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, monitored, and crafted by people is the way most customers will be helped, most of the time. Evidence for that claim:

Self-service first is the only practical option for very large companies like Google.

Improved AI tools will make it cost-prohibitive for smaller companies to remain human-service first in some situations.

There’s a long history of new tech not being as good as the system we already have. For example:

• Socrates was not a fan of writing.
• Trithemius loved writing but despised printed books.

There is a pattern of self-service tech being put in place to replace some of what a service person was doing, but leaving the rest for the customer.

ATMs, typing pools, self-service grocery store checkouts.

Implications for support teams:

• Documentation will be critically important as the source for AI tools.
• A rebirth for Clippy in AI-powered contextual help.
• Managing the transition from AI to humans will be vital.
• Fewer support people per customer, but more complex and sensitive interactions for humans.
• New support quality assurance processes are needed to manage AI And human work.
• We need to find new paths to human expertise in support.
• Support pros need to become customer experience professionals.

Hero(n) of Alexandria invented the first vending machine around AD60

And Shawna explained Gross Margin.