Customer Support Leaders

Charlotte Ward
  • 5.0 (2)
  • MANAGEMENT
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Customer Support Leaders have been there, on the front line with customers. They understand how things work, and the value of support. They understand the needs and foibles of their customer base. Unlike most other disciplines, there’s no training for this role. No two CS Leadership roles are alike. No two CS Leaders are alike. So this is our opportunity to hear from those leaders and learn from them. Whether you’re a CS leader now, or you aspire to be, this is the podcast for you! Hear different leaders discuss a topic with me, Charlotte Ward.

  1. 2D AGO

    288: Support in a High-Trust Environment; with Simone Secci

    Send us a text Trust isn’t a slogan when failure has real consequences. Simone Secci joins Charlotte Ward to pull back the curtain on support operations in two intense arenas—concierge‑level luxury tourism and clinical psychology platforms—and find a shared blueprint: protect privacy, reduce friction, and design for reliability before anything else. From coordinating restaurant bookings across phone, SMS, WhatsApp, and email to safeguarding patient pathways where there’s no “fix it later,” the conversation drills into how we plan, measure, and communicate when the stakes are high. We break down layered SLAs that go far beyond first response time, including vendor response targets and customer wait time, and show how each micro‑commitment ladders up to trust. You’ll hear how we centralize multi‑channel communications for quality review, why “fast” isn’t always smart in healthcare, and how scientific rigor steers product choices—down to naming a feature without triggering clinical confusion. When providers are serving vulnerable people and billionaires are operating on tight schedules, the common reality is that no one has time to give perfect reproduction steps. That puts the burden on support to replicate issues, bridge technical and domain language, and escalate with clean evidence. What emerges is a practical playbook for high‑trust support: kill silos, share a language with your users, validate terminology, and align support, product, QA, and engineering around proactive reliability. We talk about onboarding that actually reduces effort, concise walkthroughs that save attention, and the humility to slow down early so sessions, trips, and outcomes don’t fail later. If you lead customer support, success, or product in any high‑stakes space, this deep dive will sharpen how you measure, message, and deliver. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what’s one place your team could slow down now to move faster later?

    34 min

  2. JAN 28

    287: Extreme Delegation: How To Lead When Everything Changes At 4 PM On An Idle Tuesday; with Matt Dale

    Send us a text A quiet Tuesday turns into a leadership stress test. We share the playbook for extreme delegation—those moments when a key lieutenant leaves, the CEO secondments you into a new role, or a surprise launch forces you to hand off mission-critical work fast without dropping standards. Matt Dale joins Charlotte Ward to unpack how to keep people safe, outcomes clear, and momentum steady when the plan changes mid-flight. We start with the groundwork that makes speed possible: knowing your people, tools, and data; modeling calm, context-rich communication; and showing your work so others can replicate decisions. From there, we move into the safety contract that empowers new owners—explicit boundaries, time-boxed expectations, clear escalation paths, and a promise of advocacy when scope creeps or politics intrude. It’s still your accountability, and staying close with tight check-ins preserves agency while preventing drift. Then we tackle ruthless prioritization. You can’t hand over your entire mental map and hope for the same outcome. Strip to essentials: customer promises that won’t bend, survival metrics, and the smallest system that delivers them. Pause nice-to-haves, and make smart, short-term investments—like an AI co-pilot or tighter knowledge flows—that shrink ramp time and amplify output. Real stories bring it to life: navigating a six-month secondment during acquisitions, replacing a leader mid-crunch, and accelerating an AI rollout to support hiring and scale. This conversation is for support and CX leaders who have earned the reputation for getting it done and want a cleaner, calmer way to do it when chaos hits. You’ll leave with scripts, structures, and mindset shifts that turn a blindsiding week into a clear plan with confident owners. If this helped, follow the show, share it with a teammate who’s under pressure, and leave a review with your best extreme delegation tip.

    47 min

  3. JAN 21

    286: Measure What Matters When Humans And AI Share The Queue; with Craig Stoss

    Send us a text AI has crossed a threshold in customer support: it no longer just routes and records—it actually does the work. We sat down with Craig Stoss, solutions lead at Codif, to unpack what changes when agents and co-pilots resolve real cases, trigger refunds, detect spam, and personalize replies across channels. The core shift is mindset: once software handles tasks, you need to manage it like a teammate—measure output, audit quality, plan capacity, and set honest expectations about what AI should own versus when a human steps in. We map the strengths and limits on both sides. AI excels at repeatable workflows, multilingual responses, classification, and fast data gathering across commerce and CRM tools. Humans shine in ambiguity, ethical judgment, and emotional connection. That split demands better metrics: evaluate AI on loop frequency, hallucination rate, accuracy, and handoff health; evaluate humans on sentiment impact, recovery, and resolution quality. We also tackle the messy middle: what counts as “containment,” how AI prework changes case counts and AHT, and why your SLAs must adapt as simple issues disappear and human queues get harder. Transparency matters for trust and compliance. Customers behave differently when they know they’re speaking with a bot, so make disclosure sensible and escalation simple. Inside your org, put AI into workforce management like a 24/7 agent with forecasted volume, coverage targets, and per-workflow goals—think 90 percent for FAQs, 80 percent for refund screening, and a lower bar for complex warranties. Budgeting evolves too: tokens and compute join salaries, compounding micro-saves into real capacity. The upside is big: more interesting human roles, fewer transfers, and a path to merge support and success so one empowered person, augmented by AI, owns the outcome end to end. If you care about scaling support without losing humanity—smarter metrics, cleaner handoffs, and a realistic plan for AI and people to thrive together—this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a support leader who needs it, and leave a review with the one metric you’d change first.

    34 min

  4. JAN 14

    285: From Playbooks To Personalization: How CX Leaders Shape Customer Expectations And Outcomes; with Ty Givens

    Send us a text Superior customer experience isn’t a universal recipe—it’s a promise aligned to what your customers expect from you, in their moment, on their terms. We sit down with CX veteran Ty Givens to unpack why “good” is always relative and how teams can design for consistency without losing the human judgment that creates loyalty. Ty shares the evolution from rigid scripts to flexible playbooks that teach thinking. We explore the 80/20 guardrails that keep quality high while giving agents room to zigzag across a process, adapt tone, and move at the customer’s pace. From fast, accurate answers in high-urgency scenarios to the warm, predictable greetings that define beloved brands, we examine how context shapes what “excellent” really looks like. We also get practical about influence. Dashboards rarely win hearts in the boardroom; stories do. You’ll learn how to frame a single experience you want to change, pick the one metric that proves movement, and tie it to outcomes executives already value like CSAT, NPS, retention, and revenue. We cover how to connect first response time to satisfaction, how to separate policy pain from agent performance in CSAT reviews, and how to elevate support insights to product and engineering so fixes actually ship. For leaders and frontline teams alike, this conversation is a roadmap: define expectations, empower judgment, and communicate impact with clarity. If you’ve been struggling to turn support data into action or to earn trust for your team’s recommendations, this is your playbook for telling better stories and creating better experiences. If this episode resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague who leads support, and leave a quick review with the one metric that tells your best story.

    32 min

  5. JAN 7

    284: Customer Support Leaders in 2026: Fresh Starts and More To Come; with Charlotte Ward and Alec Moloney

    Send us a text Ready for a clean slate and a smarter way to build support in 2026? We kick off a fresh season with a rebuilt website, renewed energy, and a clear map of the big shifts reshaping our work: AI moving from side experiment to operational backbone, the leadership ladder compressing, and the customer journey turning truly dynamic. With Alec back on the mic, we share what sparked our collaboration, why the site overhaul mattered, and how we’re structuring episodes to turn complex trends into practical playbooks. We dig into the AI arc we’ve watched up close: from generic tools to tailored systems grounded in product context and team workflows. That evolution changes how leaders think about risk, signal quality, and measurement. When each team builds its own AI-enabled flow, the data footprint becomes unique, and so must the metrics. We talk about moving beyond simple taxonomies and into cross-functional signals that reflect real value: reliability, effort reduction, resilience, and trust. It’s not about more dashboards; it’s about clearer decisions and better outcomes. We also tackle the role overlap between support and customer success. Instead of strict handoffs, many teams are sharing tasks based on customer need, account complexity, and timing. The goal isn’t to blur expertise, but to surface the right context—recent incidents, account health, adoption goals—so the person in the room can help. That leads to our favorite battleground: journey mapping. Static maps that live on slides are fading. Dynamic journeys that adapt to signals are rising, supported by shared definitions, event-level visibility, and orchestration that changes course without creating chaos. Expect returning guests, a few unfinished arcs finally wrapped, and plenty of new voices pushing us forward on AI maturity, metrics that matter, and the craft of leading modern support teams. If you’ve got a burning topic or a story worth sharing, head to customersupportleaders.com, scroll to the podcast page, and book a call. Subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a review to help more leaders find the show.

    38 min

  6. 06/06/2025

    283: From Values To Outcomes: Building A Customer Support Strategy That Works; with Conor Pendergrast

    Send us a text Forget the glossy strategy deck. We’re digging into the real drivers of customer experience: the values people use to decide, the culture that shows up in daily behavior, and the incentives that shape how work actually gets done. With coach and consultant Conor Pendergrast, we unpack why a perfect plan won’t move the needle without the conditions that make good choices easy under pressure. We start by drawing a clean line between objectives, strategy, and tactics—then flip the frame. Support is operational, reactive, and fluid, so the experience your customers feel depends less on long-range roadmaps and more on what your team is empowered to do in the moment. We explore how a tight set of actionable values can guide judgment when process hits the edge cases, why culture is simply the sum of visible behaviors, and how to spot “painted-on” culture that reads great but conflicts with what the metrics reward. Then we get practical. We talk incentives that matter—protected time for knowledge creation, loops from customer pain to product fixes, KPIs that don’t punish improvement work, and recognition that matches how individuals like to be celebrated. We cover Goodhart’s law, double-loop thinking, and the operational rituals that keep teams learning: documenting confusing flows, aligning processes to ownership, and building capacity for continuous improvement. Expect candid examples, clear language, and tools you can use to align values, culture, and incentives so strategy becomes the way your team works, not a slide you forget by July. If you want support that scales quality—fewer handoffs, clearer answers, and issues that don’t boomerang—start here. Subscribe, share with a fellow support leader, and leave a review to tell us which behavior you’ll reward first.

    40 min

  7. 05/02/2025

    282: Turning Difficult Customer Moments Into Lasting Trust; with Marc Haine

    Send us a text Ever faced a customer whose day went off the rails before they reached you? We dive into the emotional mechanics of difficult conversations and show how empathy, clear choices, and a partnership mindset can turn even the messiest moments into momentum. Charlotte sits down with customer and employee experience strategist Marc Haine to unpack a practical toolkit that works across hospitality, retail, government services, and B2B support. We start with a simple truth: your first customer is your employee. When teams feel supported, they can stay calm under pressure and ask better questions that reveal what customers actually need, not just what they say they want. Marc shares a gripping hotel story that reframes conflict through safety, ownership, and forward-focused language. You’ll hear the exact phrases that de-escalate fast—“I realize how frustrating this is for you,” “In your place, I’d feel the same way,” and “Is it okay if we focus on next steps?”—along with respectful boundaries when calls turn abusive. Then we walk through a three-option framework that returns control to the customer, shifting them from victim to decision-maker. We also tackle the quieter, colder B2B fury where reputations and revenue are on the line. The method holds: empathize, name the impact, and become a partner in the solution. Great service isn’t perfection; it’s recovery done right. By preparing employees with language, rehearsal, and permission to set boundaries, teams can guide customers from lizard brain to logic, from blame to progress. If you lead support, CX, or customer success, you’ll leave with a repeatable playbook to calm chaos and build trust that lasts. If this episode helps, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review—what de-escalation line works best for you?

    31 min

  8. 04/04/2025

    281: Accuracy Beats Hype - Building Trustworthy AI With KCS; with David Kay

    Send us a text What if the fastest path to trustworthy AI starts with a better knowledge base?  David Kay is Principal at DB Kay & Associates, a consultancy focused on knowledge management and self-service for support. He was recognized as an Innovator by the Consortium for Service Innovation, and has been KCS v6 Certified as a Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) practitioner, coach, and trainer. He held leadership roles at an innovative knowledge management technology provider from early 1998 to the end of 2002, and has been granted five patents for his work in knowledge management technology. His current work leverages thirty-five years of experience in envisioning, developing, marketing, and rolling out technology to aid knowledge-intensive businesses. David is co-author of Collective Wisdom: Transforming Support with Knowledge, and instructor of Customer Service: Knowledge Management and Customer Service with AI and Machine Learning on LinkedIn Learning. I sit down with David to test a bold claim: you don’t do AI to get a knowledge base—you build a knowledge base to get good AI. Together we unpack what customers and agents actually need from information: it must be findable, usable, and accurate. Generative tools already deliver speed and clarity, but accuracy is where the stakes rise, especially in complex, safety‑critical domains where a confident wrong answer can do real harm. We explain hallucinations in plain language and why persuasive, well‑phrased but incorrect outputs are harder to spot than sloppy forum posts. Then we explore retrieval augmented generation, a practical way to ground answers in trusted sources and expose citations for verification. That’s where a governed knowledge base becomes essential. KCS offers a proven way to capture knowledge in the flow of work, use the customer’s words, and evolve articles through real‑world reuse—exactly the structured, current content an AI pipeline needs to stay reliable. The conversation turns tactical: how to start or reboot your KB, which KCS practices matter most, and why teams see faster AI wins when they invest in knowledge quality first. We also dig into the elusive aha moment in troubleshooting. AI can summarize long case histories, but spotting the hypothesis that changes the outcome still leans on human meaning making. The exciting frontier is assistive AI that recognizes patterns across cases, nudges better questions, and shortens time to insight without sacrificing judgment. If you’re being pitched quick fixes that “solve knowledge with AI,” this episode offers a saner roadmap: build a resilient knowledge base, ground your models with RAG, and keep humans in the loop for accuracy and nuance. Subscribe, share with your support and product teams, and leave a review telling us: are you building your KB to make your AI better?

    27 min
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About

Customer Support Leaders have been there, on the front line with customers. They understand how things work, and the value of support. They understand the needs and foibles of their customer base. Unlike most other disciplines, there’s no training for this role. No two CS Leadership roles are alike. No two CS Leaders are alike. So this is our opportunity to hear from those leaders and learn from them. Whether you’re a CS leader now, or you aspire to be, this is the podcast for you! Hear different leaders discuss a topic with me, Charlotte Ward.

Information

  • Creator
    Charlotte Ward
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    353
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Customer Support Leaders
  • Show Website
    Customer Support Leaders