Insights
The customer support field guide
Analysis, data notes, and how-tos across the whole craft — metrics, quality, people, ops, knowledge, tooling, trust, and AI. Key figures link to their sources; no vendor is paying for the verdict.
64dispatches in the archive202623
- Analysis
Getting ahead of the ticket
Real proactive support prevents contacts. Most of what gets sold as 'proactive' manufactures them. The difference is measurable, and the data is unkind to the marketing version.
Sep 11, 20263 min - Analysis
Tiers vs. swarming: what the evidence says
The tiered escalation ladder versus intelligent swarming: where each actually wins, what the resolution-time and cost data show, and the hybrid most mature teams land on.
Sep 3, 20264 min - Analysis
Fine-Tuning vs Retrieval: Where Your Support Answers Live
Fine-tuning and RAG are pitched as rival ways to make a support bot "know your product." They do different jobs — and for grounding answers in your knowledge, the evidence points one way.
Sep 2, 20263 min - Analysis
Auto-QA scores 100% of tickets — should you trust it?
AI quality scoring promises to grade every ticket instead of a thin sample — but coverage isn't accuracy, so here's where it helps, where it drifts, and how to calibrate it.
Aug 27, 2026