How Appcues is rethinking customer support with AI (w/ Director of Support Ricky Perez)

Ricky Perez is the Director of Support at Appcues - a platform that helps product teams deliver better user onboarding and in-app experiences.

We spoke to Ricky about how AI is reshaping customer support, why he believes every support team should get more technical, and how AI can turn support into a proactive partner to engineering.

Here are the highlights!

Support should get more technical

Ricky’s north star is simple: the less non-engineering work you put in front of engineering, the faster the hard problems get fixed.

“Can we free up bandwidth from our engineering team so they have to worry about zero support issues?”

For him, that means making support more self-sufficient. Teams need to have the ability to debug, identify misconfigurations, and even fix small bugs on their own.

An autonomous support team gives engineers their time back: to focus on harder technical problems and ship new features.

But that’s not the only benefit of having a technical support team. When certain issues do need to be handed off to the engineering team, these handoffs become way more efficient.

When a customer reports “my flow isn’t working,” the support team already knows which flow, which settings, and which users are affected - complete with session replay and event logs.

That context means support can hand engineers a near-ready diagnosis: bug vs. misconfiguration vs. feature request. Engineering spends less time reproducing issues, and support spends less time waiting.

Where AI helps today

According to Ricky, there are three high-impact areas where AI already adds value:

1. Summarization: Long ticket threads can overwhelm new responders. A first-pass AI summary helps humans see what’s happening faster.
2. Triage. AI can identify which tickets belong to support, engineering, or product - cutting down on misrouted issues.
3. Deflection. Thoughtful, context-aware auto-replies that handle the top 20% of common requests let the team focus on deeper investigations.

What AI shouldn’t do, Ricky argues, is replace humans in escalations. “If a customer is angry or stuck, they want to be heard.” AI can route and prep the case, but escalations still require a level of patience and empathy that only a human can provide.

AI helps support teams be proactive instead of reactive

Ricky believes the real promise of AI is stopping tickets before they’re created.

Appcues recently launched Captain, an in-app insights agent that surfaces configuration issues and product usage patterns. The long-term goal is to have Captain flag broken or unseen experiences before a user ever files a ticket.

In Ricky’s words: “Stop the spark before it becomes a fire.”

By combining in-product telemetry with AI alerts, the team can turn support from a reactive function into a proactive one that prevents frustration rather than just resolving it.

Ricky’s hiring philosophy: empathy first, tech second

AI is lowering the barrier to entry for technical work. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Lovable make it easier for anyone in support to learn CSS, SQL, or API debugging.

That’s why Ricky hires first for empathy and curiosity, not credential: “If you pass the vibe check, we can teach you the tech.”

The mix he’s after: emotionally intelligent communicators who love solving puzzles, and are comfortable using AI to learn new technical skills on the job.

Actionable takeaways for support leaders

• Level up technical depth. Teach team members basic debugging and log analysis; create a “support engineering” path. It's easier than ever before.
• Choose AI-capable tooling. Your help desk is now a platform for automation - pick one that supports experimentation.
• Automate the first mile. Summaries, triage, and deflection save time, but humans handle escalations.
• Go proactive. Use product telemetry and AI alerts to fix misconfigurations before tickets are submitted.
• Package context for engineering. Auto-generate reproduction steps and clear categorization (bug, config, feature) and save your engineers’ time.
• Hire for curiosity. AI closes the skills gap, but empathy and problem-solving still win.

Support is evolving fast: from a reactive function to a technical, proactive partner that keeps engineering focused and customers happy. Ricky’s approach to this shift aligns with many other support leaders we’ve spoken to for this series: hire curious and empathetic humans, and use AI to empower them.