5 ms·

Automating Customer Service at a Startup

36 points by tomblomfield 15y ago

freejack 15y ago
I was surprised to see that you are using the native Zendesk chat and feedback. I think you mentioned you are on the $24/mos plan? I'm pretty sure this feature is included. In my experience, the simpler the deployment, the easier it is to focus on what really matters - in this case, providing great customer service. You could easily do away with the third party chat tool and save a few bucks and eliminate any costs associated with supporting the integration. just a thought... :)
kylemaxwell 15y ago
I found the title a little misleading. You're not automating customer service - which is almost always a terrible idea, particularly for small companies - but looking for ways to make yourself available to customers. The answers and service still come from humans, and that's exactly as it should be.
- tomblomfield 15y ago
  Yeah - fair point. I think I meant automating everything around the edges of the actual conversation - from transferring calls to the most appropriate person to collecting metrics to drive NPD.
  - andrewthornton 15y ago
    Can you expand on Olark's "Discounts for startups"? I didn't see anything specific on their site, but this service looks really cool.
dsr_ 15y ago
Directing calls to a SIP client -- softphone or hardphone -- ought to be much cheaper, on the order of free to 3 cents/minute depending on how you arrange it.
davidw 15y ago
Twilio has a gaping gap in their service: there should be some very simple/easy out of the box solutions like "voice mail system" that you can then hook into with your own custom stuff. Not simple as in hack together a bit of PHP, simple as in click a few things on a web page. As a small business, I really need a simple voicemail system, but don't need their programmable stuff. Yet. But it's cool enough that I suppose I'd go for them over others just to have it available if I want it in the future, if I got the simple voicemail system for a reasonable price. I also tried Grasshopper, but their site barfed on my (very standard, plain) credit card.
- edash 15y ago
  This is the goal of OpenVBX. It's not as simple as a few clicks, but it is as simple as Wordpress.org circa 2006.
- tomblomfield 15y ago
  I agree - I implemented it using Ruby, Sinatra & TwiML [1], but it should be a couple of clicks on Twilio. Come to think of it, they should really have some simple "If-this-then-that" style rules that non-developers could choose to implement a really simple IVR system. "If it's between 9am and 5pm GMT, then call 077xxxxxx" "If no-one picks up, then call 077xxx" "Else leave a voicemail". Why do I have to support a sinatra app to host some static TwiML? 1 - http://tomblomfield.com/post/17571449233/home-brew-customer-phone-support http://tomblomfield.com/post/17571449233/home-brew-customer-...
  - tomblomfield 15y ago
    Maybe someone should provide this as a service on top of Twilio...?
    - davidw 15y ago
      And get the carpet pulled out from under them if Twilio ever decides to do it?

36 points by tomblomfield 15y ago

I was surprised to see that you are using the native Zendesk chat and feedback. I think you mentioned you are on the $24/mos plan? I'm pretty sure this feature is included. In my experience, the simpler the deployment, the easier it is to focus on what really matters - in this case, providing great customer service. You could easily do away with the third party chat tool and save a few bucks and eliminate any costs associated with supporting the integration. just a thought... :)

kylemaxwell 15y ago

I found the title a little misleading. You're not automating customer service - which is almost always a terrible idea, particularly for small companies - but looking for ways to make yourself available to customers. The answers and service still come from humans, and that's exactly as it should be.

tomblomfield 15y ago
Yeah - fair point. I think I meant automating everything around the edges of the actual conversation - from transferring calls to the most appropriate person to collecting metrics to drive NPD.
- andrewthornton 15y ago
  Can you expand on Olark's "Discounts for startups"? I didn't see anything specific on their site, but this service looks really cool.

dsr_ 15y ago

Directing calls to a SIP client -- softphone or hardphone -- ought to be much cheaper, on the order of free to 3 cents/minute depending on how you arrange it.

davidw 15y ago

Twilio has a gaping gap in their service: there should be some very simple/easy out of the box solutions like "voice mail system" that you can then hook into with your own custom stuff. Not simple as in hack together a bit of PHP, simple as in click a few things on a web page. As a small business, I really need a simple voicemail system, but don't need their programmable stuff. Yet. But it's cool enough that I suppose I'd go for them over others just to have it available if I want it in the future, if I got the simple voicemail system for a reasonable price. I also tried Grasshopper, but their site barfed on my (very standard, plain) credit card.

edash 15y ago
This is the goal of OpenVBX. It's not as simple as a few clicks, but it is as simple as Wordpress.org circa 2006.
tomblomfield 15y ago
I agree - I implemented it using Ruby, Sinatra & TwiML [1], but it should be a couple of clicks on Twilio. Come to think of it, they should really have some simple "If-this-then-that" style rules that non-developers could choose to implement a really simple IVR system. "If it's between 9am and 5pm GMT, then call 077xxxxxx" "If no-one picks up, then call 077xxx" "Else leave a voicemail". Why do I have to support a sinatra app to host some static TwiML? 1 - http://tomblomfield.com/post/17571449233/home-brew-customer-phone-support http://tomblomfield.com/post/17571449233/home-brew-customer-...
- tomblomfield 15y ago
  Maybe someone should provide this as a service on top of Twilio...?
  - davidw 15y ago
    And get the carpet pulled out from under them if Twilio ever decides to do it?