unassigned

/* putting the human in support human */

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The Real Work Comes After the Motto with Justin Robbins (Table Service 212) new

Jordan Hooker in Table Service Podcast

Published July 1, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

Most companies get stuck in the promise — but Justin Robbins reveals how truly great organizations go beyond words to create meaningful, lasting impact. If you've ever wondered why your team’s culture feels disconnected from your mission, or why even the best tools sometimes fall short in delivering exceptional customer experiences, this episode uncovers the hidden system that powers real change.

The CSAT is Not the Customer new

Sarah Betts in The Raccoon People

Published July 10, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

But I also know some other data. Like the fact your CSAT survey only goes out to the people who contact your support team, which is a small percentage of your actual customers, which is only responded to by roughly 7-14% of those offered, and usually the folks who are either really happy or really mad. I calculated once, based on our contact and response rates, that our CSAT told us the thoughts of our loudest 0.12% of customers. Would you make a big decision based on the kneejerk responses of 0.12% of your customers?

This is a fantastic piece, with an opening graphic that made me actually cackle. (Also another one where I had a tough time picking just one quote. Always a great measure of quality for me, lol.)

How Elite Tech Support Teams Protect Customer Trust | Kustomer new

Lisa Painter in CX Now

Published June 18, 2026 · Listened July 10, 2026

In this episode of CX Now, host Lisa Painter is joined by Neil Smith, VP of Technical Support at Iterable, a customer communications platform. An eight-year veteran of the company, Neil has grown Iterable's global support team from a three-person operation to a 56-person organization delivering 24/7 support across email, web, Slack, and live chat. Under his leadership, the team has built out a tiered support model — and in doing so, created what Neil describes as a business within the business.

Are you making things better or worse by introducing AI? new

Chrissy Sebald in LinkedIn

Published June 30, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

So many breakdowns. The chatbot could have said the online portal was the best option. The phone bot could have known I'd already chatted in. The phone bot could have relayed information to the support system. The support specialist could have automatically had access to the same level of detail the phone bot did. The support specialist could have had the authority to make a decision outside of company policy.

Woof, I was feeling my blood pressure rise with every sentence. As Brian Levine and Miles Goldstein noted in the comments on the post, much of what Christy described isn't new tech; there are just companies out there that don't care enough to bring old and new tech together to do the best for their customers.

Decomposition, Not Deflection new

Ines van Dijk in The Customer Support Research Lab

Published July 2, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

Sorting does the exact opposite. Route whole conversations and the bot skims off every easy one, so what reaches your human agents are the hard cases and only the hard cases, back to back, with none of the simple tickets that used to space them out and let someone breathe. You have taken the most draining work in the queue and served it in an unbroken line. [...] The counterintuitive part is worth sitting with: the most successful automation, the kind that calls on the human most rarely, places the greatest demand on human skill.

Oooooh this is so good. SO GOOD. I had a really hard time picking just one quote, and the final line is a mic drop. I can't wait to read Ines' paper when it comes out.

How Fin's AI Knowledge Manager Uses Operator Memory | Ep. 15 with Dawn Perrott new

Conor Pendergrast in Support Stack

Published July 8, 2026 · Watched July 10, 2026

What does an AI Knowledge Manager at ‪@Fin-Customer-Agent‬ actually do with Operator all day? In this episode of Support Stack, Dawn Perrott pulls back the curtain on the feature that changed her role: Operator's memory.

The Difference Between AI You Play With and AI You Bet On new

James Baldwin in AI Without Permission

Published June 15, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

In the AI world that testing has a name. It's called an evaluation, or an eval, and it's the most overlooked skill in this entire space. Stripped of all the technical language, an eval is really just three honest questions: 1) What is this thing actually supposed to do? 2) How would I know if it's truly doing it? 3) How do I check, over and over, that it's doing the right thing, on all of it, not just the easy cases? Keep those three questions in your head. Everything below is just different ways of answering them well.

James provides incredibly useful advice for how to get your AI tool to do what you need it to do reliably. And when I say useful, I mean real, nitty-gritty, in-depth steps for conducting effective testing. Great stuff. (Speaking of reliability, James is consistently a great resource for this kind of thing, so he's worth a follow if you're looking for real talk on AI.)

Against The New DSM for AI Psychosis new

Heather Rasley in her blog

Published June 15, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

Tim has published this project as the work of The Committee For a New Psychotherapy. This group has no About page on the site and is not documented anywhere else online. How big is this committee? Who is on this committee? What are their credentials? We don’t know.

So, hey. Expertise and process and research matter. We can't just be making up shit because we want to, because when we do, we often do more harm than good. I tend to use Craig Ferguson's 3 questions as a quick guide for when I'm considering talking or writing about something: 1) Does this need to be said? 2) Does this need to be said by me? and 3) Does this need to be said by me, now? It's not perfect, but it does usually keep me from doing things like writing new DSM guides based on nothing but beliefs and vibes.

What You Promised Without Knowing It new

Jillian Bejtlich in The Community Nerd

Published June 15, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

None of this means Year 1 decisions are irreversible. Communities do change, and some of them change well. But the ones that manage it tend to share a quality: they treat the redesign as a renegotiation, not a correction. They name the original ethos explicitly, honor what it built, and bring members into the conversation about what needs to shift and why. That’s slower and messier than a clean product update. But it also actually works.

Great piece on the importance of intentionally crafting your community ethos early, *with* your community (and how, if you don't, it happens anyway by accident). I've found this to be true about a lot of things we do in and around CX.

Customer Contact Whoa! new

Rob Dwyer in Ctrl+CX

Read July 10, 2026

But like anything else, cost has to be considered along with value.  Industry events like CCW are where your potential buyers, partners, peers, and customers go.  And it’s not just enterprises who join CCW - I talked with attendees who ran all different sizes of CX operations.  They’re there to learn, network, evaluate, and yes, party a bit.  Considering how much business is now conducted remotely, events like this provide an opportunity for anyone involved in CX to be present with members of their community - those that “speak” CX.

JFK Jr. died?! new

Kate Nelson in LinkedIn

Published June 25, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

We spend a lot of time talking about customer experience in terms of AI, automation, analytics, and technology. But sometimes the most memorable customer experience is simply someone who makes you smile when you need it most.

I love this sweet story from Kate on the power of simple human connection to turn a customer experience on its head because it's so true. I've absolutely had my mood lifted (or felt better about my experience with a product) just from talking to someone kind who cared about how I felt. Isn't that what CX is at its core, after all?

The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week new

Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell, and Courtney Elliott in The New York Times

Published June 22, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

Over the past six years, we’ve studied why some leaders continue to support remote work, while others resist it. We surveyed thousands of executives, middle managers and frontline supervisors on a host of personality traits. When we later asked them about their stances on hybrid and remote work, their answers didn’t correlate with how much they trusted their employees or how much they loved being around people. The only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism — the tendency to be self-centered and entitled. The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status — and the more they favored return-to-office mandates.

Man, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Grant et al were doing those Exec studies.

Mapping your technical writing skill tree with Vladimir Izmalkov new

Kate Mueller in The Not-Boring Tech Writer

Published July 9, 2026 · Listened July 10, 2026

In this episode, I talk with Vladimir Izmalkov, an experienced technical communicator who has built and managed documentation teams and worked across open source and enterprise software in both English and Russian. We talk about his RPG-inspired "skill tree" for technical writers, how mapping your skills into different "classes" can help you make sense of a nonlinear career, and how to build a personal grading system that lets you evaluate yourself against a job's requirements and pitch your adjacent skills with confidence.

They had me at "RPG-inspired skill tree."

How Banks, Law Enforcement & Threat Intel Teams Fight Modern Scams new

Rexxfield Investigates in YouTube

Published June 23, 2026 · Watched July 10, 2026

In this episode of *Rexxfield Investigates*, Ronnie Tokazowski sits down with Dave Pilot, a fraud disruption leader at a major financial institution, to discuss how banks, threat intelligence teams, law enforcement, NCFTA, FS-ISAC, and private-sector partners work together to identify, connect, and disrupt cyber-enabled financial crime. They explore why individual scam reports often look isolated, how information sharing helps reveal larger criminal campaigns, why victims are frequently blamed when the real problem is far more complex, and what needs to change to better protect consumers, families, small businesses, and vulnerable communities.

Ronnie is a friend who works in the fraud/scam prevention and response space. I especially liked this episode of his podcast given the focus on what communities can do to protect elders, families, and kids online.

When you’re getting started in CS, the fastest progress comes from learning the customer’s path through the product new

Dylan Bates in LinkedIn

Published July 10, 2026 · Read July 10, 2026

Pick a few recently onboarded customers and trace what happened from the first sales note through kickoff, setup, first usage, first support ticket, and first measurable outcome. You’ll learn more from that than from clicking through features without context.

Super useful advice for getting up to speed as a new Success hire, but also solid advice for Support folks as well.

How to Integrate the Right Technology at the Right Time new

Afshan Kinder in ICMI

Published June 29, 2026 · Read July 9, 2026

With the root cause named, let’s assume the right solution is technology. The key is to match it to the pain point in proportion, because there is no sense firing a cannon to swat a mosquito.

Love how Afshan frames her approach to adopting AI, and she offers solid advice on determining which technology best fits your needs.

AI Customer Support Jobs: A Support Leader's Honest Insider View new

The Supportive Podcast in Help Scout

Published July 9, 2026 · Listened July 9, 2026

Pavel Malyshev spent 13 years building customer support and success teams at B2B SaaS companies, most recently as Director of Support at Productboard. Over the past year, he led his team's exploration and integration of AI — and then got laid off. In this episode, Pavel and Mat talk through what's actually happening with AI in support versus what the headlines say, why leaders making the big calls can sometimes miss what support really does, and what support professionals can do right now to be well-positioned... whatever comes next.

Pavel gives voice to something a lot of us have been through, and also gives great advice for dealing with a post-AI world. (Oh dog, may it be a post-AI world soon.)

Your words have power new

Claudia R. in LinkedIn

Published July 8, 2026 · Read July 9, 2026

As life would have it there was an escalation above the director level and the customer was threatening to drive to our location to speak with a VP or higher. My comment to the VP, “We are all eager to learn from your specialized skill set in call handling.” Outcome - VP refused to take the call.

I laughed out loud at this story, drily delivered. Perfection.

Why privacy professionals should care about post-quantum cryptography new

Lara Ballard in IAPP

Published July 7, 2026 · Read July 9, 2026

So why does this matter today? Because right now, malicious actors are engaging in a strategy of "Harvest now, decrypt later." Because storage is cheap, they are hoovering up encrypted data by the petabyte and waiting for the day — "Q-Day" — that a quantum computer will enable them to decrypt it.

A fascinating and extremely approachable explanation of quantum computing and its implications for privacy professionals. Great read.

How I built a powerful network – the 15 year plan 📅 new

Sarah Betts in LinkedIn

Published July 9, 2026 · Read July 9, 2026

Not once have I sat down to make a content calendar. I've never set a goal of "X coffee chats per week with people in Industry Y and Title of Z." Because that wouldn't be authentically me. I'm 100% Betts. I say what is true based on my experience. [...] That commitment to authenticity has slowly earned me a name in tech. Such a name that it's not unusual to talk to people about job openings where the role is described as "We need a Betts." That is not something I could ever purchase or optimize for.

Really fantastic advice here from Sarah, and I echo it. I always say the fastest way to network (which is really just getting to know people) is to just...be a person. Shoot the breeze. Talk about your favorite book/tv show/video game. Don't try to anticipate what fleeting professional thing people will be interested in at any given moment; if there's a natural opening to show your chops, take it. But otherwise just let moments breathe.

The development conversation managers keep skipping for themselves - Rush to Resolution new

Brett Rush in Unresolved.cx

Published June 16, 2026 · Listened July 7, 2026

Yvette knew what it took to identify potential in someone who’d already decided they didn’t have it. A manager at Mailchimp made the case to her that way: here are the ten things you’ve already done that are part of this engineering role. You can’t argue against a list. You can only decide to believe in the person who believes in you. She paid that forward, finding the same hesitancy in others and responding the same way.

This is such a great episode! Super entertaining, and Yvette kills it with her wisdom on developing oneself and others (she is both a clear expert and super relatable). This is unrelated, but I also really love how Brett presents each episode of the podcast -- showcasing his guests and breaking down their key takeaways. It shows the care he has for his guests and his listeners.

Hiring Feels Like A Humiliation Ritual new

Madison Butler in Crash Out With Me

Published June 15, 2026 · Listened July 6, 2026

Layoffs are back in the headlines, but the hardest part isn’t the announcement. It’s what happens after: the endless applications, the four-round interviews that end in ghosting, and the quiet pressure to accept jobs that pay a fraction of what your experience is worth. We sit down with Taryn Talley, a marketing leader and LGBTQ2SIA advocate, to talk about the job market in 2024 with zero sugarcoating and a lot of hard-earned perspective from nearly three decades in digital marketing and design.

A timely discussion given the job market CX has been experiencing. It's hard to reconcile the super shitty job search and interview experience with the fact that, anecdotally at least, I've seen hiring pick up for CX roles in the last few months. I think the driving factors are actually pretty complicated, but in a nutshell: IMO, it's a strange combination of the terrible economy (which shifts power from workers to companies) and reality setting in about AI (it's not actually gonna replace everyone).

Heatwave new

Tomas Budin in LinkedIn

Published June 26, 2026 · Watched July 3, 2026

Bit hot ain't it.

Yes. Yes, it is.

What if we covered Trump's age the way we covered Biden's? new

Paul Waldman in Public Notice

Published June 22, 2026 · Read June 22, 2026

The nature of Trump’s personalist presidency, in which the entire government is organized around turning his whims into reality and the barest hint of dissent is swiftly punished, makes the question of his age even more important than it was with Biden, who was surrounded by competent people who could run the government even when the president was less engaged than he ought to have been.

The 10 Commandments of Community Management new

Gillian Wu in LinkedIn

Published June 19, 2026 · Read June 20, 2026

The 10 Commandments of Community Management, according to yours truly. I doodled this on my work iPad during a meeting six years ago. I still like it. Some things change, some things stay the same.

Not just a read, but a doodle!

From Chaos Coordinator to Thriving in a Healthy Job new

Samantha O'Neil in LinkedIn

Published June 17, 2026 · Read June 17, 2026

For the first few weeks, closing my laptop at 5 PM felt wrong. Like I was slacking. As a woman in tech leadership, I think we’re so conditioned to believe that if we aren't completely exhausted, we aren't performing. I kept waiting for the catch.

As someone also transitioning to a normal, healthy job, this resonated with me. Like, what do you mean I don't need to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic about that customer ticket? What do you mean I zeroed out my queue? What do you mean by "I work hard but stop at 8 hours worked in a day"? DOES NOT COMPUTE.

‘Tell Him He’s a Piece of Shit’: Meta’s New AI Unit Is a Total Mess new

Paresh Dave in WIRED

Published June 12, 2026 · Read June 14, 2026

During a meeting this week open to all employees at Instagram, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox addressed the “difficult” and “brutal” environment created by the “insanity of this company” in the past few months, according to a recording heard by WIRED. Cox applauded Instagram employees for launching features and serving around 2 billion users amid what he compared to “running a marathon in the middle of a hailstorm and then, like, your teammate gets replaced and then we’re recording you. It’s like what the fuck,” he said, drawing laughs, before repeating himself. “It is like what the fuck.”

The opening anecdote to this story was wild, but this quote might be wilder. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an executive acknowledge shitty working conditions so plainly. I’m not sure it possible to right the ship as long as Zuckerberg is still in charge, but I’ll be watching with popcorn either way.

Teenagers Are Pushing Himmler’s Favorite Myth new

Ali Breland in The Atlantic

Published January 23, 2026 · Read June 13, 2026

Sellner positioned the memes as something that could be taken in jest. “Irony is the glue that holds this whole meme-universe together. Anyone who takes things deadly seriously or gets triggered has lost,” he wrote. This is the tone that a lot of people online have taken regarding the Agartha memes. No matter the underlying content, you’re not supposed to take the joke seriously, and if you do, the joke’s on you.

@beijingpalmer.bsky.social on Bluesky had a really interesting thread explaining Agartha, its origins, and its co-option by Nazis. I’d managed to have never heard of Agartha before this, so the thread and this article were eye-opening.

CX Is a Goldmine of Data (& AI Can Finally Help You Use It), with Cati Brunell-Brutman new

Cati Brunell-Brutman in CX After Hours Podcast

Published June 10, 2026 · Listened June 13, 2026

In this episode of CX After Hours, Cati, formerly CX Lead at Glossier, makes the case that customer experience is one of the clearest windows into what customers actually think, feel, need, love, and hate. And with AI, CX teams now have a much better way to turn all of that raw customer feedback into insight the rest of the business can actually use.

Saying you believe in pay transparency and then not being transparent about the pay range is absolutely wild work. new

Charlsie Niemiec in LinkedIn

Published June 12, 2026 · Read June 12, 2026

It would have taken less time to type the range than to write that paragraph. At this point, the salary range is less "pay transparency" and more a word problem. But hey, who needs a salary range when Life is Good?

Again, love seeing people playing Bad Job Bingo in the wild (even if they don't know they're playing it)!

Felix Lee generates and shares a meme with the F slur, phones in his apology new

Erika Flowers in LinkedIn

Published June 12, 2026 · Watched June 12, 2026

I want to make sure that the LinkedIn #design, #ux, and #lgbtq community didn’t miss Felix Lee’s apology for posting an anti-LGBTQ slur, so that all of the remaining customers and sponsors of adplist.org get the opportunity to hear it. As such, I have taken 3:26 out of my day here on this lovely #pride month to read the apology on their behalf 🩷🧡💛💚💙💜

Because nothing says professional, successful CEO of a *checks notes* mentorship organization like going out of your way to generate an image using company logos to spell out a homophobic slur DURING PRIDE MONTH and then posting an apology very obviously written by AI! In Erika's words, apology not accepted.

The Hiring Flywheel: Building Culture Through Structured Hiring new

Neil Smith in Building Legendary Leaders Podcast

Published April 22, 2026 · Watched June 12, 2026

Jim Saliba sits down with Neil Smith, VP of Technical Support at Iterable, to break down the hiring flywheel that helps leaders build high-retention, high-performance teams. Neil shares how structured hiring, competency-based interviews, values alignment, and a curiosity-driven culture create teams that stay longer, learn faster, and consistently outperform industry turnover norms.

The High-Performance Tax: Is your culture fueling excellence or exploitation? new

Latesha Byrd in The Performance Review

Published June 11, 2026 · Read June 12, 2026

Watch the room in your next leadership sync. When an employee who used to challenge the status quo and pitch bold new ideas suddenly stops speaking up and begins operating with a quieter, deeply compliant energy, pay close attention. They haven't lost their ambition. They haven't forgotten how to do their job. They have simply done the internal math and realized that pouring all the extra effort into the culture yields a zero percent return on investment. They are protecting whatever energy they have left, "fixing their face" on the Zoom call, and quietly planning their exit. Catching this moment early gives leaders a chance to step in, re-engage them, and remind them how valuable they are.

Really looking forward to this series -- folks in CX roles tend to pay the performance tax at a much higher rate, and over a much longer period, than other roles in Tech do (simply by virtue of where we end up in the org chart).

Right Person, Wrong Seat with Taylor Coleman new

Kirsten Penaloza in Big Boss Biscuits Podcast

Published June 9, 2026 · Listened June 11, 2026

What do you do when you've climbed the ladder, earned the title, and finally "made it" — only to realize the seat you fought for isn't the one that fits? In this episode, Kirsten sits down with Taylor Coleman — systems thinker, former CX leader, and the kind of guest who tells the truth even when it's uncomfortable. Taylor traces her unlikely path from a bored tier-one rep to senior manager of a seven-person, six-specialty product support team — and the quiet, gutting moment in a leadership book club when she realized she had the skill for management but not the passion for it.

The Worksheet Problem new

Sarah Betts in The Raccoon People

Published June 10, 2026 · Read June 10, 2026

I will happily work 12 hour days to build more efficient processes, talk people through their projects, take extended calls with frustrated customers, and make pages of documentation. But if leadership doesn't know where they are going and why — with real focus, and can't articulate that to their teams, I cannot be bothered.

Sarah articulates something I've often felt myself -- that doing work for the sake of doing work for those of us who need a purpose and a direction kills our drive to succeed (and just compounds the burnout we're already feeling).

Alice Hunsberger: The need for checks and balances new

Alice Hunsberger in Safe Space Podcast

Published June 10, 2026 · Listened June 10, 2026

In this episode of Safe Space, hosts Cassie Coccaro and Pailes Halai talk with Alice Hunsberger, Head of Trust & Safety at Musubi. Alice has spent years working in trust and safety, with experience in online communities, dating apps, vendor operations, and AI safety tools.

Alice cares so much about people, and she has so much to teach us. She's one of the few people whose work I boost whenever I see it! (Also, this is a note to self to add the Safe Space podcast to the Resources site. Look at this insider content your paid subscription gets you.)

Hackers Simply Asked Meta AI to Give Them Access to High-Profile Instagram Accounts. It Worked new

Jason Koebler in 404 Media

Published June 1, 2026 · Read June 6, 2026

The news shows the extreme risk associated with offloading support or critical functions to an AI chatbot. Users who have had their accounts stolen say that there is no way to escalate their problem to a human. In March, Meta announced that it was pushing AI support to all accounts across Facebook and Instagram, and that it would have the ability to reset passwords and perform other critical account maintenance functions: “Solutions, not just suggestions,” the feature’s product page says. “Account security and recovery.”

Just noting the irony of this, given that Meta debuted the AI support feature in a blog post called "Boosting Your Support and Safety on Meta’s Apps With AI." Maybe they meant that *other* definition of boosting?

Everything Is Made Up! with Deb Haas new

Ambra Hubert in Permission Slips

Published June 3, 2026 · Read June 4, 2026

I mean, I knew the whole "being an adult" gig was a sham. I got to my 50's and was still looking around for who the adultier adult was in any room. But what truly surprised me was how much everything - EVERYTHING - is made up. A business is something someone decided needed to exist, so they made it up. A product is the same. That applies to pretty much everything in life.

A quick, lovely, and refreshing interview with Deb Haas of the Joy Prompt Club and AI Confidential.

How Support Teams Can Prove Their Value Across the Company with Andrew "Coach" Rios new

Andrew Rios in Happy to Help Podcast

Published May 12, 2026 · Listened May 31, 2026

In this episode, we’re talking with Andrew “Coach” Rios, a customer experience and support operations leader with more than 25 years of experience building support teams at companies like Cisco, Fitbit, and Cityside Fiber. We dig into why support teams often feel overlooked, how support leaders can communicate their value to the rest of the company, and why customer insights need to be translated into the language other departments actually understand.

We replaced Zendesk in 48 hours new

Igor Jovic in TradeCore Blog

Published May 26, 2026 · Read May 29, 2026

We had been a Zendesk customer for nine and a half years. Our first ticket on their platform is dated 27 October 2016. Our usage was not declining. Quite the opposite: as our business grew and more brokers and their users came on board, the support operation we ran on the platform grew with it, up roughly 83% over the year before. We were, by any honest measure, exactly the kind of customer a support-software vendor is supposed to want. I went into our team Slack. The sensible argument was already being made there: pay it, restore the portal, deal with the migration calmly over the next year. It is the right answer ninety-five times out of a hundred. I typed: fuck zendesk, we are going to build our solution in a day.

When you make using your product or renewing a contract so painful that even a loyal customer who was *trying* to give you more money rage quits, that's basically the end of the line. I don't know what's going on over at Zendesk that they're not clueing in to this, but...you know that gif from Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts has gone back to the shop that refused to serve her? That's what plays in my head when I think of Zendesk. Just Julia saying "big mistake, HUGE" over and over and over. (H/T to Nico Boyce for putting this on my radar.)

Self-Service Is Not the Absence of Service: The Dash Cart Model new

Bee Gagliardi in Related Thinking | CX Systems Leader

Published May 16, 2026 · Read May 19, 2026

Self-service is not the absence of service. It is service expressed through infrastructure. [...] In grocery shopping, the customer’s intent is not “use a checkout terminal.” It is “get my groceries and leave.” The Dash Cart closes the gap between these two things. The transaction disappears into the journey. You grab items, they register. You walk out, you are charged. The system works around your intent, not the other way around. This is the CX infrastructure move: making the operational machinery invisible to the customer while doing more work on their behalf.

This article is a banger -- I'd love to quote the whole thing, but I can't, so instead I'll just say how much I love that Bee pointed out that if you're not moving a solution closer to the customer's intent, you're not building self-service, but unpaid labor. Preach!

We Tried to Detect Bots in 500 Comments. We Found a More Interesting Problem. new

Fil Jankovic in Musubi Labs

Published April 27, 2026 · Read May 1, 2026

We're seeing this trend in every online space with user generated content - contributions became cheap, and the cost is moving downstream onto the people trying to read, review, and maintain. Many platforms have built ranking systems that reward engagement. A bot comment that says "Spot on, couldn't agree more" counts as engagement and boosts the post. The poster benefits from visibility and has little reason to report it. The platform benefits because it looks like activity. In the short term, the reader is mainly the one who loses – but as the integrity and quality of the platform starts to fail, everyone does.

Sarah Caminiti of SupportNinja On How to Build Lasting Customer Relationships new

Rachel Kline in Authority Magazine

Published April 23, 2026 · Read April 25, 2026

Here’s what I know to be true after twenty years in this space: customers have options. In almost every category, in almost every market, there is another product that does close to what yours does. The thing that makes them stay is not your feature set. It’s how they feel when something goes wrong and someone actually fixes it. It’s whether they feel like a person or a ticket number. It’s whether the agent on the other side of the conversation has what they need to show up fully.

Marginal Support with Sal new

Andre Linde in Marginal Support Podcast

Published April 9, 2026 · Watched April 25, 2026

On this week's episode of Marginal Support, I was honored to have Salvador Cervantes on. Building processes in Support Ops and creating a cool structure with Legos, what do they have in common? When you're creating something little by little and piece by piece, you get to see your end project take place before your eyes.

I love Andre's podcast because he highlights little-talked-about topics in CX. But I love it even more for the diverse range of guests he interviews, which means we get to learn and grow with folks we might not hear from on other podcasts. I wish it many more episodes of insightful interviews.