Is your customer support team seen as a cost center—or a strategic growth engine?

In this episode of Founders & Empanadas, Joshua Eidelman sits down with Susana De Sousa, CX advisor and former leader at Airbnb and Loom, to challenge the outdated thinking around support. They dive deep into how support teams can drive expansion revenue, reduce churn, and directly contribute to product and retention strategy.

Susana shares hard-won lessons from scaling support at hypergrowth startups, how to build automation without losing the human touch, and why CSAT might be the most misleading metric in your dashboard. She also gives tactical frameworks for tying support performance to business outcomes—and why now is the best time ever to lead a support team.

Whether you’re a founder, CX leader, or just tired of fighting for headcount, this episode will change the way you think about support.

📌 Topics Covered:

• Turning support into a revenue driver
• Support metrics that actually matter
• How AI is changing the shape of modern CX orgs
• Hiring for “multiplier effect” talent
• Voice of customer loops that influence product

🎧 Listen in and learn how to scale customer support without sacrificing quality—or your sanity.