294: What Support Does When AI Takes The Tickets; with Ryan Klausner

About this episode

AI is starting to take the queue. So what’s left for a customer support team once automation handles triage, repetitive questions, onboarding, and a big chunk of ticket volume? Ryan Klausner joins me to get specific about “life after AI” and why the future of support is bigger than faster replies. We talk about how human-first support can still thrive while using AI in customer service in a way that actually improves the customer experience.

We dig into the real shift: moving from reactive ticket handling to proactive support that prevents issues before they hit. That means treating support as a central intelligence function, using AI to surface friction in the customer journey, spotting trends early, and turning messy contact data into clear insights that product and marketing teams can act on. We also get honest about the cultural and coaching work required to help frontline teams become strategic operators, not just great responders.

Ryan shares what new roles and skills are emerging, from conversational analysis and prompt design to owning knowledge bases, self-service, and customer education. We also unpack trust, why “fake empathy” from bots can backfire, and how to build a better resolution path with smart escalation and truly white glove human help for complex scenarios. If you’re thinking about customer support careers, CX strategy, or AI driven customer experience, this one will sharpen your view of what’s next.

If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a support leader on your team, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. What part of support would you automate first, and what would you protect for humans?

Ryan Klausner

Transcript

Charlotte Ward: 0:22

Today welcome Ryan Klausner to talk about what support does when AI takes the tickets. Today I'd like to welcome back Ryan Klausner. Ryan, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast after quite a break. Um, it must be a couple years since we last actually had a chat in this forum, I reckon. What what what do you think? Uh it's been a while anyway. Um, so I'm gonna ask you to reintroduce yourself, but welcome back.

Ryan Klausner: 0:52

Thank you, Charlotte. It's good to be back. It's always fun to talk with you about what are the latest uh challenges and opportunities happening in our industry. It's been an interesting few years, both in the the job market, the industry with the advancements uh with AI. And I've also had a recent role change. So I uh wrapped up my time at Who Gives a Crap, a profit-for-purpose startup after five years, uh, who is based in Australia. And now I'm working for a men's personal care uh brand called Based, uh, who is doing some incredible sales and growth uh predominantly through TikTok and their DTC website. And I'm bringing some of that special blend of CX magic to what they do there. And I'm just sort of uh in my third week, so it's still all fresh. It has that new startup smell uh still.

Charlotte Ward: 1:49

Um the kind of smell that uh personal care products bring.

Ryan Klausner: 1:55

Precisely, precisely, hence the need for based, basebodyworks.com, uh, for those wanting to check them out. Um, but excited to chat with you today. I mean, I have 15 plus years of experience helping startups and mission-driven brands build and scale customer experience, support, and success teams. Uh, I generally take a human-first and innovation-led approach that is really focused on driving customer loyalty and growth while building global teams that are highly engaged and love what they do. So, how do I balance that with AI? That's the question, because I often don't lead with AI, but every role these days wants you to