Welcome to The New Stack Makers: Scaling New Heights, a series of interviews, conducted by Scalyr CEO Christine Heckart, that cover the challenges engineering managers have faced when scaling architectures to support the demands of the business.

Roadside service. The car breaks down, the driver makes a call, an agent answers and help is on the way.

Turn to the past few years and the agent is no longer central to the experience. The app is the roadside assistant. The change in the market has turned a company like Agero from a B2B company into one that deals directly with the consumer.

Bernie Gracy is chief digital officer for Agero, a white label roadside assistance platform that provides support for 12 million roadside events per year through its digital assistance platform.

Agero built its business on empathy as a foundation for its service. Its empathetic agents were tasked with getting travelers through often stressful experiences. Moving to a digital experience put a load on the platform that could not be sustained.