5 ms·

Someone else posted last night (I'm on my phone or I would search for the post) about Stripe support. Looking at their Twitter stream it appears they are having

Someone else posted last night (I'm on my phone or I would search for the post) about Stripe support. Looking at their Twitter stream it appears they are having a very difficult time managing their support infrastructure and do not have a trouble ticket system. I love Stripe's API and have helped several clients integrate it, but as the developer-friendly, anti-PayPal processor they were once known for, this development is very discouraging. I know Patrick and John are active on here so hopefully they will see this and come up with a solution.

woodhull 11y ago
We've run into this as well. It's absurd that a company of their size has no support ticketing system. There have been occasions when we've had to rely on personal relationships with staff at Stripe to simply get an email response to our account questions. Engineering support is great and responsive through IRC but, stripe engineering staff there just shrug if you ask a business question.
- jeffmould 11y ago
  Their engineering support is incredible, and their API is well-documented and so easy to integrate. It is hard to believe that they can't spend a little more time focusing on customer support, especially as they continue to add new features and countries the problem is only going to increase. At least adding a public-facing ticketing system would pull some pressure off. I don't necessarily mind waiting for support, it is the not knowing if you even received my support request that can be frustrating at times, especially when there are real dollars at stake.
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    I think one thing that is not well understood is that Stripe has a "Freemium" model. Prior to Stripe nearly all other payment processors required a minimum monthly fee. Stripe's lack of any minimum monthly fee is something that makes it very attractive and undoubtedly helped partly fuel their rapid growth. It's a great example of how you can leverage VC funding to build a business. Having said that it must mean a staggering amount of support emails from customers in "production". That developer doing just 1 or 3 transactions a month at $100 each still feels as strongly about getting an issue resolved as someone doing $1 million or $10 million a month. I've always wondered what that was like to manage.
    - Aloha 11y ago
      I'd argue the processing fees do not make it freemium.
      - jusben1369 11y ago
        Yep. But even then you don't "pay" that fee (it's deducted and you get the net) and you don't have a set monthly fee. So there's no hard cost of setting up and maintaining a site with them.
        Aloha 11y ago
        No MRC (monthly reoccurring charge) on a service does not make it free, you're still paying for the service in a pay-per-use context.
        jusben1369 11y ago
        Yep but you're getting a little hung up on definitions and missing the larger point. Ie by proving that it's not a freemium model you're not really negating the central point which is that the barrier to entry is substantially lower (non existent) than with any/other competing services thus drawing in exponentially more users than similar services resulting in a disproportionate strain on their customer support vs others.
        Aloha 11y ago
        Oh, Agreed. Honestly, right or wrong - I've seen very few 'startups' really grok effective customer service (I realize I'm over generalizing). Yes, a good Knowledge Base/FAQ and ticketing/email system is important - but you need a phone number, you need a call center probably too (even if its only 2-5 people answering the phone) - you need more than email and ticketing - most technology is complex enough that you need a person to talk to over the phone to hold your customers hands - IMO - this is even doubled for anything that need to integrate with your systems or has a device on your premises, but is also applicable to a complex web service - I strongly believe it drives long term customer retention and eases on boarding. I'll point out as to why I believe this - outside of the technology hubs, the folks with money are not the 'internet native' generation, they're older and less comfortable with technology then we are.
  - jeffmould 11y ago
    If I were doing a high number of transactions and relying on Stripe to provide all my CC processing, I would gladly pay an extra $25-50 a month to have priority support in instances where there may be fraud. Shoot, even at a couple hundred in transactions each month I would gladly pay for priority support. I would rather have a $25 expense each month than risk business loss due to real or suspected fraud. Shoot at some level I might even consider an extra nickel per charge to have a dedicated account manager who was always there for me and knew my business inside and out.
    - JimmyL 11y ago
      If you're putting a lot of volume though Stripe, all those things are possible. Notwithstanding Stripe's SaaS-y "all pricing and deals are public" branding, they definitely have a BD team who can set you up with more direct contacts for certain types of questions, different rates than are publicly posted, and APIs that aren't public (to name a few things).
- wrong_internet 11y ago
  It should be pointed out that traditional merchant gateway providers (larger, with more resources) are WORSE than stripe in this regard. Prior to stripe, we used cybersource. It was a support disaster, to say the least.
  - damoncali 11y ago
    We once asked Auth.net support an API question. The response: "What's an API?"
    - leereeves 11y ago
      What kind/level of support? Call center staff don't often know such things.
      - damoncali 11y ago
        It was a long time ago - maybe 2008 - so I don't really recall. We called what seemed most likely to be technical support, and they had no freakin' idea what we were talking about.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
helfire 11y ago
Same. I've sent them support emails and just never heard back.
patcon 11y ago
Hm. Critical support failures right in time for Balanced Payment's going under... :/
- jjjjjjjjjj 11y ago
  It was very disappointing when Balanced Payments shut down, because they seemed to be the only online payments company with any ethics or competence. Is there anyone else?
  - heartbreak 11y ago
    > Is there anyone else? Surely you jest. There are hundreds of online MSPs out there. Braintree, Authorize.net, etc.
matthewarkin 11y ago
They do have a user ticketing system (Uservoice), there is just no user facing view of it. When you send an email to support@stripe.com (or any of the public email addresses they put on blog posts), it goes to Uservoice. Then it gets triaged, depending on the severity of the ticket, if it falls into account or developer related support it gets assigned into a queue (at times it gets put in the wrong queue and then has to get reassigned). But long story short there is a system. Phone support is also being worked on were told. That said I do love Stripe but I do agree that support needs to be fixed, though I may have a bias as I see a much higher percentage of upset users than most.

woodhull 11y ago

We've run into this as well. It's absurd that a company of their size has no support ticketing system. There have been occasions when we've had to rely on personal relationships with staff at Stripe to simply get an email response to our account questions. Engineering support is great and responsive through IRC but, stripe engineering staff there just shrug if you ask a business question.

jeffmould 11y ago
Their engineering support is incredible, and their API is well-documented and so easy to integrate. It is hard to believe that they can't spend a little more time focusing on customer support, especially as they continue to add new features and countries the problem is only going to increase. At least adding a public-facing ticketing system would pull some pressure off. I don't necessarily mind waiting for support, it is the not knowing if you even received my support request that can be frustrating at times, especially when there are real dollars at stake.
- jusben1369 11y ago
  I think one thing that is not well understood is that Stripe has a "Freemium" model. Prior to Stripe nearly all other payment processors required a minimum monthly fee. Stripe's lack of any minimum monthly fee is something that makes it very attractive and undoubtedly helped partly fuel their rapid growth. It's a great example of how you can leverage VC funding to build a business. Having said that it must mean a staggering amount of support emails from customers in "production". That developer doing just 1 or 3 transactions a month at $100 each still feels as strongly about getting an issue resolved as someone doing $1 million or $10 million a month. I've always wondered what that was like to manage.
  - Aloha 11y ago
    I'd argue the processing fees do not make it freemium.
    - jusben1369 11y ago
      Yep. But even then you don't "pay" that fee (it's deducted and you get the net) and you don't have a set monthly fee. So there's no hard cost of setting up and maintaining a site with them.
      - Aloha 11y ago
        No MRC (monthly reoccurring charge) on a service does not make it free, you're still paying for the service in a pay-per-use context.
        jusben1369 11y ago
        Yep but you're getting a little hung up on definitions and missing the larger point. Ie by proving that it's not a freemium model you're not really negating the central point which is that the barrier to entry is substantially lower (non existent) than with any/other competing services thus drawing in exponentially more users than similar services resulting in a disproportionate strain on their customer support vs others.
        Aloha 11y ago
        Oh, Agreed. Honestly, right or wrong - I've seen very few 'startups' really grok effective customer service (I realize I'm over generalizing). Yes, a good Knowledge Base/FAQ and ticketing/email system is important - but you need a phone number, you need a call center probably too (even if its only 2-5 people answering the phone) - you need more than email and ticketing - most technology is complex enough that you need a person to talk to over the phone to hold your customers hands - IMO - this is even doubled for anything that need to integrate with your systems or has a device on your premises, but is also applicable to a complex web service - I strongly believe it drives long term customer retention and eases on boarding. I'll point out as to why I believe this - outside of the technology hubs, the folks with money are not the 'internet native' generation, they're older and less comfortable with technology then we are.
- jeffmould 11y ago
  If I were doing a high number of transactions and relying on Stripe to provide all my CC processing, I would gladly pay an extra $25-50 a month to have priority support in instances where there may be fraud. Shoot, even at a couple hundred in transactions each month I would gladly pay for priority support. I would rather have a $25 expense each month than risk business loss due to real or suspected fraud. Shoot at some level I might even consider an extra nickel per charge to have a dedicated account manager who was always there for me and knew my business inside and out.
  - JimmyL 11y ago
    If you're putting a lot of volume though Stripe, all those things are possible. Notwithstanding Stripe's SaaS-y "all pricing and deals are public" branding, they definitely have a BD team who can set you up with more direct contacts for certain types of questions, different rates than are publicly posted, and APIs that aren't public (to name a few things).
wrong_internet 11y ago
It should be pointed out that traditional merchant gateway providers (larger, with more resources) are WORSE than stripe in this regard. Prior to stripe, we used cybersource. It was a support disaster, to say the least.
- damoncali 11y ago
  We once asked Auth.net support an API question. The response: "What's an API?"
  - leereeves 11y ago
    What kind/level of support? Call center staff don't often know such things.
    - damoncali 11y ago
      It was a long time ago - maybe 2008 - so I don't really recall. We called what seemed most likely to be technical support, and they had no freakin' idea what we were talking about.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

helfire 11y ago

Same. I've sent them support emails and just never heard back.

patcon 11y ago

Hm. Critical support failures right in time for Balanced Payment's going under... :/

jjjjjjjjjj 11y ago
It was very disappointing when Balanced Payments shut down, because they seemed to be the only online payments company with any ethics or competence. Is there anyone else?
- heartbreak 11y ago
  > Is there anyone else? Surely you jest. There are hundreds of online MSPs out there. Braintree, Authorize.net, etc.

matthewarkin 11y ago

They do have a user ticketing system (Uservoice), there is just no user facing view of it. When you send an email to support@stripe.com (or any of the public email addresses they put on blog posts), it goes to Uservoice. Then it gets triaged, depending on the severity of the ticket, if it falls into account or developer related support it gets assigned into a queue (at times it gets put in the wrong queue and then has to get reassigned). But long story short there is a system. Phone support is also being worked on were told. That said I do love Stripe but I do agree that support needs to be fixed, though I may have a bias as I see a much higher percentage of upset users than most.