Behind every support request is a person. Every Friday, we feature someone in support who inspires us. Today, we're featuring Matthew Flores – Founding CX Lead at Mainframe. Here's his story 👇

💭 What inspired you to pursue a career in support?

I’ve always worked in support in some way. I guess the pivotal moment was when I worked the front desk at a hotel, that’s where I really learned how to think on my feet and solve problems. That role taught me how to troubleshoot quickly while keeping things calm and positive. Transitioning into tech support was surprisingly natural after that. It felt like the same skill set, just over the phone or email instead of in-person. Actually, now that I type this out, I feel like a lot of the inspiration came from having bad support interactions as a customer and thinking “I could do this so much better.”

😍 What do you love about it?

I love that support is about connection. You’re often meeting someone at a moment of frustration or confusion, and your job is to guide them through it with empathy and clarity. Sometimes you’re their only contact with the company, and that moment really matters.

📣 Who’s someone you learned a lot from, and what did you learn from them?

A few come to mind. In hospitality, I learned how to deliver a great customer experience just from the way we were trained and onboarded. At Loom, I learned a ton about how to scale support and build an amazing team during rapid growth. That whole founding support team was exceptional and taught me something at one point or another. And I continue to learn a lot from people online. I soak up content from folks across support, marketing, product, and sales.

✨ What advice would you give to someone else wanting to break into support?

I’d say become a product expert. Know the product inside and out, and understand how people actually use it day to day. Learn how to read and use data. Practice advocating for yourself, I see a lot of support reps struggle to show the value they bring outside of the queue. And above all, obsess over the entire customer experience.

🥇 What company has recently really impressed you with the quality of their support?

Honestly, Plain are one of my favs. I love when support feels natural, like you’re just chatting with a friend, the entire Plain team does this really well. I also really like Notion and Perplexity but because their self-serve tools are so good, never needed to speak to a human. Outside of tech, Frive has impressed me, they’re a food delivery service. Whenever there’s been an issue, they’ve reached out and resolved it before my delivery arrived. That’s the stuff that stands out to me.