Support Maven
I build Global Technical Support teams for Enterprise B2B SaaS companies
I have spent my career building Global Technical Support teams for Enterprise B2B SaaS companies. I have been interviewed for articles, podcasts, and webinars, and have written over 50 articles on the subject. I am available for consulting engagements to help you launch a world-class Support organization.
"Let's build something!"
Webinars and podcasts by others
- Podcast Interviewee: Hiver "Experience Matters" (August 2025)
- Panelist: Custify “Escalated: How CS Leaders Tackle Real Customer Crises” (June 2025)
- Podcast Interviewee: "Marginal Support" podcast (June 2025)
- Podcast Interviewee: “The $5 Million Safety Net: How to Build Premier Support That Pays For Itself” (April 2025)
- Panelist: “Leadership roundtable: Upgrading legacy ticket systems” (March 2024)
- Moderator: "Smooth Sailing from Day One: Onboarding Tips for Team Excellence" (July 2023)
- Panelist: “How to Get Your Support Team Recognition They Deserve” (July 2022)
Articles written by others
- Custify: "Our Top Customer Success Influencers of 2025" (Feb 2026)
- Hiver “Who’s Got This If You’re Out? – Miles Goldstein on Building Bulletproof Support” (October 2025)
- Hiver “What AI Is and Isn’t!” (June 2025)
- Custify “Managing Customer Escalations: How CS Leaders Handle Complex Interactions” (May 2025)
- Escalations: Tracing Great Careers Back to the Support Queue - “Miles Goldstein: Let’s Build Something” (Feb 2025)
- AptEdge “Profiling a Customer Support Leader: Miles Goldstein on the Evolution of Technical Support” (Aug 2024)
- Hiver “SMART Goals” (July 2024)
- “Humans of Support” (May 2024)
- “Stonly’s 30+ Customer Support Leaders Top Priorities for 2023” (Feb 2023)
- “Best of the Best: Support is Marketing to your Customers” (Emily Salus Feb 2011)
My articles on Support Leadership and other Random Thoughts
Articles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesgoldstein/details/publications/ (A-Z) or https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesgoldstein/recent-activity/articles/ (reverse chronological) or https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesgoldstein/recent-activity/all/
Also available at https://www.resources.supporthuman.cx/support-leadership-and-other-random-thoughts/
“Traits, Skills, and Knowledge"
As a "people manager" I have learned that there are three characteristics that enable an employee to perform well. These characteristics are traits, skills, and knowledge.
The Job Description listed the usual requirements for jobs that interest me: 10+ years in Support Leadership, a history of scaling teams, experience with SaaS, and solving complex business problems. It was as if it had been tailored to my resume. Two days after my HR interview I received the rejection, “We’ve decided to move forward with candidates who bring a bit more recent direct experience.” When you are looking for a candidate with over a decade of experience, what does “recent experience” even mean?
Does “proper grammar” matter anymore? Has the wide adoption of social media, text and message apps, and other modern conveniences in communication accelerated its decline? Does the speaker, audience, medium, and situation allow for flexibility in the rules?
"Season 5, Episode 1: Numbers, Words, and History"
You would think that counting things is simple and consistent, but it apparently isn’t. We usually count things that have been completed. It bothered me recently when a TV show I watch started its twentieth season by declaring it their “twentieth anniversary”; no, it was their nineteenth anniversary and the start of their twentieth year.
A lot of companies like to claim “Work/Life Balance” as a core value. What does that mean, how can management encourage and support it, and what are the benefits of it? And which extracurricular activities count toward it?
“Implementing Enterprise Software”
Some companies view onboarding enterprise software users as simple as, “Here is your software; here is your license key; here are your login credentials; here is your documentation and training; here is your bill. Welcome aboard.” If you think it is really that simple, ask your IT team, and they will tell you about an amazing journey filled with danger and wonder.
“Rolling Dice and Measuring Outcomes”
In the Software Support world we love our metrics, many of which are represented by three-letter acronyms (TLAs) like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Average Handle Time (AHT), First Response Time (FRT), and the king (at four letters), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT). There is a growing realization that we may have become too obsessed with chasing specific numbers and should be focusing instead on whether we are achieving the desired outcomes.
“Leading with Lies (and other recruiter games)”
Job hunting today is difficult. Finding a job that matches your goals is a challenge; getting through screening by applicant tracking systems (ATS) is nearly impossible; getting an interview with a hiring manager is a rarity; and getting an acceptable offer is like finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. All of this is made much harder due to unscrupulous recruiter activity on job boards. From small lies and misrepresentations to fake jobs and “offers”, it can be a minefield out there.
“When you are up to your knees in alligators, it’s hard to remember the original goal was to drain the swamp.” Sometimes life and work just get a little crazy. Here are some of my thoughts and practices for time management.
How do you react when faced with a crisis in your personal or professional life? Do you panic and get hysterical? Do you get paralyzed by fear? Or do you face it and deal with it? Some of this is your natural disposition, but preparation and practice can help keep you calm in a crisis.
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” (William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet")
“Proprioception and Proactive Management”
“Proprioception [ proh-pree-uh-sep-shuhn ] - noun - Physiology. 1. perception governed by proprioceptors, as awareness of the position of one's body.” In plain English, this is your ability to know where your arms and legs are without needing to look at them. If you can close your eyes and touch your finger to your nose, that requires proprioception. I believe there are similarities with management.
Just as inbreeding decreases the biological fitness of a population, a lack of diversity on teams suppresses their creativity due to a lack of differing perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.
One question I have seen many times from my peers is how to prioritize bug reports, which I have briefly discussed in other articles and posts. While any request to Product Engineering is open to negotiation for resources, I have found the method below to be useful as a default scale.
“Where Should Support Report?”
I have taken part in online discussions and surveys about where Technical Support should report in the corporate org chart and have mentioned it in some of my articles. The following opinions about this are based on my personal experience. “Your mileage may vary.”
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” As a hiring manager and a job candidate, there is a question which comes up often in interviews: “What made you choose a career in Technical Support?” In retrospect, I have several answers. I love solving puzzles, be they technical, business, or interpersonal. I enjoy being able to resolve multiple problems in a single day and then ride off into the sunset like the Lone Ranger. And I am wired to want to help people. But how I first got here is a different story. I share this as a retrospective and for those of you who are thinking about what is next for you.
“Article 36 (Time Management)”
I did a Google search for “Article 36” and found links to several countries’ Constitutions, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and GDPR, among others. All very cool and official-sounding stuff. This article is not about any of them. Rather, it is my 36th monthly article - I started writing my first one in November 2021, although I did not officially publish it until December (and then did a second article in December as well). Thirty-five articles, over 65,000 words. This one, as with some others, was inspired by a friend asking me a question. This article is about Time Management.
“My Article About Artificial Intelligence”
Artificial Intelligence. AI. Everybody is talking about it, writing about it, and boasting about it. It seems like automation that we have had for years and years is rebranding itself as AI. Visionaries are promising how it will change the world for the better, while pessimists and Luddites are worried that it will change the world for the worse. Here are my thoughts.
“Balance” usually refers to a stable state of equilibrium among multiple components. Over-simplified, if you have a lever centered on a fulcrum and place items of equal total weight on each end, the lever should remain horizontal and stable. Adding weight to either side will tip the lever down in that direction. If the lever is out of balance, it can be resolved by adding weight to the high end or removing weight from the low end. It can also be resolved by changing the distance between the weights and the fulcrum. What does that all mean in the context of “Work/Life Balance”?
There is an adage that you should, “write what you know.” That sounds like good advice. But what if “what you know” is wrong? What if the author is a walking example of Dunning-Kruger? Neil deGrasse Tyson allegedly said, “One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you're right but not enough to know you're wrong.”
My ancient American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin, 1976) defines “escalate” as, “To increase, enlarge, or intensify; especially, to intensify a war.” In the real world it is often used in that last context to describe increased tension in a sensitive situation, such as international conflicts. “The situation in [somewhere] has escalated in recent weeks due to [some event].” In software support we have a broader use of the word. In fact, we have multiple scenarios where we use it.
I recently joined the ranks of laid-off technology workers. There are endless articles and resources telling jobseekers how to write the perfect resume and an eye-catching cover letter, how to network, how to apply for jobs and follow up on them, and how to interview. And while I’ve seen many personal reflections from others in this situation, I have not seen any comprehensive articles on what to expect or how to be unemployed. Here is my story.
“No Rule for Seven - Fun with Numbers”
I have always liked numbers. I did well in Math in grade school and I was a Mathematics major for a brief time in college before switching to Computer Science. One piece of trivia I picked up along the way is that there is a simple rule for determining whether an integer is completely divisible (no fractions, decimals, or remainders) by each of the numbers one through nine, except for seven; there is no rule for seven. In this article I will share those rules and use those numbers to share insights into Software Support. (Hey, that’s what I do.)
“Building the Support Organization”
I have written many articles about managing Enterprise Software Technical Support, going into detail about specific teams or functions. In this article I am going to take a higher view and describe the combined organizational structure. What teams and functions should a mature Enterprise Support organization have?
Jelly Bellies. Karaoke. Adverbs. These seemingly random things all have something in common. Each one is a device used by specific leaders which sets those leaders apart. I have found that many notable leaders have a device or tradition that is uniquely theirs, a kind of signature they put on their time atop the org chart.
“Life in the Shadows (where the Magic happens)”
Have you ever admired a shiny new skyscraper? From the outside you appreciate the materials and the style. On the inside you might see a multi-story atrium lobby, with futuristic elevators, interesting artwork, and lots of marble and glass fixtures. What you don’t see are the underground foundation, the girders and framework holding it all together, the wiring and plumbing, or any of the architectural and technical components that keep it upright and functional. Those are all out of sight, in the shadows, where the magic happens. It's similar in the corporate world.
“The Law of Unintended Consequences”
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should." For me, that is the lesson behind “The Law of Unintended Consequences”.
Whether you are a large company or a small one, global or local, if you have any customers at all then there is a chance that somebody will be up and using your product or needing your service at any time on any day, all 168 hours (24x7) each week. If something goes wrong, that customer is going to want help.
The term “CRM” gets tossed around a lot, but what exactly is it? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) comprises so many different tasks and functions that you’d be hard-pressed to get a simple or complete explanation that everybody agrees on, or a single product that really does it all. In this article I will provide a high-level primer on the many functions covered by a broad CRM umbrella.
“Burnout”
It was 30 years ago this month when Burnout caught up with me. Like many of life’s problems, it can sneak up on you, consume you, and leave scars. I’m sharing my story to help others recognize and deal with burnout in their own lives and careers.
Let’s face it, communication is hard. Everybody interprets information through their own filters, biases, and history. So how do we avoid pitfalls?
“High-Touch Technical Support”
Depending on your product, you probably have a small subset of customers who are special. “Special” could mean your top revenue customers, your most referenceable customers, or the name brands you love to boast about, especially in target industries. You may also have some customers for whom your product is critical to their operations and therefore need your highest level of attention. Often these customers may fall into several of these categories simultaneously. How do you provide them with a high-touch, personalized level of technical support?
“Should Support have its own P&L?”
P&L. Profit and Loss. Revenue and expenses. To have a P&L-based budget is to have a modicum of control over your department’s budget. The alternative is to be a Cost Center, where you must lobby for your budget and forfeit control over your discretionary spending. Here I shall discuss the pros and cons of both models when it comes to running an enterprise software support organization.
“Measuring Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)”
A colleague was recently looking for insights on CSAT metrics and advice on calculations. Like so many things in business and in life, the answer is situational. First, we must determine what you are trying to learn, and then how you are trying to learn it.
“Teaching Troubleshooting Skills”
I was recently asked to answer on a Support Slack forum where a participant asked how to train staff to troubleshoot a technical issue. I’m going to sum this up by coining a new eXpression: “The Three eXes: eXposure, eXperimentation, and eXperience”.
Welcome to the Digital Age and the 21st Century. With all this modern technology, we can communicate immediately with almost anybody on the planet at any time. This should be a time-saving technology that maximizes productivity, right? Well, maybe not, if we apply antiquated methods when using it.
There is an important skill needed to be a good manager, spouse/partner, parent, diplomat, customer-facing service provider, and a decent human being. That skill, in my humble opinion, is knowing how to have sensitive discussions. Whether it’s providing bad or upsetting news, handling somebody who is upset or irrational, or providing constructive criticism, how you say something is as important as what you say.
According to Art Linkletter, “Kids say the darndest things.” I can attest to the fact that adults say, and do, the darndest things, too. Most of my articles are lessons in some aspect of Technical Support management. For this article I am setting aside the pedagogy and sharing some first-hand stories about human nature from a customer-facing career.
In a modern enterprise software company, one of the many things you can count on is constant and rapid change. New features are added, existing behaviors change, and even the user interface (UI) may be redesigned frequently. Keeping everyone updated and enabled on this is a huge challenge.
Have you ever been given an answer by a service provider that just didn’t make sense? The answer just felt like they were reciting off a script and not truly listening to your problem. It’s possible they were just giving you what I’ve come to think of as, “The Answer of the Day.”
“Setting Goals for Support Staff”
I believe that most people will do what they are incentivized to do, provided there is no legitimate reason not to. How do you create a set of goals which inspire the desired good behavior without driving unintended bad behavior?
“Order out of Chaos – How to create processes that help, not hinder”
I like to use the phrase, “Order out of Chaos,” to describe the application of well-designed processes. I am not a hard-core time-and-motion scientist, but I abhor bad processes. A good process can gain you massive efficiencies in your workplace.
“Recognition and Retention in Tech Support”
Customers don’t contact you to say, “Hey, everything is working fine. Have a great day.” No, they call you when they have a problem; either something is broken, not working to their expectations, or not documented well enough to meet their needs. How do you attract, retain, and develop happy employees under these conditions?
Have you ever used a product and asked yourself, “What were these designers thinking?! Don’t they ever use this stuff themselves?” Sadly, I encounter this dilemma far more often than I would like. Let’s talk about Intelligent Product Design, by which I mean suitability, efficacy, and efficiency for accomplishing a specific purpose.
Have you ever asked a child what they wanted for an upcoming birthday? Most (privileged) kids I have known will rattle off a list of things they’ve “always wanted”, “desperately need”, or “can’t live without”, without much concern about cost, actual potential usage, storage, or other “adult” concerns. Sometimes it can feel like that when negotiating with a potential customer.
We've all been there. Well, not all of us, but many. Your prospective customers "want it all" - a product that can peel and core apples, crush grapes, pit cherries, and puree nuts. Without all four features you can't even get invited to pitch your product. Your product is great with the fruits, and can even mix batter, but you don't do nuts. So, your product team does a quick-and-dirty hack for nuts. Welcome to "Minimum Viable Product" territory.
“Managing Technical Support Teams”
Some people may think that being a manager is easy; you hire, fire, and give reviews. You tell the team what to do, and they do it. But in life nothing is simple, and Management is no exception. It is part science and part art, part process and part psychology, part parenting and part mysticism. You can spend years pursuing post-graduate-level degrees and reading thousands of books and articles on this, with the hopes of mastering it all. That is not the purpose of this article. This article is a collection of thoughts and lessons I’ve gleaned while building and leading software technical support organizations. Think of this as “Support Management 101”.
You’ve written the perfect job description, worked with your HR team to advertise and recruit for it, interviewed dozens of candidates, and found the perfect match. It’s Monday morning and they’ve just arrived for Day 1. Now what?
“The Problem Resolution Process”
Long ago I worked for a VP who decided that our Support organization was going to be ISO 9000 certified. My first thought was that Support was an art and therefore could not be reduced to a flow chart and standardized steps. But I was wrong. In fact, what I learned was that from a high level there is a universal set of steps to resolve any problem.
“Don’t Panic: A Guide to Incident Management”
When everything goes down, your customers have five basic questions:
• What’s happening?
• How does it affect me?
• What are you doing about it?
• When will it be fixed?
• What are you doing to prevent this from happening again?
In this article I discuss the coordination and communication steps and roles necessary to keep your customers safe and informed during an Incident and reduce the likelihood of churn as a result.
“The Seven Rules of Reporting”
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I think about this when looking at reports and statistics. Too often I see people taking numbers out of context and ascribing to them a totally inaccurate interpretation of reality. Here are some important rules I've learned throughout my career.
“How to know how much Technical Support staff you need”
Is there is any “rule of thumb” for staffing a Technical/Product Support team? Having built a few Support organizations, my answer is, “It’s very complex.”