Why do we need support?  

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Perhaps because it is a path that shortens our paths to possible unusual solutions, or because it sheds light on something hitherto unknown, thrown into the dark - a more self-centered look, which takes into account only the resolution of personal problems.

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Or maybe it's because a part of us, greater than many would like to admit, accepts that it's not possible to go on this alone (read this as any path that life can throw us into). We are human, vulnerable, galaxies far from having all the answers. We need networks, support, connection, maintenance. After all, we are social beings - our need for each other is greater than we are aware of.  

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When we approach this theme from a more reflective and, dare I say, philosophical perspective, its relationship with Customer Support seems distant. However, everything forms a tangle of symbiotic connections.

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Support are support networks

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Contemporaneity holds a singular dichotomy: we have never been so connected and immersed in information flows, at the same time that we have never been so lonely and depressed. 2020 data from the WHO tells us that 4.4% of the global population, or 322 million people, suffer from depression - 18% higher than a decade ago. In this scenario, it is not surprising to come to the conclusion that we are increasingly looking for human connections, however ephemeral, to help us navigate the complexity and volatility of today's world.  

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Customer Support not only plays the role of solving problems, but of meeting the sometimes unconscious but latent needs of a considerable portion of consumers. In this line of reasoning, the more strategic position that this area has been gaining within organizations becomes more intelligible, when we take into account the experience, a complex competitive differential, difficult to replicate and with a fragile frame, in which only one negative experience can overlap the others positive. When we understand the hidden powers of Support, we also gain a new look and insight into their role, which goes beyond the pragmatic act of offering a solution to a problem, known or unknown.

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Support shows us that we are not alone

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It's counterintuitive to think about loneliness at a time when we've never been so connected and accessible. But part of the connection that is served to us through screens, now so ubiquitous, with their sometimes toxic social networks, gives us a false sense that this interaction is enough for us - we can react to something, take a liking to something else and move on with life, disconnected from others offline. As we have noticed, a collective feeling boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this is far from the truth.  

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Support's subjective role goes beyond the obvious role of help. He comforts us with the experience that we are not alone when the individual is no longer enough - we have support, we have an alternative path that we can take that will lead to the solution of what ails us. And we don't need to get into complex, seemingly illogical, and unintuitively solving issues. Support does not discriminate requests for their complexity. Any questions are welcome. Any questions are accepted. Any question has a solution and is answered.

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Support is a state of vulnerability

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In the seemingly aseptic world we live in today, where meticulously crafted perfectionism challenges perceptions and anxieties about our own decisions and lives, we run against the imperfect, even though imperfection is intrinsic to nature - it is in this state where we grow and we evolved, learning from mistakes and accepting that we are, in fact, vulnerable beings.

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"Vulnerability is defined as something uncertain, risky and that exposes you emotionally. But, in fact, it is positive. It is from it that important emotions are born that we experience as humans, such as love. This is the basis for having courage. world full of complex problems and endless possibilities, we need courageous leaders, a culture of courage. And we will only get there when we accept and use our vulnerability. The human being is vulnerable. There is no person who has never experienced emotions like having uncertainty, feeling who is at risk and afraid of exposure."

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Brené Brown, in an interview with Tpm magazine (09/03/2019)

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Seeking support exposes us to our own vulnerability, reminds us that we are humans, not machines. Whether we arrive at the solution through the direct support of third parties, whether we arrive through more self-taught or autonomous paths, the product of this search is, invariably, the absorption of something new - a knowledge that we would not have if we continued to build walls, high and insurmountable, to any feeling that distances us from the utopia of the perfect.

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Support for social beings

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As much as we continue to extend our human limitations through electronic devices such as smartphones and their respective multifunctionalities, making us smarter, with almost immediate internet searches, more autonomous, with mobile data and GPS networks, and more connected, with social networks, there is something that technology itself cannot fulfill in our existence as an organic being: the ever-present need to socialize with each other.

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We lack the support that can be accessed only through contact with similar beings, who share our pains, experiences and victories. Who understand our difficulties, our despairs. And that, out of empathy, compassion, or for simple purpose, they seek to mitigate or eliminate them. Support is one of the fundamental foundations for our evolution as a species. The concept of cooperation, sharing, allows us to learn from our peers, overcoming obstacles and building a large base of collective knowledge, which becomes the fuel for us to find new problems and doubts eager for solutions. Being social, therefore, does not meet only a personal need, but the whole to which we belong.

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bear after all

In this way, the action of seeking and offering support is something that is much more connected to our core, to our human nature, than we are aware of. Any interaction or experience we have in the search for a solution to a problem in this way, whether with the support of third parties or autonomously, contributes to the construction and strengthening of the collective. As individualistic as the problem may seem, in some way its solution will ease the way to others with the same or similar problem.

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Support reminds us that we are human, fragile, lacking in universal knowledge and lacking in interactions. It is an act of enduring the knowledge that we don't have the answers for everything - we are imperfect and incomplete. As problematic as it can be, it validates, time after time, with each interaction, that, yes, we need Support.

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We have a provocation to do on the next Pico .