The price is wrong

News from Around Supportlandia

The Price is Wrong

Everyone who has spent the last two years being told that AI would slash customer service costs into oblivion might want to sit down for this one.

Gartner is now projecting that AI customer service will actually exceed the cost of human agents by 2030 — a finding reported by CX Today's Rhys Fisher that should come as approximately zero surprise to anyone who has actually, you know, implemented AI in a support org. The math that looks great in a boardroom deck has a funny way of getting complicated once you factor in infrastructure, oversight, error correction, and the humans you still need to handle everything the AI can't. Which, it turns out, is a lot.

This is why the "AI will replace your team and save you a fortune" pitch has always felt a little sus. As I’ve said ad nauseam, the cost of bad customer experience — churn, reputation damage, escalations — is even more expensive than the bot is.¹

Which is not to say don’t implement AI in your support org — I actually just spent the last week building what’s basically a super-powered internal Claude agent to help our support team answer tickets. But the key here is that we know our customers and what our real needs are; we’re not just slapping an AI bot into our help center and calling it a day.

Human judgment still matters, and if you’re going to spend the money on AI, make sure you’re spending it in the right place and for the right things.

No more job spam

If you’re a subscriber over at Support Human Jobs (or have thought about subscribing but didn’t want to get inundated with jobs you’re not interested in), I have good news! I’ve figured out a way for you to get only the new jobs you want.

Feel free to reply to this email with:

• What job discipline you're looking for (Support, Success, Experience, etc.),
• What role level you're looking for, and
• What type of role you're looking for.

I’ll make sure you get on the right mailing list. (Just make sure you’re subscribed first.)

Hey, dear subscribers — you’re getting a cool thing that everyone else isn’t.

The reason this week’s Roundup is late is that I’ve been working on something I think is both really cool and really useful: The Support Human Career Suite.

It's totally free and will remain that way for as long as I can manage it. It offers:

• An online, editable version of the Bad Job Bingo Card.
• The BJB Tracker -- a souped-up version of Bad Jog Bingo To-Go.
• The Job Queue -- the Trello board I was using to track my job search on steroids.
• The Brag Board -- a place to save your wins.

It's not perfect yet (let's call it a beta), but I think it's at the point where it makes more sense to put it out there and see what's not working and what can be improved. If you find bugs or want a feature, please feel free to reply to this email (or if you’re in Support Driven or ElevateCX, you can just DM me). I'll do what I can to take care of them!

And Now for Some Good News

• Jumana Darwazeh was promoted to Subject Matter Expert in Customer Service at CsMena.
• Daniel Rose joined Upbound as VP of Customer Experience.
• Jesus Taboada Foen joined HubSpot as a Customer Support Specialist.
• Sam Sorscher joined Canva as Pexels Head of Community.
• Ruslan Salimov joined Mercuryo as Manager, Customer Support.
• Ryan Timm earned a Certified Digital Strategist certification from Braze.
• M.C. Tanksley earned a certification in Community Manager - Core Skills from Community Strategy Academy and completed a course in Meaningful Engagement from Circle Academy.

Well done to everyone — y’all killed it this week.

Read, Watch, and Listen

Read

Kenji Hayward wrote a rebuttal to the fear that AI is coming for customer support jobs. Worth bookmarking for the next time someone in your org starts catastrophizing.

Charlsie Niemiec noticed all those very white, very male CEOs eating their own burgers — and suggested what they should try next. No notes.

Alexandra Tarabour wrote about how easy it is for dating apps to become pattern-recognition exercises when you work in fraud investigation.

Jess Coppinger is out here making noise, and, as a happy beehiiv customer, I for one am very glad she is.

Karen Lam wrote about being the one who stays in a guest post for The Customer Snapshot.

Rachel Provan wrote about the importance of doing the boring stuff.

Sue Duris challenged the current wisdom that journey mapping is the foundation of CX over at CMSWire.

Gerald Crawford asked where does support belong? and makes the case for giving it its own voice.

Tom Sweeney breaks down how support leaders can get credit for the strategic and revenue work their teams are already doing.

Watch

The CX Files interviewed Lilli Gordon about how internal company culture directly impacts customer retention. A subject after my own heart.

Alex Turkovic of The Digital CX shared how to transition a customer from a high-touch CSM relationship to a digital-first, self-serve model without them feeling abandoned. A genuinely hard thing to do well.

Listen

Mat Patterson talked with Derek Hales of NapLab about building customer trust in an industry defined by information asymmetry — part of Help Scout's series on their first customers.

Ben Whitelaw and Mike Masnick recorded a special episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech on the three eras of content moderation and what comes next. Essential listening right now.

Customer Support Leaders talked to Andrew Rios of Cityside Fiber about tailoring your coaching as your support team grows. Practical and specific in the best way.

Lindsay Tramel-Jones of More Than a Brand talked about why customer retention is the most underrated growth strategy for small businesses.

Upcoming Events

Claude Code for CX + Ops Leaders
March 10 at 2pm PT. Webinar hosted by Lorikeet. Register here.

From Contribution to Influence - Using Your Strengths to Shape What Comes Next
March 10 at AutogenAI, London, UK. Hosted by Women of Customer Success. Register here.

Customer Success Summit New York
March 10-11 at Convene, NYC, NY. Hosted by Customer Success Collective. Get tickets here.

Closing the Quality Loop with Training and Simulations
March 11 at 11am PT. Webinar hosted by Intryc, featuring Alexandria Yip. Register here.

Chief Customer Officer Summit New York
March 11 at Convene, NYC, NY. Hosted by Customer Success Collective. Request invite here.

The AI Trust Gap in Support
March 12 at 2pm ET. Online event hosted by Hiver, feat. Karen Lam (Top Hat), Christian Sokolowski (Rebuy Engine), Sarah Caminiti (SupportNinja), Luke Via (Hiver). Register here.

Community Led Growth MicroConf
March 13 in NYC, NY. Hosted by Tightknit. Get tickets here.

A CCO’s view: How Ironclad elevates CX through B2B support
March 17 at 12pm ET. Online event hosted by Customer Success Collective. Register here.

Customer Success Conversation & Connection
March 18 at 5:00pm GMT, Market Halls Paddington, London, UK. Hosted by Angela Scott. Get on waitlist here.

Success Amplified: At The Top
March 25 at 1:30pm EDT in NYC, NY. Executive forum hosted by Women of Customer Success. Keynote by Cassie Young. Get tickets here.

1. H/T Aaron Burcell for surfacing this one.