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We (two developers) offer chat support via Intercom. When an issue gets sufficiently complicated, we fire up a video call and screenshare. We find this works gr

We (two developers) offer chat support via Intercom. When an issue gets sufficiently complicated, we fire up a video call and screenshare. We find this works great. Maybe there's a cultural difference in Japan, but I think this is much better than phone support. There's a much lower barrier to sending a chat message than making a phone call, plus the communication is semi-asynchronous.

Aachen 5y ago
For those not already familiar, what is intercom? Is it like Jitsi?
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Intercom.io. They were a darling of HN for a while, combining chat and email (not video) into a single support stream. They've upped their prices quite a bit, but also expanded the product offering quite a bit. I've used them for many years at multiple companies and I'm still pretty happy. Dunno if there is something better in the market.
  - Aachen 5y ago
    > combining chat and email Oh it's one of those contact forms disguised as chat systems? Those are such a pain, website offering oh to talk to someone and then "responds in 49 minutes on average, you will be notified via email". But then GGP mentioned a screen share, does that work via a third party then?
    - stickfigure 5y ago
      Yes, that's probably it. The customer experience depends on whether you (support) are in front of the computer. If you're not available, phone support means leaving a voicemail and playing callback phone tag across worldwide time zones. I'll take the chat window please. A nice thing about chat is that it's easy to send and receive screenshots and links. Our customers seem to be pretty happy, but that probably has most to do with the quality of support. I'm the GGP, and yeah video is a different app. I use whereby.com (formerly appear.in) out of habit, but probably will move to Jitsi soon. It would be nice if this was integrated into intercom.

Aachen 5y ago

For those not already familiar, what is intercom? Is it like Jitsi?

stickfigure 5y ago
Intercom.io. They were a darling of HN for a while, combining chat and email (not video) into a single support stream. They've upped their prices quite a bit, but also expanded the product offering quite a bit. I've used them for many years at multiple companies and I'm still pretty happy. Dunno if there is something better in the market.
- Aachen 5y ago
  > combining chat and email Oh it's one of those contact forms disguised as chat systems? Those are such a pain, website offering oh to talk to someone and then "responds in 49 minutes on average, you will be notified via email". But then GGP mentioned a screen share, does that work via a third party then?
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    Yes, that's probably it. The customer experience depends on whether you (support) are in front of the computer. If you're not available, phone support means leaving a voicemail and playing callback phone tag across worldwide time zones. I'll take the chat window please. A nice thing about chat is that it's easy to send and receive screenshots and links. Our customers seem to be pretty happy, but that probably has most to do with the quality of support. I'm the GGP, and yeah video is a different app. I use whereby.com (formerly appear.in) out of habit, but probably will move to Jitsi soon. It would be nice if this was integrated into intercom.