinking conversation that will change the way you approach customer service, strategy, and leadership in the age of AI!
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
- Barack Obama
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah Caminiti (00:07):
Welcome back to Epochal Growth.
I'm Sarah Caminiti and I am sohappy that you're here.
This is a very special episodeof Epochal Growth.
Today, we're doing something alittle different.
You're going to hear a veryfamiliar voice, along with mine,
but in a different way.
I'm excited to be swappingepisodes with a supportive
podcast by Help Scout, where wedeep dive into the future of
(00:30):
customer service and,specifically, the role that
self-service and AI are playingin shaping how we support our
customers.
This is a topic that most ofthe listeners, most of the
guests of this podcast, thinkabout all the time, building and
leading support teams who areconstantly thinking about ways
that you can use technology topositively impact the customer
(00:52):
experience.
Self-service is a great way toprovide the customer with the
tools that they need to besuccessful and, on the flip side
, it becomes a great way foryour team to have the tools that
they need to be successful.
I'm thrilled to share thisconversation because Mat
Patterson, the host of TheSupportive, really explores what
(01:13):
this transition means forsupport teams, leaders and
businesses.
Oh yeah, remember when I saidthat you would recognize the
voice in this special episode.
That's Mat.
If this is your first timelistening to Epochal Growth.
Welcome.
I am so excited that you'rehere.
I'm so excited that your loveof The Supportive brought you to
Epochal Growth.
But if you've been with me fora while, then Mat Patterson will
(01:36):
sound very familiar, because hewas a very recent guest on this
podcast and we had a blasttalking about all things AI and
community and leadership andyour journey.
I definitely recommend it ifyou haven't heard it yet.
But back to this episode.
We're going to be uncoveringinsights on how AI is shifting
the landscape.
But here's the thing Whileself-service is growing, the
(01:59):
need for human connection andstrategic leadership is stronger
than ever.
We all know this.
So I'm going to be popping intothe episode every now and then
to share some thoughts on how wecan navigate this change from a
leadership perspective and howyou can leverage it in your own
career and organization.
So whether you're a supportleader, someone exploring the
future of work or just curiousabout how AI may affect your
(02:22):
role, you'll get a ton of valuefrom this episode.
Let's dive into this specialEpochal growth and The
Supportive crossover.
Mat Patterson (02:32):
Here we go.
Psst, I've got a question foryou.
When do you think the firstvending machine was invented?
Got a decade in mind?
Good, I will tell you theanswer, but not yet.
(02:53):
What a tease.
Self-service technology,ancient and modern.
A German monk and Shawnaexplains gross margin.
(03:13):
I'm Mat Patterson.
This is The Supportive.
If you knew for sure that,starting tomorrow, most of your
customers would use self-serviceinstead of contacting your
support team, how would you feel?
Relieved, confused, excited.
A sudden, overwhelming urge torush about fixing up your help
docs, like you've just organisedfor a cleaner to come, and now
you desperately need to impressthem with how clean everything
already is.
I'm asking because that'swhat's about to happen.
(03:36):
I mean not the cleaner, theself-service first thing.
Probably not tomorrow, maybenot next year, but soon.
And if that's true, if most ofour customers will use
self-service first, well thenwe've all got some work to do
and we'll get into what thatwork is.
But first let's talk aboutwhether or not it's going to
happen at all.
Why would I say that most ofour customers will use
(03:57):
self-service most of the time?
Well, firstly, because it'salready happening for larger
companies.
Take Google, for example, attheir scale with their 1.8
billion people just using Gmail.
Human-first support just isn'tpractical.
There's not a warehouse onEarth big enough to hold a call
centre at that scale.
And Elon's Martian sweatshops?
(04:17):
They won't be open for decadesyet.
For really big companies,self-service first it's the only
practical option.
But Help Scout's not at thatscale.
You're probably not either Atour size.
It's always been profitable tohave skilled human support
answering emails and chats andcalls, because there's enough
margin there at a small enoughcustomer base to make those
numbers work.
But what if those numberschange?
(04:39):
What if AI comes along that cantake on, say, 30% of the
support work, but for 10% of thecost?
Well, now your financedepartment's going to want to
take a real hard look at yoursupport headcount, aren't they?
Sarah Caminiti (04:53):
Hi, it's me.
Yes, I warned you, I'm going tobe jumping in a bit here.
Mat brings up a great pointabout AI taking over 30% of
support work for a fraction ofthe cost, and while it sounds
like a win for efficiency and,believe me, I love efficiency
it's important to recognize thatthis shift can create anxiety
within teams.
We see it all the time.
(05:17):
We see it on LinkedIn, we seeit within our communities, we
see it within our teams.
We cannot forget this.
As leaders, our role isn't justto implement new technology.
It's to guide our peoplethrough these changes.
We need to be strategic abouthow we communicate the benefits
of AI while also addressing thepotential concerns of our teams.
Remember, adopting AI isn'treplacing human roles.
It's about evolving them.
(05:38):
A leader's responsibility is toset clear expectations about
how these tools will enhance theteam's capabilities, not
diminish their value.
As you bring AI into yourworkflow, consider how you can
reframe this change as anopportunity for your team
members to focus on moremeaningful, complex work that AI
simply cannot handle.
Mat Patterson (06:01):
Hang on.
I think I've accidentallysummoned Help Scout CFO Shawna
Fisher.
Hi, sorry, Shawna.
I was just talking aboutsummoned Help Scout CFO Shawna
Fisher.
Hi, sorry, Shawna, I was justtalking about the budget
implications of AI in support.
Shawna Fisher (06:10):
These are sexy topics.
Mat Patterson (06:12):
Yeah, anyway, do you want to come back a little
bit later and teach me a newmetric?
Shawna Fisher (06:16):
Okay.
Mat Patterson (06:17):
Great.
We were talking about thereasons to think that
self-service first is the futureof support.
Big companies like Googlealready do it.
Ai is going to make it muchcheaper for smaller companies to
deliver AI-mediatedself-service help if the tech is
good enough.
Is it good enough?
Well, maybe not yet, butprobably soon.
(06:38):
There's a long history oftechnological innovations that
were not quite as good as thething that we already had.
I don't mean before.
We had an iPhone sort of long Imean 4th century BC long.
Here's a man from that timetalking about a new technology
of his moment.
If men learn this, it willimplant forgetfulness in their
(07:01):
souls.
They will cease to exercisememory because they rely on that
which is written, callingthings to remembrance no longer
from within themselves, but bymeans of external marks.
Did you get it?
This was a quote from Socratestalking about writing an
(07:21):
invention that, as you may know,did in fact catch on, so much
so that, by the 1400s AD, it hadhuge numbers of fans, like this
German monk, Trithenius, whosaid the sermon, once it is
heard, vanishes into thin air.
Its text, if written down andread even a thousand times, does
(07:43):
not lose its impact.
Massive fan of writingTrithemius, but he was less
excited about the newfangledtech of his day Printed books
will never be the equivalent ofhandwritten codices, especially
since printed books are oftendeficient in spelling and
appearance.
And it's worth noting, notingboth of those fellows.
They were right, memorizingthings, writing them down by
(08:05):
hand, it does help you learnbetter, but the technology was
so useful and so cost-effectivethat it succeeded despite those
limitations.
And we're not immune to thesame thing happening to us.
We all stream our music.
Even though MP3s, when theywere first introduced, sounded
legitimately much worse than theCDs that we already had,
(08:26):
convenience wins and the qualitytends to catch up.
Sarah Caminiti (08:30):
This is what I love about Mat.
This is such a perfect analogy,because this kind of resistance
to technological change istimeless.
As leaders, we need tounderstand that this resistance
is often less about thetechnology itself and more about
the fear of the unknown.
It's about people questioningtheir relevance in the new
landscape, and that's fair.
(08:50):
That's something that we needto acknowledge and we need to
validate.
When I work with other leaders,when I get to connect with
other leaders, I'm always tryingto encourage a proactive
approach to change.
Don't just roll out new systems.
Take the time to show yourteams how they can thrive in
this new environment.
The key is helping your peoplesee how the technology can
(09:11):
complement their skills, notrender them obsolete.
History shows us that oncepeople understand the benefits,
they adopt change.
It's our job as leaders to helpthem make that connection and
that's what we should expect tohappen with AI.
Mat Patterson (09:26):
It's already good enough for some types of
customer service For simplequestions prioritizing, tagging,
translating being a betterknowledge-based search, creating
a draft answer but it's not yetable to provide high-quality,
reliable service directly tocustomers.
In many cases, ai hallucinateslike a princess who kissed the
wrong toad.
If you've got high customersupport, an AI is probably not
(09:50):
good enough right now to let ittalk directly to your customers,
but it probably will be, or atleast it will get good enough
for enough situations that itbecomes normal and expected that
you'll interact with AI firstwhen you're getting customer
service.
And that has real implicationsfor how we work as support
professionals, what our job is,who we help, how we use our time
(10:14):
and energy, and more on that ina second, but first let me give
you one last piece of evidencefor this self-service first
support future.
And if ancient history isn'tyour bag, then maybe these
modern examples will help Wordprocessors, atms, self-service,
grocery store checkouts threequite different technologies,
but they all followed a verysimilar pattern, and that
(10:36):
pattern is taking a job that'sdone by a person and not
replacing it completely, butautomating some of the work and
then having the customer do therest, hence self-service.
So type documents used to beproduced by professional typists
until word processing machinescame along.
Now the business professionalscan type their own letters, but
the machine helps with thecorrections and the Mat part.
(10:59):
Bank tellers used to berequired for every banking
transaction until ATMs camealong.
Now the bank's customers can dothe pressing of the buttons to
get the cash out.
The machine does the countingand the dispensing and the
recording of the transactions.
And of course we're right inthe middle of automating grocery
checkouts.
In theory at least, thecustomer does scanning and
(11:19):
bagging and the machine keepstrack, takes the money at the
end.
One job split up between acustomer and a new machine.
Sarah Caminiti (11:28):
One point that I want to highlight here is that,
while AI and self-service canhandle many routine tasks, we
all know that they will neverreplace the human touch and
customer support.
We've seen what happens whencompanies think that they can
replace the human touch andcustomer support, and that is
just a sad, sad, sad place to be.
The emotional intelligence, theempathy and the nuanced
(11:49):
understanding that humans bringare irreplaceable.
The skills that the CXcommunity have, those skills
they're irreplaceable.
As businesses adopt moreAI-driven support, leaders need
to ensure that empathy does notget lost in the process.
Your team should be focusing onmore complex, sensitive cases
(12:10):
where human connection isessential.
Your team should also be usingthis time to focus more on the
data and how they can use thatdata in different ways.
This is where the true value ofhuman support lies.
We're able to understand thecustomer's needs beyond just
those transactionalcommunications, whether that's
through data, whether that'sthrough actual customer
(12:30):
communication.
But this is also whereleadership comes in.
As leaders, we need to beequipping our teams to handle
these higher stakes situationseffectively, and we need to be
equipping our teams with thetools and the confidence to
start asking questionscross-functionally and to see
how this team can have an impactthroughout the business.
Mat Patterson (12:52):
Of all of these examples, though, I think it's
the grocery store checkout thatapplies most to our work in
online customer support, in thatthere are plenty of cases where
the machine works great.
It will be faster than waitingfor a person to help.
It scales up well.
It's cheaper for businesses tofund and operate, but not in
every case.
As soon as you need to dosomething more complicated or at
(13:12):
higher volume or somethingoutside of the machine's
capabilities, you'll still needa person at the checkout and in
the support inbox.
For online support, we've alwayshad self-service documentation
and tools, but the AI tech justwasn't good enough to be useful.
But it feels like that ischanging.
There'll be a ton of querieswhere everything is close enough
(13:34):
to standard and predictablethat some form of AI-generated
response will be just fine.
The customer won't need to waitfor human help.
But there'll always be massesof edge cases and more complex
issues and sensitive issues, andwhatever the support equivalent
is of using your own bag,that's just slightly heavier
than the stupid checkout machinecan understand and invalid item
(13:55):
in the bagging area.
My, anyway, self-service drivenby customers, delivered by AI,
designed, monitored, crafted bypeople that's the way most
customers will be helped, mostof the time, not all the time,
not in every case, just most ofthe time.
Okay.
But so what?
Well, there are some realimplications for support teams
(14:17):
that we should prepare for.
But before we get into those,Shawna is back to talk metrics.
Pair for but before we get intothose, Shawna is back to talk
metrics.
Now, Shawna, today's metric isgross margin, which I imagine
refers to the little picturesand phrases that teenage boys
like to scribble on the pages oftheir school textbooks.
Shawna Fisher (14:34):
That's close, but I have a little bit different
of a definition.
So, in short, gross margintells you as a percentage how
much money your business keepsfrom each dollar of sales you
make.
It's a way to measure theprofitability of companies' core
business.
Gross margin is calculated byfirst taking your sales revenue
(14:54):
less your direct cost, whichthey call cost of goods sold
that are associated withproducing that revenue that
gives you your gross profit,that are associated with
producing that revenue thatgives you your gross profit.
Mat Patterson (15:06):
Then you divide that gross profit by your total
revenue, multiply it by 100, andthat's your gross margin, and
what does knowing the grossmargin help you understand about
the business?
Shawna Fisher (15:17):
Gross margins are very important because they
help you understand howefficiently you're producing
revenue.
The higher your gross margin,the more dollars are available
to run the business.
Mat Patterson (15:27):
And is there a good gross margin percentage
that would always apply, or isthere something that's specific
to a particular business or toan industry?
Shawna Fisher (15:35):
So it is different for every company, but
there definitely are industrybenchmarks.
A technology company, forinstance, is anywhere between 70
and 90 percent.
Mat Patterson (15:46):
And you said customer support is considered a
direct cost.
Shawna Fisher (15:49):
That's correct.
Mat Patterson (15:50):
So any reduction in spending on support or any
revenue that the supportorganization could bring in that
would improve the gross margin.
Shawna Fisher (15:58):
Exactly so.
By optimizing resources andminimizing waste and customer
service operations, you canincrease and enhance your
profitability and maintain muchhigher margins.
And if you do charge forcertain support services, that
revenue could improve yourmargin too.
Mat Patterson (16:17):
How should I be thinking about gross margin if I
was a support leader in mybusiness?
Shawna Fisher (16:24):
gross margin if I was a support leader in my
business.
A wonderful way to be a goodpartner as a support leader is
to come to the table knowing afew things One, what are the
gross margin targets?
Two, what are the revenuetargets the business is trying
to achieve?
And three, how much does yoursupport team cost and what
percentage of the direct cost dothey currently represent?
And lastly, how can you helpcontrol those costs to ensure
(16:46):
the business is on track toachieve its gross margin target?
Keep a close eye on whether thebusiness is on track to hit the
revenue target, remembering thebalance between revenue and
cost and the formula that isneeded to achieve the gross
margin percentage.
Sarah Caminiti (17:01):
All right, all right, I got to jump in here.
This is the last time, Ipromise, but I got to jump in
because Mat touched on somethingcritical for support leaders.
It's something that we usuallydo not feel confident to talk
about, and that is the numbershow support impacts gross margin
.
In today's business landscape.
We can no longer continue thisgarbage narrative that customer
(17:23):
support is a cost center.
We know that it has never beena cost center, but people still
like to say it is a cost center.
But hey enough, I'll get off mysoapbox for that one.
When aligned with the company'score values and strategic goals,
it can actually contribute toprofitability.
But really, when the companyputs a focus on aligning the
(17:43):
customer experience with thecompany's core values and the
company's strategic goals,incredible things can happen,
and usually those are veryprofitable things.
I've been doing a lot of worktrying to understand alignment
between core values and purposeand roles, and alignment is so,
(18:04):
so important.
If your customer support team'swork reflects the company's
mission and values, you'll notonly improve margins, but you're
also going to enhance customerloyalty and satisfaction.
Leaders who can bring thislevel of strategic thinking to
the table, knowing how supportaffects both revenue and costs.
Those are the leaders that aregoing to create sustainable,
(18:27):
high-performing teams.
Those are the leaders that aregoing to change the way
companies think and use thecustomer experience team and the
skills that they have.
Mat Patterson (18:39):
Thanks, joanna.
I did some half-arsed Googlingjust now.
Looks like the typical snackvending machines have gross
margins around 15-25%.
That's not bad.
It's no wonder they've beenaround for so long.
But how long?
Well, the first Coca-Colavending machine that was back in
1929, almost a century ago.
But a century before that andan ocean away, you could buy
(19:01):
some politically risky booksfrom an English vending machine
in 1822.
And sticking in England, we cango back to 1615 when you could
get tobacco from a machine in adingy tavern.
But the very first recordedvending machine, well, it's a
lot older than that, all the wayback to 60 AD in ancient Egypt.
(19:22):
It was invented by a professorwith the excellent name Hero of
Alexandria and it dispensedwater from a spout for the low,
low price of a five drachma coindropped in a slot at the top.
Now, this was room temperaturewater.
It wasn't a chilled Evian andthat might have reduced sales,
except that this was also holywater used for cleaning rituals,
(19:43):
and that's not an area in whichyou want to skimp.
People still die every yearfrom vending machine accidents.
It's usually not because theywere smoked by an Egyptian god,
because they forgot to cleansethemselves before entering the
temple.
All right, your support team.
It does a lot more than eventhe wildest Japanese vending
(20:04):
machine could offer, but even so, a self-service first future.
It probably does mean somechanges.
Firstly, your documentationreally Mat.
It's meant for your customers,yes, and for your support team,
but now it's also the source oftruth for your AI tools.
If you've got insufficient,incorrect, out-of-date docs, ai
will still use that to talk toyour customers.
(20:26):
So maintaining, improving,extending, enhancing
documentation Job number one forfuture support teams Great
documentation is useless if yourcustomers never see it.
So another area of focus will beAI-powered contextual help.
Think Microsoft Clippy, butgood, it was always a smart idea
, the tech just wasn't there.
(20:47):
But generative, conversationalAI providing useful contextual
help that could be a supportgame changer.
But even with the best of docsand the best self-service tools,
we know some customers willstill need or want to talk to a
person.
So an important focus forsupport pros it will be figuring
out when to transitioncustomers from self-service to
(21:07):
human support and how to do thatas gracefully and as painlessly
as possible.
We may need fewer of thosehumans per customer than we do
today, but the jobs they do willbe more complex and broader
than ever before.
Like bank tellers before us,we'll be handling fewer
customers but a wider range ofthe escalated, the more
(21:27):
sensitive, the more expensiveinteractions, and we'll be
responsible for monitoring andcrafting all of those AI-first
self-service interactions,measuring the quality of the
human support and theAI-mediated self-service.
That will be another core jobfor the future support team.
(21:48):
I don't know about your team.
I haven't personally had todeal with my human staff
hallucinating at work, so we'regoing to need a new type of
support QA to deal with this newworld.
We'll also need to redesign oursupport onboarding and our
training techniques, because theold way throwing the newbies
into the queue, letting themhandle the basic questions to
build up their skills that mightnot be feasible if AI is now
taking those questionsautomatically or giving the
(22:09):
answer to the support agent.
We'll have to find new ways tobuild up that skill and
expertise and to bring it alltogether.
The customer support experiencewill be wider than before.
There'll be more touch pointsfor support content, more ways
to engage with support teams andthe support materials they're
creating.
The support pro of the futureneeds to think about that
(22:30):
overall customer experience, notjust the one-to-one
conversations.
If the future of online supportis self-service.
That means we need to elevateself-service from a
when-you-have-spare-timeafterthought or a deflection
tool to stop people getting realsupport and make it a critical
element of our products andservices.
(22:51):
And look, we don't know how AIis going to turn out.
Maybe it never gets muchfurther than where it is right
now, but even if that's the case, investing time and energy into
an incredible self-serviceexperience that will always be
worthwhile, it will pay off, andif AI can end up taking on more
of the work, then we will bewell-placed to take full
advantage of it.
Sarah Caminiti (23:12):
All right listeners.
I hope that you enjoyed thiscrossover episode with The
Supportive and, in a couple ofdays, be on the lookout, follow
The Supportive podcast, becauseMat Patterson is going to be
dissecting an episode of EpochalGrowth and it's pretty awesome.
I hope you've enjoyed divinginto the future of customer
support alongside Mat Pattersonand exploring how AI and
(23:35):
self-service are reshaping thelandscape.
I know this is a little bitdifferent than what we usually
talk about, but I think it's areally important topic and I was
so, so, so excited to have theopportunity to do this with The
Supportive.
It's clear that, whiletechnology is transforming the
way that we work, the role ofleadership and guiding teams
through these shifts is moreimportant than ever.
(23:56):
As we discussed today,embracing AI isn't about
replacing the human element.
This has been a common themethrough many, many, many
episodes of Epochal Growth.
It's about amplifying what wedo best.
It's about using these toolsstrategically to empower our
teams, align with our values andprovide deeper, more meaningful
(24:16):
customer experiences.
The future of support may be AIdriven, but the heart of great
support will always be human.
If today's conversationresonated with you, I'd love to
hear your thoughts.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Leave a review here for thepodcast.
You can also text me if youtake a look at the show notes.
(24:37):
Let's just keep thisconversation going and if you're
looking for more leadershipinsights or ways to align your
team's goals with your company'svalues, don't forget to check
out the other episodes ofEpochal Growth.
We only have a couple episodesleft to close out this
incredible first season.
Thank you for this opportunityfor this swap, Mat Patterson and
Help Scout, and thank you,listeners, for being on this
(24:59):
journey with me.
I'm Sarah Caminiti.
This is Epochal Growth.
Have a great day.
Welcome back to Epochal Growth.
I'm Sarah Caminiti and I am sohappy that you're here.
This is a very special episodeof Epochal Growth.
Today, we're doing something alittle different.
You're going to hear a veryfamiliar voice, along with mine,
but in a different way.
I'm excited to be swappingepisodes with a supportive
podcast by Help Scout, where wedeep dive into the future of
(00:30):
customer service and,specifically, the role that
self-service and AI are playingin shaping how we support our
customers.
This is a topic that most ofthe listeners, most of the
guests of this podcast, thinkabout all the time, building and
leading support teams who areconstantly thinking about ways
that you can use technology topositively impact the customer
(00:52):
experience.
Self-service is a great way toprovide the customer with the
tools that they need to besuccessful and, on the flip side
, it becomes a great way foryour team to have the tools that
they need to be successful.
I'm thrilled to share thisconversation because Mat
Patterson, the host of TheSupportive, really explores what
(01:13):
this transition means forsupport teams, leaders and
businesses.
Oh yeah, remember when I saidthat you would recognize the
voice in this special episode.
That's Mat.
If this is your first timelistening to Epochal Growth.
Welcome.
I am so excited that you'rehere.
I'm so excited that your loveof The Supportive brought you to
Epochal Growth.
But if you've been with me fora while, then Mat Patterson will
(01:36):
sound very familiar, because hewas a very recent guest on this
podcast and we had a blasttalking about all things AI and
community and leadership andyour journey.
I definitely recommend it ifyou haven't heard it yet.
But back to this episode.
We're going to be uncoveringinsights on how AI is shifting
the landscape.
But here's the thing Whileself-service is growing, the
(01:59):
need for human connection andstrategic leadership is stronger
than ever.
We all know this.
So I'm going to be popping intothe episode every now and then
to share some thoughts on how wecan navigate this change from a
leadership perspective and howyou can leverage it in your own
career and organization.
So whether you're a supportleader, someone exploring the
future of work or just curiousabout how AI may affect your
(02:22):
role, you'll get a ton of valuefrom this episode.
Let's dive into this specialEpochal growth and The
Supportive crossover.
Mat Patterson (02:32):
Here we go.
Psst, I've got a question foryou.
When do you think the firstvending machine was invented?
Got a decade in mind?
Good, I will tell you theanswer, but not yet.
(02:53):
What a tease.
Self-service technology,ancient and modern.
A German monk and Shawnaexplains gross margin.
(03:13):
I'm Mat Patterson.
This is The Supportive.
If you knew for sure that,starting tomorrow, most of your
customers would use self-serviceinstead of contacting your
support team, how would you feel?
Relieved, confused, excited.
A sudden, overwhelming urge torush about fixing up your help
docs, like you've just organisedfor a cleaner to come, and now
you desperately need to impressthem with how clean everything
already is.
I'm asking because that'swhat's about to happen.
(03:36):
I mean not the cleaner, theself-service first thing.
Probably not tomorrow, maybenot next year, but soon.
And if that's true, if most ofour customers will use
self-service first, well thenwe've all got some work to do
and we'll get into what thatwork is.
But first let's talk aboutwhether or not it's going to
happen at all.
Why would I say that most ofour customers will use
(03:57):
self-service most of the time?
Well, firstly, because it'salready happening for larger
companies.
Take Google, for example, attheir scale with their 1.8
billion people just using Gmail.
Human-first support just isn'tpractical.
There's not a warehouse onEarth big enough to hold a call
centre at that scale.
And Elon's Martian sweatshops?
(04:17):
They won't be open for decadesyet.
For really big companies,self-service first it's the only
practical option.
But Help Scout's not at thatscale.
You're probably not either Atour size.
It's always been profitable tohave skilled human support
answering emails and chats andcalls, because there's enough
margin there at a small enoughcustomer base to make those
numbers work.
But what if those numberschange?
(04:39):
What if AI comes along that cantake on, say, 30% of the
support work, but for 10% of thecost?
Well, now your financedepartment's going to want to
take a real hard look at yoursupport headcount, aren't they?
Sarah Caminiti (04:53):
Hi, it's me.
Yes, I warned you, I'm going tobe jumping in a bit here.
Mat brings up a great pointabout AI taking over 30% of
support work for a fraction ofthe cost, and while it sounds
like a win for efficiency and,believe me, I love efficiency
it's important to recognize thatthis shift can create anxiety
within teams.
We see it all the time.
(05:17):
We see it on LinkedIn, we seeit within our communities, we
see it within our teams.
We cannot forget this.
As leaders, our role isn't justto implement new technology.
It's to guide our peoplethrough these changes.
We need to be strategic abouthow we communicate the benefits
of AI while also addressing thepotential concerns of our teams.
Remember, adopting AI isn'treplacing human roles.
It's about evolving them.
(05:38):
A leader's responsibility is toset clear expectations about
how these tools will enhance theteam's capabilities, not
diminish their value.
As you bring AI into yourworkflow, consider how you can
reframe this change as anopportunity for your team
members to focus on moremeaningful, complex work that AI
simply cannot handle.
Mat Patterson (06:01):
Hang on.
I think I've accidentallysummoned Help Scout CFO Shawna
Fisher.
Hi, sorry, Shawna.
I was just talking aboutsummoned Help Scout CFO Shawna
Fisher.
Hi, sorry, Shawna, I was justtalking about the budget
implications of AI in support.
Shawna Fisher (06:10):
These are sexy topics.
Mat Patterson (06:12):
Yeah, anyway, do you want to come back a little
bit later and teach me a newmetric?
Shawna Fisher (06:16):
Okay.
Mat Patterson (06:17):
Great.
We were talking about thereasons to think that
self-service first is the futureof support.
Big companies like Googlealready do it.
Ai is going to make it muchcheaper for smaller companies to
deliver AI-mediatedself-service help if the tech is
good enough.
Is it good enough?
Well, maybe not yet, butprobably soon.
(06:38):
There's a long history oftechnological innovations that
were not quite as good as thething that we already had.
I don't mean before.
We had an iPhone sort of long Imean 4th century BC long.
Here's a man from that timetalking about a new technology
of his moment.
If men learn this, it willimplant forgetfulness in their
(07:01):
souls.
They will cease to exercisememory because they rely on that
which is written, callingthings to remembrance no longer
from within themselves, but bymeans of external marks.
Did you get it?
This was a quote from Socratestalking about writing an
(07:21):
invention that, as you may know,did in fact catch on, so much
so that, by the 1400s AD, it hadhuge numbers of fans, like this
German monk, Trithenius, whosaid the sermon, once it is
heard, vanishes into thin air.
Its text, if written down andread even a thousand times, does
(07:43):
not lose its impact.
Massive fan of writingTrithemius, but he was less
excited about the newfangledtech of his day Printed books
will never be the equivalent ofhandwritten codices, especially
since printed books are oftendeficient in spelling and
appearance.
And it's worth noting, notingboth of those fellows.
They were right, memorizingthings, writing them down by
(08:05):
hand, it does help you learnbetter, but the technology was
so useful and so cost-effectivethat it succeeded despite those
limitations.
And we're not immune to thesame thing happening to us.
We all stream our music.
Even though MP3s, when theywere first introduced, sounded
legitimately much worse than theCDs that we already had,
(08:26):
convenience wins and the qualitytends to catch up.
Sarah Caminiti (08:30):
This is what I love about Mat.
This is such a perfect analogy,because this kind of resistance
to technological change istimeless.
As leaders, we need tounderstand that this resistance
is often less about thetechnology itself and more about
the fear of the unknown.
It's about people questioningtheir relevance in the new
landscape, and that's fair.
(08:50):
That's something that we needto acknowledge and we need to
validate.
When I work with other leaders,when I get to connect with
other leaders, I'm always tryingto encourage a proactive
approach to change.
Don't just roll out new systems.
Take the time to show yourteams how they can thrive in
this new environment.
The key is helping your peoplesee how the technology can
(09:11):
complement their skills, notrender them obsolete.
History shows us that oncepeople understand the benefits,
they adopt change.
It's our job as leaders to helpthem make that connection and
that's what we should expect tohappen with AI.
Mat Patterson (09:26):
It's already good enough for some types of
customer service For simplequestions prioritizing, tagging,
translating being a betterknowledge-based search, creating
a draft answer but it's not yetable to provide high-quality,
reliable service directly tocustomers.
In many cases, ai hallucinateslike a princess who kissed the
wrong toad.
If you've got high customersupport, an AI is probably not
(09:50):
good enough right now to let ittalk directly to your customers,
but it probably will be, or atleast it will get good enough
for enough situations that itbecomes normal and expected that
you'll interact with AI firstwhen you're getting customer
service.
And that has real implicationsfor how we work as support
professionals, what our job is,who we help, how we use our time
(10:14):
and energy, and more on that ina second, but first let me give
you one last piece of evidencefor this self-service first
support future.
And if ancient history isn'tyour bag, then maybe these
modern examples will help Wordprocessors, atms, self-service,
grocery store checkouts threequite different technologies,
but they all followed a verysimilar pattern, and that
(10:36):
pattern is taking a job that'sdone by a person and not
replacing it completely, butautomating some of the work and
then having the customer do therest, hence self-service.
So type documents used to beproduced by professional typists
until word processing machinescame along.
Now the business professionalscan type their own letters, but
the machine helps with thecorrections and the Mat part.
(10:59):
Bank tellers used to berequired for every banking
transaction until ATMs camealong.
Now the bank's customers can dothe pressing of the buttons to
get the cash out.
The machine does the countingand the dispensing and the
recording of the transactions.
And of course we're right inthe middle of automating grocery
checkouts.
In theory at least, thecustomer does scanning and
(11:19):
bagging and the machine keepstrack, takes the money at the
end.
One job split up between acustomer and a new machine.
Sarah Caminiti (11:28):
One point that I want to highlight here is that,
while AI and self-service canhandle many routine tasks, we
all know that they will neverreplace the human touch and
customer support.
We've seen what happens whencompanies think that they can
replace the human touch andcustomer support, and that is
just a sad, sad, sad place to be.
The emotional intelligence, theempathy and the nuanced
(11:49):
understanding that humans bringare irreplaceable.
The skills that the CXcommunity have, those skills
they're irreplaceable.
As businesses adopt moreAI-driven support, leaders need
to ensure that empathy does notget lost in the process.
Your team should be focusing onmore complex, sensitive cases
(12:10):
where human connection isessential.
Your team should also be usingthis time to focus more on the
data and how they can use thatdata in different ways.
This is where the true value ofhuman support lies.
We're able to understand thecustomer's needs beyond just
those transactionalcommunications, whether that's
through data, whether that'sthrough actual customer
(12:30):
communication.
But this is also whereleadership comes in.
As leaders, we need to beequipping our teams to handle
these higher stakes situationseffectively, and we need to be
equipping our teams with thetools and the confidence to
start asking questionscross-functionally and to see
how this team can have an impactthroughout the business.
Mat Patterson (12:52):
Of all of these examples, though, I think it's
the grocery store checkout thatapplies most to our work in
online customer support, in thatthere are plenty of cases where
the machine works great.
It will be faster than waitingfor a person to help.
It scales up well.
It's cheaper for businesses tofund and operate, but not in
every case.
As soon as you need to dosomething more complicated or at
(13:12):
higher volume or somethingoutside of the machine's
capabilities, you'll still needa person at the checkout and in
the support inbox.
For online support, we've alwayshad self-service documentation
and tools, but the AI tech justwasn't good enough to be useful.
But it feels like that ischanging.
There'll be a ton of querieswhere everything is close enough
(13:34):
to standard and predictablethat some form of AI-generated
response will be just fine.
The customer won't need to waitfor human help.
But there'll always be massesof edge cases and more complex
issues and sensitive issues, andwhatever the support equivalent
is of using your own bag,that's just slightly heavier
than the stupid checkout machinecan understand and invalid item
(13:55):
in the bagging area.
My, anyway, self-service drivenby customers, delivered by AI,
designed, monitored, crafted bypeople that's the way most
customers will be helped, mostof the time, not all the time,
not in every case, just most ofthe time.
Okay.
But so what?
Well, there are some realimplications for support teams
(14:17):
that we should prepare for.
But before we get into those,Shawna is back to talk metrics.
Pair for but before we get intothose, Shawna is back to talk
metrics.
Now, Shawna, today's metric isgross margin, which I imagine
refers to the little picturesand phrases that teenage boys
like to scribble on the pages oftheir school textbooks.
Shawna Fisher (14:34):
That's close, but I have a little bit different
of a definition.
So, in short, gross margintells you as a percentage how
much money your business keepsfrom each dollar of sales you
make.
It's a way to measure theprofitability of companies' core
business.
Gross margin is calculated byfirst taking your sales revenue
(14:54):
less your direct cost, whichthey call cost of goods sold
that are associated withproducing that revenue that
gives you your gross profit,that are associated with
producing that revenue thatgives you your gross profit.
Mat Patterson (15:06):
Then you divide that gross profit by your total
revenue, multiply it by 100, andthat's your gross margin, and
what does knowing the grossmargin help you understand about
the business?
Shawna Fisher (15:17):
Gross margins are very important because they
help you understand howefficiently you're producing
revenue.
The higher your gross margin,the more dollars are available
to run the business.
Mat Patterson (15:27):
And is there a good gross margin percentage
that would always apply, or isthere something that's specific
to a particular business or toan industry?
Shawna Fisher (15:35):
So it is different for every company, but
there definitely are industrybenchmarks.
A technology company, forinstance, is anywhere between 70
and 90 percent.
Mat Patterson (15:46):
And you said customer support is considered a
direct cost.
Shawna Fisher (15:49):
That's correct.
Mat Patterson (15:50):
So any reduction in spending on support or any
revenue that the supportorganization could bring in that
would improve the gross margin.
Shawna Fisher (15:58):
Exactly so.
By optimizing resources andminimizing waste and customer
service operations, you canincrease and enhance your
profitability and maintain muchhigher margins.
And if you do charge forcertain support services, that
revenue could improve yourmargin too.
Mat Patterson (16:17):
How should I be thinking about gross margin if I
was a support leader in mybusiness?
Shawna Fisher (16:24):
gross margin if I was a support leader in my
business.
A wonderful way to be a goodpartner as a support leader is
to come to the table knowing afew things One, what are the
gross margin targets?
Two, what are the revenuetargets the business is trying
to achieve?
And three, how much does yoursupport team cost and what
percentage of the direct cost dothey currently represent?
And lastly, how can you helpcontrol those costs to ensure
(16:46):
the business is on track toachieve its gross margin target?
Keep a close eye on whether thebusiness is on track to hit the
revenue target, remembering thebalance between revenue and
cost and the formula that isneeded to achieve the gross
margin percentage.
Sarah Caminiti (17:01):
All right, all right, I got to jump in here.
This is the last time, Ipromise, but I got to jump in
because Mat touched on somethingcritical for support leaders.
It's something that we usuallydo not feel confident to talk
about, and that is the numbershow support impacts gross margin
.
In today's business landscape.
We can no longer continue thisgarbage narrative that customer
(17:23):
support is a cost center.
We know that it has never beena cost center, but people still
like to say it is a cost center.
But hey enough, I'll get off mysoapbox for that one.
When aligned with the company'score values and strategic goals,
it can actually contribute toprofitability.
But really, when the companyputs a focus on aligning the
(17:43):
customer experience with thecompany's core values and the
company's strategic goals,incredible things can happen,
and usually those are veryprofitable things.
I've been doing a lot of worktrying to understand alignment
between core values and purposeand roles, and alignment is so,
(18:04):
so important.
If your customer support team'swork reflects the company's
mission and values, you'll notonly improve margins, but you're
also going to enhance customerloyalty and satisfaction.
Leaders who can bring thislevel of strategic thinking to
the table, knowing how supportaffects both revenue and costs.
Those are the leaders that aregoing to create sustainable,
(18:27):
high-performing teams.
Those are the leaders that aregoing to change the way
companies think and use thecustomer experience team and the
skills that they have.
Mat Patterson (18:39):
Thanks, joanna.
I did some half-arsed Googlingjust now.
Looks like the typical snackvending machines have gross
margins around 15-25%.
That's not bad.
It's no wonder they've beenaround for so long.
But how long?
Well, the first Coca-Colavending machine that was back in
1929, almost a century ago.
But a century before that andan ocean away, you could buy
(19:01):
some politically risky booksfrom an English vending machine
in 1822.
And sticking in England, we cango back to 1615 when you could
get tobacco from a machine in adingy tavern.
But the very first recordedvending machine, well, it's a
lot older than that, all the wayback to 60 AD in ancient Egypt.
(19:22):
It was invented by a professorwith the excellent name Hero of
Alexandria and it dispensedwater from a spout for the low,
low price of a five drachma coindropped in a slot at the top.
Now, this was room temperaturewater.
It wasn't a chilled Evian andthat might have reduced sales,
except that this was also holywater used for cleaning rituals,
(19:43):
and that's not an area in whichyou want to skimp.
People still die every yearfrom vending machine accidents.
It's usually not because theywere smoked by an Egyptian god,
because they forgot to cleansethemselves before entering the
temple.
All right, your support team.
It does a lot more than eventhe wildest Japanese vending
(20:04):
machine could offer, but even so, a self-service first future.
It probably does mean somechanges.
Firstly, your documentationreally Mat.
It's meant for your customers,yes, and for your support team,
but now it's also the source oftruth for your AI tools.
If you've got insufficient,incorrect, out-of-date docs, ai
will still use that to talk toyour customers.
(20:26):
So maintaining, improving,extending, enhancing
documentation Job number one forfuture support teams Great
documentation is useless if yourcustomers never see it.
So another area of focus will beAI-powered contextual help.
Think Microsoft Clippy, butgood, it was always a smart idea
, the tech just wasn't there.
(20:47):
But generative, conversationalAI providing useful contextual
help that could be a supportgame changer.
But even with the best of docsand the best self-service tools,
we know some customers willstill need or want to talk to a
person.
So an important focus forsupport pros it will be figuring
out when to transitioncustomers from self-service to
(21:07):
human support and how to do thatas gracefully and as painlessly
as possible.
We may need fewer of thosehumans per customer than we do
today, but the jobs they do willbe more complex and broader
than ever before.
Like bank tellers before us,we'll be handling fewer
customers but a wider range ofthe escalated, the more
(21:27):
sensitive, the more expensiveinteractions, and we'll be
responsible for monitoring andcrafting all of those AI-first
self-service interactions,measuring the quality of the
human support and theAI-mediated self-service.
That will be another core jobfor the future support team.
(21:48):
I don't know about your team.
I haven't personally had todeal with my human staff
hallucinating at work, so we'regoing to need a new type of
support QA to deal with this newworld.
We'll also need to redesign oursupport onboarding and our
training techniques, because theold way throwing the newbies
into the queue, letting themhandle the basic questions to
build up their skills that mightnot be feasible if AI is now
taking those questionsautomatically or giving the
(22:09):
answer to the support agent.
We'll have to find new ways tobuild up that skill and
expertise and to bring it alltogether.
The customer support experiencewill be wider than before.
There'll be more touch pointsfor support content, more ways
to engage with support teams andthe support materials they're
creating.
The support pro of the futureneeds to think about that
(22:30):
overall customer experience, notjust the one-to-one
conversations.
If the future of online supportis self-service.
That means we need to elevateself-service from a
when-you-have-spare-timeafterthought or a deflection
tool to stop people getting realsupport and make it a critical
element of our products andservices.
(22:51):
And look, we don't know how AIis going to turn out.
Maybe it never gets muchfurther than where it is right
now, but even if that's the case, investing time and energy into
an incredible self-serviceexperience that will always be
worthwhile, it will pay off, andif AI can end up taking on more
of the work, then we will bewell-placed to take full
advantage of it.
Sarah Caminiti (23:12):
All right listeners.
I hope that you enjoyed thiscrossover episode with The
Supportive and, in a couple ofdays, be on the lookout, follow
The Supportive podcast, becauseMat Patterson is going to be
dissecting an episode of EpochalGrowth and it's pretty awesome.
I hope you've enjoyed divinginto the future of customer
support alongside Mat Pattersonand exploring how AI and
(23:35):
self-service are reshaping thelandscape.
I know this is a little bitdifferent than what we usually
talk about, but I think it's areally important topic and I was
so, so, so excited to have theopportunity to do this with The
Supportive.
It's clear that, whiletechnology is transforming the
way that we work, the role ofleadership and guiding teams
through these shifts is moreimportant than ever.
(23:56):
As we discussed today,embracing AI isn't about
replacing the human element.
This has been a common themethrough many, many, many
episodes of Epochal Growth.
It's about amplifying what wedo best.
It's about using these toolsstrategically to empower our
teams, align with our values andprovide deeper, more meaningful
(24:16):
customer experiences.
The future of support may be AIdriven, but the heart of great
support will always be human.
If today's conversationresonated with you, I'd love to
hear your thoughts.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Leave a review here for thepodcast.
You can also text me if youtake a look at the show notes.
(24:37):
Let's just keep thisconversation going and if you're
looking for more leadershipinsights or ways to align your
team's goals with your company'svalues, don't forget to check
out the other episodes ofEpochal Growth.
We only have a couple episodesleft to close out this
incredible first season.
Thank you for this opportunityfor this swap, Mat Patterson and
Help Scout, and thank you,listeners, for being on this
(24:59):
journey with me.
I'm Sarah Caminiti.
This is Epochal Growth.
Have a great day.
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