The Supportive Podcast

A stranger delivers a USB-C stick from the future, and Mat discovers it contains a recording of a corporate onboarding for new support staff in November of 2028. What does it all mean?

Mat's away on sabbatical, so this month we're sharing an episode of Epochal Growth, hosted by Sarah Caminiti and featuring Ben McCormack. Huge thanks to Sarah for sharing her interview with us. To hear more from Sarah on Epochal Growth, visit https://www.epochaloperations.com/epochal-growth ___ In Episode 6 of Epochal Growth, host Sarah Caminiti sits down with Ben McCormack, currently a fractional...

Mat describes his first customer service experience working as a paper boy. What was yours? Email thesupportive@helpscout.com to let us know.

Mat chats with Elyse Mankin, experienced support leader and former headband girl to talk about her experiences moving from frontline support into a leadership role. They discuss the challenges of making time to get out of the queue, Elyse's strategies for planning her time, delegation, and focus, her favourite leadership resources, and the power of yacht rock. For the full show notes, links, and f...

In this episode, Mat shares stories and lessons from six examples of customer service fails throughout history — from poor quality trade goods in ancient Mesopotamia to spectacularly bad motel service in present-day Australia.

The Biden/Harris White House recently announced their "Time is Money" governmentwide crackdown on customer unfriendly practices. What's it all about, and will it make any difference to real world customer experience for Americans...Mat Patterson takes a look. Here's the White House statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/08/12/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administra...

Ben Henderson — product manager, former DJ, and boot Tetris expert — chats with Mat about his role and how customer support leaders can most effectively make their case for product changes and fixes. Plus, an Aussie slang challenge! For show notes, relevant links, further reading, and a full transcript visit: https://helpscout.com/resources/supportive-podcast/S1E3/

Evidence that Australia loves Tina Turner, and how new technology may prove Tina wrong - in that support teams may actually need another hero.

Self-service technology ancient and modern, a German monk, and Shawna explains Gross Margin in this episode of The Supportive Podcast. For show notes, transcript and further reading: https://www.helpscout.com/resources/supportive-podcast/S1E2/ Mat makes the claim that the future of online support is self-service. More specifically: elf-service driven by customers, delivered by AI and designed, mon...

In this in-between non-episode, Mat talks about why Help Scout is not an AI-first company.

AI and the future of support teams, 3 truly terrible predictions, several action items for support leaders, and Shawna explains the Rule of 40. https://www.helpscout.com/resources/supportive-podcast/S1E1/ 3 terrible predictions from history: Mail delivery by rocket Automation will make a second job as socially unacceptable as bigamy Steve Ballmer : iPhone has “no chance” of gaining significant mar...

Check out the trailer for the upcoming Supportive Podcast from Help Scout.