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Support Engineers' Strategic Role

TL;DR

• AI will handle more tier-1 and repetitive tickets. Your value shifts to: complex problems, customer advocacy, and the feedback loop to product.
• You're not "just" closing tickets. You're the voice of the customer. You see the patterns. You escalate the right things. That's strategic.
• Support engineers who lean into advocacy, feedback, and high-touch work will thrive. Those who only do volume will get automated.

Support has traditionally been measured by tickets closed. AI can close more of those. So what's left? The tickets AI can't solve. The customers who need a human. The patterns that should become product improvements. The relationships that prevent churn. That's your evolution: from ticket-closer to customer advocate and feedback engine.

What AI Takes

Repetitive FAQs:

• "How do I reset my password?" "Where's my invoice?" AI and self-serve KB can handle most of these.
• Good. Frees you for harder work. Don't fight it. Embrace it.

Simple triage and routing:

• AI categorizes and routes. You handle edge cases and override when wrong. Less manual sorting.
• You spend less time on routing, more on solving.

First-response drafting:

• For common issues, AI drafts. You edit and send. Faster. You still own the relationship.

What Stays Human (And Grows in Value)

Complex problem-solving:

• "It's not working and I've tried everything." Multi-system, unique config, intermittent. AI can't. You can.
• That's your differentiation. Deep troubleshooting. Patience. Creativity.

Customer advocacy:

• "This customer is about to churn." "This pain point is everywhere." You see it. You escalate. You connect customers to product. That prevents churn and drives roadmap.
• AI handles tickets. You handle relationships. Advocacy is human work.

Feedback loop:

• Support sees what's broken before anyone else. You aggregate. You report. You prioritize. "Top 5 things support is hearing" — that's a strategic input. Product and eng need it.
• AI can help categorize. You synthesize. You communicate. You own the loop.

High-touch and enterprise:

• Big accounts. Complex deployments. They want a human. They want someone who knows their history. That's you.
• AI can assist. It can't own the relationship.

How to Evolve

Own the feedback channel:

• Weekly or monthly: "Here's what support is hearing." Trends, top issues, feature requests. Make it a ritual. Make it visible. Product will use it.
• You're not "support." You're "voice of customer." Frame it that way.

Develop deep product knowledge:

• Go beyond the KB. Understand the architecture. Understand the edge cases. When someone has a weird problem, you're the one who can debug.
• That's hard to automate. That's your moat.

Build relationships:

• With product. With eng. With success. You're the bridge. "Support is seeing X" should trigger action. Make sure the channels exist.
• Your insights only matter if they're heard. Build the relationships to be heard.

Career Paths

• Senior support / support lead. Own the team, the process, the escalation policy. AI handles volume; you own the strategy.
• Customer success or solutions. You know the product and the customer. Natural transition. You've been doing advocacy already.
• Product or eng. Some of the best product people came from support. You know the user. You know the pain. You know what to build.

Do This Next

1. Create one feedback report — "Top 5 issues from support this month." Share with product. Start the loop. Make it recurring.
2. Identify one high-value relationship — A customer you've saved, a bug you've escalated, a pattern you've highlighted. Document it. That's your impact story.
3. Define your "human required" list — Which tickets, which customers, which scenarios need you? Make it explicit. Protect that work. That's where your value grows.