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The CEO’s Guide to Arbitrating the Support vs. Engineering Battle

manager listening to a debate between two employees

By Grant Stanis, TeamSupport CEO

If you run a B2B SaaS company, this argument will show up on your radar sooner or later: your head of support says engineering isn’t fixing high-impact bugs fast enough, and your CTO says support is overreacting to edge cases. Both are correct — from their vantage points.

However, your role in B2B leadership is to cut through the tension, get to the facts, and make a clear, defensible decision that balances customer value, product health, and the long-term cost of tech debt. 

McKinsey research shows that technical debt often represents 20–40% of the value of a company’s entire technology estate, and ignoring it can stall major initiatives. On the flip side, unresolved issues are one of the top reasons customers churn in SaaS — one analysis found accounts with support tickets unresolved for more than 30 days are significantly more likely to churn, while another company reduced churn by ~15% simply by targeting those accounts.

Here’s a practical, four-step framework you can use the next time this lands on your desk.

Read more: Software for Reducing Churn and Improving Customer Retention

1) Gather the right data — fast, not fuzzy

Start by collecting focused facts from each side. Don’t settle for anecdotes.

From Support (what to ask for):

  • Number of customers affected and which accounts they are.
  • ARR / revenue tied to those customers.
    Frequency: is this a one-off or recurring complaint?
  • Customer sentiment and risk: are customers threatening churn or downgrades?

From Engineering (what to ask for):

  • Scope: what part of the codebase is involved?
  • Estimated effort: is it a quick patch or a multi-sprint refactor?
    Risk: what could break if we patch or delay?
    Relation to tech debt: is this symptomatic of deeper architecture issues?

The goal: a shared information set you can compare apples-to-apples.

This approach is backed by research—Applied Sciences found that SaaS companies using data-driven decision support models (such as usage and subscription analytics) are far better at predicting churn and prioritizing fixes that matter to customers.

2) Translate technical facts into customer impact

Engineers often speak in code and complexity, while support leaders speak in business outcomes. Your job is to speak both languages.

Ask the team to frame the issue from the customer’s point of view:

  • Will this break a customer’s business process or reporting? (If so, urgency is high.)
  • Can customers work around it with a documented temporary process? (If so, the fix may be deprioritized.)
  • Will a delay materially increase churn risk or loss of upsell opportunity?

This matters because unresolved bugs are proven churn drivers. Studies consistently show that product glitches and downtime are among the most common reasons SaaS customers leave. That translation step helps you avoid prioritizing purely emotional responses — but it also prevents you from dismissing a valid pain point as a “mere annoyance.”

3) Push back on assumptions — look for pragmatic tradeoffs

Neither side should get a free pass.

To Engineering, ask:

  • Is the estimate conservative because of roadmap pressures?
  • Is there a pragmatic, lower-risk mitigation you can deploy immediately (feature flag, temporary UI messaging, partial rollback)?
  • How will delaying this increase tech debt or future cost?

To Support, ask:

  • Are you presenting a customer pain point as a churn risk or as an annoyance? Be specific.
  • Can you live with a documented workaround and commit to a follow-up timeline?

As a CEO, press for creative compromises: short-term mitigation today, while scheduling a proper engineering fix on a clear timeline.

This matters because temporary fixes carry real costs. A recent study on SaaS architecture found that the cost of remediating technical debt increases by roughly 7.5% for every month it is delayed. What feels like a small “push” into the next sprint can snowball into strategic drag on the entire roadmap. But the same is true on the customer side — letting bugs fester beyond 30 days measurably increases churn risk. The balance you strike here determines both product velocity and customer retention.

4) Make the judgment call — and own it

After you’ve gathered facts and tested assumptions, decide. That’s why you’re in the seat.

Decision principles for B2B SaaS leaders:

  • Prioritize work that meaningfully protects revenue, reduces churn, or removes blockers to major customers. (Remember: the average “good” churn rate in SaaS is just 3–5% monthly — every point above that compounds into real revenue loss.)
  • Avoid letting one large customer’s non-core asks derail the product roadmap. If a single customer’s needs are incompatible, consider whether that customer is an ideal fit.
  • Watch tech debt: repeated “temporary fixes” compound cost and slow innovation. Industry surveys show that over two-thirds of IT leaders believe tech debt limits innovation, while a majority say it directly hurts performance.
  • Be decisive. Ambiguity kills momentum; clear decisions enable teams to execute.

Close the loop — explain the “why” and measure results

How you communicate the decision matters as much as the decision itself.

Tell both leaders:

  • The facts you used.
    The tradeoffs you considered.
  • The concrete next steps (who does what, by when).
  • How you’ll measure success (CSAT, churn, bug recurrence, time to resolution, and how this impacts your tech debt backlog).

A short template you can use:

“Thanks — we reviewed the data from Support and Engineering. We’re going to [action], because [business reason]. Engineering will implement [mitigation/fix] by [date]. We’ll measure impact via [metric]. If we see [trigger], we’ll escalate.”

That transparency builds trust and creates a repeatable process for the next conflict.

A final note on tech debt and B2B leadership

Tech debt isn’t a moral failing — it’s a strategic choice. As B2B leadership, you must budget for it. If you always prioritize new features over foundational fixes, tech debt grows and your velocity drops. If you always prioritize bug fixes, you risk falling behind competitively.

Research warns that ignoring tech debt creates a vicious cycle — every sprint slowed by yesterday’s shortcuts. At the same time, SaaS retention research is clear: bugs, glitches, and unresolved tickets drive churn faster than almost any other factor. Even early-stage SaaS companies struggle with debt and churn, but those who treat both as business decisions (rather than just engineering or support complaints) are better positioned for long-term growth.

The best CEOs strike a deliberate balance: protect revenue and customers today, while investing in the codebase health that enables tomorrow’s growth. When you follow a data-driven, empathetic process, you turn the support vs. engineering battle from a recurring crisis into a structured decision that strengthens your product and your team.

That’s good leadership — and good business — for any B2B SaaS company.

For more B2B SaaS leadership insights, check out our full blog series by TeamSupport CEO Grant Stanis.

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