Week 1 Topic: Empathy in Support
What if empathy in support wasn’t a script, but a system choice baked into how customers reach you and how you talk to them? We sit down with senior customer experience leader Craig Stoss to unpack why the winners in SaaS and IoT will be the teams that meet people in context, remove effort at the first click, and trade shaky promises for clear, honest conversations.
Craig opens with a simple truth: rigid channels and drop-down forms are empathy taxes. Together we map the moments where customers actually need help—on the page that just failed, in front of a thermostat that won’t respond, on a phone with limited bandwidth—and show how to turn telemetry into intent-aware entry points. Think in-device “Help” buttons that trigger callbacks, mobile flows that prefill logs, and web widgets that surface at the exact step where errors spike. Each move reduces friction, shortens time to clarity, and prevents the retelling that drains patience on both sides.
From there we turn to the quality of the conversation. Craig argues that people don’t always need an instant fix as much as they need proof they’ve been heard and told the truth. We break down a plain-language framework: acknowledge impact, state what’s known and unknown, commit to the next step with a time-bound update, and never bluff. We also cover how leaders can operationalize empathy with tools that auto-capture context, processes that enable proactive outreach and single-owner follow-through, and coaching that rewards transparency over theatrics. If you care about customer experience, agent well-being, and support that actually earns trust, this one’s for you.
