Sometimes, it's those who very much can that teach. In this episode of The Supportive Podcast, Help Scout’s Alison Groves reveals the approach to customer education that she's developed while delivering over 700 online classes.

Subscribe to The Supportive in your podcast player (or via Spotify and Apple Podcasts), or watch the full episode below. Every episode this season will also be on video, so please subscribe to the Help Scout YouTube channel for notifications if you prefer that mode.

In this episode, you’ll discover why customers crave real human interaction, how to overcome the fear of making mistakes, and practical steps for launching your own customer education program.

Some key moments

  • (00:30) Customer Education Lead role explained

  • (04:23) Favorite teachers and conversational learning 

  • (05:41) Overcoming the fear of being wrong

  • (08:15) Why people sign up for classes

  • (11:28) Live teaching versus email explanations

  • (16:13) When classes go off the rails

  • (18:32) Getting started with live teaching

  • (21:27) Adjusting for different audience sizes

  • (25:32) Measuring success in customer education

Too long, didn’t watch? Here’s your cheat sheet

  1. Embrace imperfection as connection: Making mistakes during live teaching actually builds trust and engagement with your audience. Admitting when you're wrong and following up with corrections shows humanity and genuine care, which customers value more than polished perfection.

  2. Start small and get your reps in: Confident live teaching begins with recording yourself delivering a session to no one. Practice builds competence, and competence builds confidence to handle real-time questions and unexpected situations.

  3. Human interaction becomes more valuable: As AI handles more routine support tasks, live teaching fills an irreplaceable need for human connection and contextual learning. Customers will increasingly crave real people who can adapt, empathize, and provide the nuanced understanding that technology cannot replicate.

Like what you see? Share with a friend.
Mathew Patterson
Mathew Patterson

A veteran support leader, Mat spent years teaching better online support at Help Scout before founding More Human Content. Subscribe to The Supportive or find him on LinkedIn.