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Ask HN: Review my startup, SupportFu.com

20 points by veesahni ↗ HN
We believe current help desk solutions are bloated and unnecessarily complicated. So we built something better - SupportFu. An intuitive, simple and mostly invisible help desk. It helps teams manage their support tickets without forcing their users to log in and remember ticket numbers.

I think it's perfect for small teams who have outgrown their shared inbox.

http://www.supportfu.com

We're currently in private beta. Just mention HN in the signup comments to skip the the wait list ;)

21 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] thread
creativename
It looks great - very nicely designed, and I immediately understand the benefit. However, that landing page could do a better job having a call to action visible right away. I don't see anything until I scroll to the very bottom, and even then it's just a link to check out pricing.

Also, I don't see any information regarding how it actually integrates with my site (ie. how do users actually submit a ticket?)

veesahni
We've been experimenting with CTA flows. With a simple email form at the top, people signed but were non responsive when we reached out for feedback. The current flow gets us a lot less signups, but those who do signup are interested and motivated.

And good point about integration, it's not very clear from the site. For what it's worth, users send email to support@yourdomain.com which you forward to an address we provide at signup.

creativename
Ah, gotcha. Well good to hear you're testing to optimize your signups!

I'm not ready for a support product yet, but I'll definitely keep you guys in mind.

revorad
This is really well done. After reading everything, the big question in my mind is how does this work? After signing up, what's the first step I need to take to get going? Please show me that process before asking me to sign up. A video would be great, but screenshots are also enough.

I say this because apart from the dollar price, the biggest cost to me is my time and effort to switch. You do a good job of conveying that Supportfu will probably make my life easier once I've started using it, but I want to know what it will take to get there.

veesahni
We've tried to minimize friction to make the signup process simple

Step 1. Sign Up

Step 2. Forward your support email address to an address we provide

Step 3. Invite your team

At this point, you are up and going. You can then customize signatures, tweak your notification preferences, setup your tags, etc..

revorad
That's great. You should put that step 2 text somewhere either on the homepage or on the sign up page.

You might also want to put a sign up button on the homepage. Right now, there's no direct link to sign up on that page and it's not obvious that it must be on the pricing page.

knes
You should put those 3 steps on to your website. It shows how easy to setup your service is.
veesahni
With the feedback we received, we do plan to update the pre-signup pages to include some details on the ease of signup.
ScottWhigham
Looks great - like how you've laid it all out. I'm interested in a replacement for ZenDesk but just FYI: for us, if a system doesn't have an iPhone/iPad app, it just won't cut it. Not slagging on you - just telling you some of the feedback you'll likely hear from others.
veesahni
Thanks - mobile support is definitely on our list but there are a "few" things that we need to get done first :)
rnochumo
I recorded a user test for SupportFu on BetaPunch: http://www.betapunch.com/startups/view/267.

I set up the email forwarding and tested by sending an email to that account so it would appear as a ticket. But I never got the email into my supportfu account... Also i agree that there is no clear call to action on where / how to sign up.

Good luck to you!

veesahni
Hey Ross, looking at your video, I believe you missed setting up the forwarding address in gmail after clicking the confirmation link. If that were the case, then the email would never be forwarded by Google (and never make it into your SupportFu account). Thanks for taking the time to make the video and giving us feedback!
codegeek
I like the design. Neat. Coming from a large corporate environment, i cannot even start to tell how bad of help desk systems we have to use. Anyway, one thing that confuses me is a pricing tier with more than 3 options. May be you can combine it into 3: FREE, small business, large business (something like this).
edwinyzh
Apart from the good things:

1 - You should show more screenshots in the home page, e.g. what the 'submit a ticket' page look like?

2 - Don't use hand-writing style typefaces in the screenshots, that's difficult to read for none-native English speakers (me included).

3 - You might want to check out Freshdesk, I was planning to use it for LIVEditor (http://liveditor.com) after checked a handful online support services, but gave up because the performance (pages took near 10 seconds to load).

Just my 2 cents.

veesahni
Thanks for the feedback.

1. Your customers 'submit a ticket' by sending you an email, literally. We track threads internally.. A form widget to put on your site is in the works..

2. didn't think about that... thanks

3. You should try SupportFu - we've focussed on UI speed and frendliness :)

lexbryan
I would love to try the service. I don't have a company yet but I'm working as an engr. for a company that uses other help desk provider.

thanks.

vaske
clean and nice design, I like idea and realization! good work!