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Human First Support in an AI-driven World

Steven Davis makes the case for putting humans at the front of support while automation works behind the curtain — and for monetizing support along the way.

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with Steven Davis, Senior Director Enterprise Support at Gainsight

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52:57

Introduction

“Human first” does not mean “manual”. Steven Davis runs a support organisation of nearly a hundred people at Gainsight, and his philosophy is precise: automate relentlessly behind the scenes so that whenever a customer genuinely needs a human, a human is what they get.

He explains how his team uses language processing to catch urgency and frustration that ticket fields miss, why authentic, even funny agents outperform templated ones, how customer journeys automate proactive outreach — and why paid premium support packages changed how the whole company values his team.

What you will learn in this episode

  • What human-first support actually means — and what it doesn’t

  • Using NLP to detect urgency and sentiment the ticket form misses

  • Automating agent workflows so humans have time to be human

  • Data-driven customer journeys that trigger proactive human outreach

  • Monetizing support: the rise of paid premium packages in B2B

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