I worked tech support for years and completely agree with that statement. I work in test automation these days and try to meet regularly with support to figure out what usage patterns are like and what pain points people are actually having in the field. My current company is too small to have a dedicated support team so I just get all the emails for the engineering team, but as we grow I plan on implementing something similar. Good support people are worth their weight in gold and I feel like they get dismissed too often in the field. It seems like that's starting to change though as I see better pay at startups for support positions.

It's good to hear startups care, although my experience from company to company is support is largely seen / treated as an expense. Lots of talk about support, but the quality of leadership and resources tell another story in my experience.

That is partly why I changed careers.