When I started my first software company, EMS, decades ago, I spent a lot of time talking to customers. Now that I’m the CEO of Mazévo, people often ask me why I still handle more support tickets than anyone else in the company. It’s not because we lack resources or because I don’t trust my team. In fact, our 2026 customer survey results were excellent, with a 100% satisfaction rating for response speed.
I stay in the support queue because of a core belief I’ve held for 40 years. I believe that a leader has to stay connected to the daily reality of the people using their product. Many companies look for ways to automate or offshore their service, but I see every ticket as a path to success rather than a burden. Here is my perspective on why staying on the front lines is the most important part of my job.
TL;DR Key Takeaways:
In the software industry, I often see a "fire and forget" mentality. Companies chase new business and new logos as fast as they can, but once the order is in, they move on. They start looking at support as an expense to be reduced or something to be offshored. This drives me crazy because it ignores the human being on the other side of the screen.
When a customer asks a question, they are usually at a stopping point. They are “on fire,” and they need help to get back to work. Ironically, if a CEO buys a product personally, they want it to work, yet many can’t seem to project that same expectation into their own companies.
I choose to stay involved because I want to ensure we never lose sight of the fact that our customers are human partners, not just numbers in a database.
Everywhere I look, I see companies chasing the new buzz of AI. It feels like many are re-engineering everything just to satisfy investors who want them to “get AI in there” rather than making their customers more productive. While these tools can help you find answers online quickly, they often make assumptions or provide bad advice.
I’ve seen technologies come and go, and I’ve learned that you need a human to first determine if the question highlights a problem or, in some cases, a misunderstanding about the user’s process or a product feature. Ultimately, I see a support ticket as more than just a mechanism for getting an answer. It’s an opportunity for a conversation.
I’ve found that, in many cases, what a person asks for is different from what they actually need. An AI support system might provide a "yes" or "no" answer, but it won’t ask you why you want to do it that way in the first place.
At Mazévo, we don’t worry about metrics like the duration of a ticket because when a company focuses on that, it encourages team members to just close things out and move on. My goal is to provide consultative support. This means digging deeper to find the root of the issue. Sometimes a customer asks for a new feature when they actually just need to use a tool that already exists in a different way.
Being connected to our user community changes how I think about our product roadmap. Instead of waiting for a carefully curated and filtered report to trickle up to me, I see the pain points in real time. This allows me to guide people toward better workflows that save them time in the long run. It takes patience to calm someone when they’re confused or frustrated, but that interaction is where the real value lies.
The human connection is incredibly important to me and everyone at Mazévo. That said, we are a business, and we need to grow to stay healthy. I believe that if you take care of your customers, the growth will come. Many executives spend too much time chasing the “siren call” of revenue and looking for their own reward. They hit the gas pedal on the marketing side, provide bare-bones support, and hope for the best.
In my experience, if you keep your customers happy, they talk to their industry peers. That word of mouth is more powerful than any marketing spend. Our survey showed that 82% of respondents continue to choose us because of our customer service. This tells me that our approach is working.
And finally, solving a problem for someone and making their day better is just personally satisfying. It keeps me (and all of us at Mazévo) connected to the human impact of what we’ve built. Have I ever considered stepping away from support entirely? Honestly, I have not. I truly enjoy it, and I think staying involved is a win-win for everyone.
If you're evaluating event management software, I encourage you to ask every vendor the same question: "What happens after we become a customer?" The answer will tell you a lot about the partnership you can expect.