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Ask HN: What kind of support do you offer for your web app?

6 points by nolanbrown23 ↗ HN
Recently I've been taking a look about how to cut down on support emails and I asked myself what would be the best way to provide self-service support to my customers. Right now I just have a simple FAQ and that's it other then email and our phone number. I've looked at detailed FAQs, Forums, support via phone/email/chat, and I really like Tender (http://tenderapp.com/) from entp but don't know which one would be best.

What I want to know is what kind of direct support do you offer your customers (i.e. email, phone, chat) and what kind of self-service support do you offer?

3 comments

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pclark
I use zendesk for direct support and get satisfaction for everything else. My email, telephone and skype are on all emails sent from me and I openly encourage users to contact me however for help.

I think the key to support is to be lightening quick. If its taken over 4 hours you're failing

mmohan
We are looking at Zendesk. Heard good things about it and think it might just be the ticket. I have used the "Free" version, but the $19/month one agent might work for us instead. You get the flexibility of your own email address (your domain).
patio11
I mostly sell downloadable software but as of a week ago it is a web application if you squint at it.

Support is via email, and my general promise about it is "I do my level best to get back to you within 24 hours", which I achieve with approximately 98% regularity. (My price point just doesn't support phone calls. Happily I'm overseas from most of my customers, which is a great way to convince them to play ball on that issue.)

I love talking to customers but I hate doing support, because that means someone is having a less than optimal experience. Well, two someones, since writing email is no more optimal use of my time than waiting for my email is optimal use of theirs.

Accordingly, I spend a lot of time stopping support incidents before they start. This means writing and rewriting and re-re-rewriting copy in the web and application to be more comprehensible, illustrating things with pictures, and providing people with self-help options.

Example: a fairly key issue with downloadable software is getting people their registration key. It gets emailed when they purchase. But some people don't get it (spam filters, customer error, etc). So I displayed it after checkout, with instructions on what to do. But some people won't get it (failure to click through to last page, customer error, Internet failures, etc). So I provided instructions before the event (to check the spam folder) and provided a registration key lookup feature. I also made the app sniff registration keys off of the clipboard, which squashes many copy/paste issues before they start. (There are NUMEROUS ways for an unsophisticated user to fail at copy/paste.)

I keep categorized records of what causes issues and how many I get. (I worked in Customer Support a long time ago, and old habits die hard.) Relative to the number of sales, its down about 90% compared to my first year in business. I still have lots of room for improvement -- I'm thinking of a way to totally eliminate registration key entry for most users in the next version, for example. (It is fairly easy after you have web connectivity baked in.)