I eschew 'reaching out'. It can be replaced by more honest and/or accurate terms. The big problem is that it is part of the problem - people that use this phrase tend to use other occluding language. And people that speak or write that way - as per TFA - tend to do it a lot.

Btw, 'intending to help' I don't think is implied. Naturally you may 'reach out' to provide or offer assistance, but in a business context there should be a business driver for doing the actual contact thing, and then you can choose to specify the context or not.