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Hey Amy - I just read your travel post. How do you guys handle support while you're both on the road? Do you just make it clear to customers that there's a mu

Hey Amy - I just read your travel post. How do you guys handle support while you're both on the road? Do you just make it clear to customers that there's a multi-day response time, or do you hire temporary support staff?

WadeF 15y ago
I'm interested in hearing about this too. Support can be one of the most time consuming parts of a web app. Maybe because your apps are simple they have less support requirements?
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  Ah! Good question. So, previously, we'd do support ourselves. It doesn't take more than 45 min - hour a day total, most days less. Part of why it's fast is we use our own custom-rolled tool (coming soon to a public launch near you: http://charmhq.com http://charmhq.com). This time, we have part-time help in the form of an international business major at a local university. She's not an expert on our app, BUT for hard q's, she'll just let the folks know we'll get back soon. Last summer, we had hired 2 full-time staff to do this and a variety of other things, but that was a major mistake for many reasons and we had to let them both go this fall (soooo stressful; now I am anti-hiring). The other reasons our support load is so fast/light: It's a mature product, without many bugs. If things do go wrong, it's a time tracking tool, not the end of the world. The UI of the product is really quite amazing, if I do say so myself; and that creates less confusion. The look & feel of the app, our name, our marketing materials, our philosophy, our feature set attract and groom a certain kind of customer who is much more friendly and laid-back than the average SaaS customer. We get a tenth of the angry emails of friends who have a similar number of customers. Finally, we ourselves are chill. Lots of folks with a business act as if the customer is a gunslinger shooting at their feet to make them dance. We do not. Early on in Freckle's life, we totally abandoned it for a month or two at a time, support included. Nothing terrible happened. I wouldn't do it again, but it puts it in perspective.

WadeF 15y ago

I'm interested in hearing about this too. Support can be one of the most time consuming parts of a web app. Maybe because your apps are simple they have less support requirements?

ahoyhere 15y ago
Ah! Good question. So, previously, we'd do support ourselves. It doesn't take more than 45 min - hour a day total, most days less. Part of why it's fast is we use our own custom-rolled tool (coming soon to a public launch near you: http://charmhq.com http://charmhq.com). This time, we have part-time help in the form of an international business major at a local university. She's not an expert on our app, BUT for hard q's, she'll just let the folks know we'll get back soon. Last summer, we had hired 2 full-time staff to do this and a variety of other things, but that was a major mistake for many reasons and we had to let them both go this fall (soooo stressful; now I am anti-hiring). The other reasons our support load is so fast/light: It's a mature product, without many bugs. If things do go wrong, it's a time tracking tool, not the end of the world. The UI of the product is really quite amazing, if I do say so myself; and that creates less confusion. The look & feel of the app, our name, our marketing materials, our philosophy, our feature set attract and groom a certain kind of customer who is much more friendly and laid-back than the average SaaS customer. We get a tenth of the angry emails of friends who have a similar number of customers. Finally, we ourselves are chill. Lots of folks with a business act as if the customer is a gunslinger shooting at their feet to make them dance. We do not. Early on in Freckle's life, we totally abandoned it for a month or two at a time, support included. Nothing terrible happened. I wouldn't do it again, but it puts it in perspective.