Scaling a SaaS business means more customers, more complexity, and ultimately, a bigger support team. But while scaling your support headcount is important, building a leadership pipeline is what ensures long-term success.
A well-structured SaaS support team isn't just a help desk—it's a breeding ground for future leaders. One visionary manager, Mark Johnson, Head of Customer Support at a fast-growing SaaS startup, shows us how to do it right.
Why a Leadership Pipeline Matters
Hiring great managers from the outside can work, but promoting from within creates:
Higher team morale: When team members see that hard work, collaboration, and skill development lead to real career growth, they become more engaged and motivated. Promotions from within signal that the company values loyalty and performance, not just resumes. This creates a culture of ownership and ambition.
Faster onboarding to leadership roles: Promoting from within drastically reduces ramp-up time. Internal candidates already:
Understand the product and its functionality
Know the customers and pain points.
Are aligned with internal tools, systems, and workflows
Have built rapport across teams like Product, Engineering, and CS
Continuity in processes and culture: Bringing in external managers can unintentionally disrupt workflows or team dynamics. But when leaders rise from within, they carry forward the best parts of existing processes, while still being motivated to improve them. They also uphold and evolve the team’s cultural norms—whether it's how the team collaborates, how knowledge is shared, or how customer empathy is practiced. Internal leaders understand the team’s "unwritten rules" and can lead change with more buy-in and empathy.
Improved retention and loyalty: One of the biggest reasons great support agents leave is a lack of growth opportunities. A visible leadership pipeline changes that. When agents see a path from L1 to L3—and beyond—they’re more likely to stay, learn, and contribute. They don’t need to look elsewhere for advancement. Instead, they double down on their growth internally.
The 3-Tier Support Structure & Leadership Growth Strategy
Tier 1 (T1): The Foundation – Support Associates
Role: Handle high-volume, low-complexity tasks like password resets, usage questions, and basic product navigation.
Goal: Identify team players with a growth mindset and a hunger to learn.
Example:
Ronnie joined the support team fresh out of college. Within his first 3 months, what did he?
Built internal documentation to help new T1s ramp faster: When Ronnie joined the support team, he noticed that while training covered the basics, many new L1 agents felt overwhelmed by the volume of edge cases and recurring customer questions that weren’t in the official onboarding playbook.
Instead of just working around the issue, Ronnie took initiative and started building internal resources that became key onboarding assets.
What he Created:
“Top 20 Common Tickets” Guide: A searchable Doc in Support CRM that included:
Step-by-step instructions for handling tickets like:
“I forgot my password, and I’m not getting the reset email”
“How can I upgrade my subscription mid-cycle?”
“Tasks I created aren’t showing up in my team’s view”
Screenshots from the platform and admin panel
Links to related CRM macros or help center articles
Notes on how to personalize replies to different customer segments
Troubleshooting Cheat Sheet: Ronnie compiled quick diagnostic steps to help T1s quickly resolve issues or know when to escalate:
“If a user reports data missing → Check user filters and permissions before escalating to Product”
“If loading error on dashboard → Confirm browser version, clear cache, then retry.”
Live Chat Tone & Voice Tips: A Slack-pinned doc with tone guidelines for new agents:
“Always empathize before you solve” (e.g., ‘I totally understand how frustrating that must be.’)
“Use plain language. Avoid internal jargon.”
“Close every chat with a clear confirmation and a friendly sign-off.”
“What I Wish I Knew in Week 1” Notion Page: Ronnnie created a Notion board where new hires could find:
Time-saving keyboard shortcuts for CRM
Common internal Slack channels (like #triage, #product-qa)
Tips on staying organized during ticket surges
Volunteered to join product onboarding calls:
While it wasn’t a standard responsibility for a T1 agent, Ronnie expressed a keen interest in understanding the customer journey beyond support tickets. He asked his manager if he could sit in on a few onboarding calls run by the Customer Success (CS) team, especially for new SMB clients.
His goal? To learn what customers were being taught in the first 30 days and identify disconnects between onboarding and support.
What She Did During These Calls:
Shadowed 4 live onboarding calls with a CS Manager over two weeks
Took detailed notes on:
Common questions customers asked early on (e.g., “Can I customize my dashboard?”)
Where they seemed confused despite explanations
Which product features got strong reactions, positive or negative
Created a feedback doc summarizing her findings and shared it with the support and CS leads
- What he observed:
Recurring Confusion About Permissions
Many users didn't understand role-based access and assumed all users had the same rights in the system. As a result, L1 support frequently got tickets like:“Why can’t my teammate see the task I created?”
“Why can’t I update the billing details?
Note: Ronnie proposed a pre-written support macro explaining permissions with visuals and included it in the welcome email sequence.
Onboarding Gaps for Self-Serve Clients
For smaller accounts, there were no live onboarding calls—only videos. Priya noticed that most support tickets from these users were about setup steps covered in onboarding.
Note: He suggested adding a “Setup Checklist” link in the app’s dashboard for new users. The CS and Product team implemented a light in-app guide based on her suggestion.
Misalignment in Terminology
Customers were hearing one term during onboarding (“custom workflows”) but seeing another in the app (“automation rules”). This led to unnecessary support questions.
Note: Ronnie flagged this to both the Product and Support documentation teams, prompting a UI text update for consistency.
Frequently helped teammates with tricky tickets: While Ronnie was officially focused on handling her own ticket queue, he often carved out time to support his fellow T1 agents, especially during peak hours or when someone was stuck on a complex issue. This proactive behaviour wasn’t assigned—it came from his team-first mindset and her growing confidence in product knowledge.
1. Debugging a Repeating Notification Bug
Scenario:
A new T1 agent, Miguel, was dealing with a ticket where a user was receiving duplicate notifications for the same task updates. The issue wasn’t documented, and Miguel had trouble replicating it.
What Ronnie Did:
Jumped into a sandbox environment to test task notification triggers
Discovered it only happened when a task was reassigned and marked urgent in a specific sequence
Suggested a temporary workaround to the customer and flagged the issue in the #product-qa Slack channel
Documented the bug pattern and shared it in the internal support wiki for future reference
Impact: Helped resolve the ticket quickly and turned a mystery issue into a documented known bug, saving hours of future confusion.
2. Coaching on Tone for a Frustrated VIP User
Scenario:
A teammate was unsure how to respond to an irate VIP user who felt they weren’t being heard about a recurring sync error.
What Ronnie Did:
Suggested reframing the response to lead with empathy:
“You’re absolutely right to be frustrated—this issue has gone unresolved longer than we’d like.”Helped write a response that reassured the customer, acknowledged the delay, and gave a real timeline
Advised the teammate to add a calendar follow-up reminder to check back with the user even before the engineering fix was due
Impact:
The user appreciated the transparency and stayed calm, preventing an escalation to management. The teammate later used Ronnie's approach as a template.
3. Sharing Slack Snippets for Complex Macros
Scenario:
During a busy afternoon, several T1s were handling tickets related to account migration—a rarely used process with a confusing internal tool.
What Ronnie Did:
Shared a Slack snippet with:
Exact steps to initiate the migration
Screenshots from the admin panel
A link to a hidden admin tool and instructions on what not to touch
Added a line about following up with the Product team if a specific error code appeared
Impact:
Prevented multiple escalations, shortened resolution time, and reduced the stress of several new T1s facing an unfamiliar issue.
Mark noticed his curiosity, initiative, and communication skills. He began assigning him T2 shadow tasks, such as assisting on more technical tickets or co-hosting user training sessions.
Leadership move: Ronnie became the go-to peer coach for new hires and a prime candidate for T2 promotion.
Tier 2 (T2): The Core – Support Specialists
Role: Solve technical issues, manage escalations, and liaise with product/engineering teams. They also train and guide T1s.
Goal: Spot agents who can balance problem-solving with mentoring and process ownership.
Example:
After his promotion, Ronnie grew into a stellar T2, and he took care of the following activities
Built automated workflows under the supervision of the support head to reduce ticket routing errors
Created a feedback loop with Product to surface recurring bugs
Trained five new T1 agents over two quarters
He showed signs of strategic thinking and team development skills—key traits for leadership.
Leadership move: Ronnie was given a quarterly project: redesigning the onboarding process for new support hires. It gave her exposure to cross-functional collaboration and project ownership, preparing her for T3.
Tier 3 (T3): The Leadership Track – Senior Support / Escalation Leads
Role: Own top-tier issues (e.g., enterprise outages, billing conflicts), handle VIP accounts, and lead process improvement or knowledge initiatives.
Goal: Groom these agents into future Team Leads, Support Managers, or Operations Leads.
Example:
Mark promoted another L2, Jason, into T3 when a senior agent moved to a product role. Jason:
Took full ownership of QBRs with top clients
Implemented a new triage workflow with Engineering, reducing incident response times by 20%
Mentored a group of three T2s, helping two of them prepare for T3 readiness
Leadership move: Jason became Team Lead for Strategic Support, managing a team of five and working closely with the Customer Support & Success Manager to improve support metrics and customer retention.
The Backup Culture: Always One Step Ahead
Mark’s principle: Always have a ready successor at each level.
“When a Tier 2 leaves, a T1 should already be capable of stepping up. When an T3 leaves, a T2 should be promotion-ready.
By intentionally investing in growth at each level, SaaS support leaders like Mark Johnson create not just a support team but a leadership engine that drives the company forward.
If you're a support leader looking to enhance your skills and build a successful support center like Mark Johson, consider these top Udemy courses:
Customer Support Team Leader Mastery Certification
Customer Support Business Planning
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