Support lab home

The Secret to Thriving in Support: Connect with Others

Tibo Leclercq and Oleg Krasnov share the unusual story of a leadership handover at Miro that became a lasting peer mentorship — and a lesson for every lonely support leader.

Two smiling Birdie team members, one in a checkered shirt and the other in glasses, against a dark background.

with Tibo Leclercq & Oleg Krasnov, Heads of Support at Miro & Manychat

Two smiling men in black and white, one with glasses, against a vibrant purple abstract background representing Birdie's.

play the video

46:33

Introduction

During COVID, Miro’s ticket volume exploded and its founding Head of Support, Oleg Krasnov, was asked to do something almost unheard of: help hire his own replacement. That replacement was Tibo Leclercq. What could have been a brutal handover became a genuine peer partnership.

In this double-guest episode, Tibo and Oleg retrace the transition, the friction, and what each learned from the other — from operational rigor and zooming into the data, to the humility it takes to keep growing as a leader. Above all, they make the case that support leadership is too lonely a job to do without peers.

What you will learn in this episode

  • How to handle a leadership succession without breaking the team

  • Developing operational maturity when the company is scaling faster than you are

  • What senior support roles actually demand beyond empathy

  • How to build a peer network of support leaders — and why it beats any playbook

  • Using outside perspectives to find your own leadership blind spots

All episodes

A man with a beard and short curly hair, rendered in grayscale, smiles against a vibrant pink and purple abstract.

49:41

Support Is Not Chaos. It’s a Playbook

Daniel Rose has spent 25+ years turning support into a repeatable operating system. He breaks down the playbook that travels across teams and companies.

A smiling man in round glasses, rendered in grayscale, against a vibrant purple background with abstract brushstrokes.

50:54

Balancing the Scales: The Art of Keeping a Small, Effective Support Team

Kenji Hayward runs Front's support with a deliberately small, elite team. He explains the hiring bar, the shared queue model and the rituals that prevent burnout.

Two smiling men in black and white, one with glasses, against a vibrant purple abstract background representing Birdie's.

46:33

The Secret to Thriving in Support: Connect with Others

Tibo Leclercq and Oleg Krasnov share the unusual story of a leadership handover at Miro that became a lasting peer mentorship — and a lesson for every lonely support leader.

A smiling woman with long hair and a white shirt, against an abstract background of grey and purple brushstrokes,.

56:32

Behind the Scenes of Pipedrive’s Global Support Operation

Mara Vicente opens the doors of Pipedrive's 100-person customer solutions org: 24/7 multilingual coverage, solutions engineers, transparent KPIs and AI done thoughtfully.

A smiling man with a beard, wearing a collared jacket, stands against an abstract blue background with textured.

45:59

The Secret to 100% CSAT: Automation & Customer Love at Chili Piper

Serban Goanta explains how a 10-person, tier-less team sustained a perfect CSAT for a full year: internal tooling, email-first support and metrics published in public.

A smiling man in a striped shirt, rendered in black and white, against a vibrant teal and turquoise abstract background.

46:14

Navigating the Friction: Success vs Support

After interviewing dozens of customer success professionals, Kincy Clark maps out why support and success clash — and the systems that turn friction into collaboration.

A smiling man with a beard, in black and white, against a vibrant pink and purple abstract background reflecting Birdie's.

36:13

Exploring the Roles of LLMs for Support

Matt Lewis works inside an LLM company and runs its support. He separates the AI hype from the tools that already work — and those about to change the industry.

A confident man with a short beard and striped shirt, in monochrome, against a vibrant purple Birdie background with.

51:59

Flipping the Support Model: Lessons from Bolt’s Journey

Kincy Clark tore down the classic tiered support model at Bolt and rebuilt it around a routing layer, problem structure and teams matched to what people do best.

A professional man in a suit jacket and plaid shirt, outlined in white, against a vibrant purple abstract background with.

52:57

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.

A smiling woman in a striped shirt, her face illuminated, against a backdrop of abstract grey and lavender Birdie-style.

51:48

A Journey in Outsourcing Support

When OutSchool 20x'd overnight during the pandemic, Sophie Heller scaled support from five people to over a hundred agents in weeks — largely through outsourcing.

A smiling woman with short dark hair and glasses, wearing a patterned top, against a textured blue Birdie background.

40:26

OKRs for Support

Jeni Balch shows how OKRs give support teams what SLAs never will: a direction, a transformation goal and a reason to be invested beyond the queue.

A smiling man with a beard, wearing a flamingo-patterned shirt, against a vibrant abstract background of teal and green.

40:19

The most important metric: Customer Effort Score

Stephane Gonthier explains why CSAT plateaus and how Customer Effort Score gives support leaders an actionable signal directly tied to retention and revenue.