

Ask HN: What do startups use for customer support? - micah63

Just curious what small startups (3-5 employees) use for customer support/bug tracking/CRM?
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hajrice
I use Olark...but I like to think it's more of a sales tool. Then again, some
of you will argue that support can be used as a sales process; I don't care
how big/small of a company you run, customer service is probably the single
most important factor (from a consumers standpoint) next to the product.

I've tried Zendesk and while they're great in parts like ticketing and
assigning tasks to individual support members, I think they fail at
recognizing at the bases of customer support. THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAT I
HATE when I have to register twice. I already have an account at xyz.com, why
do I have to create one to fill out a support request? It's very confusing,
especially when they tune the design to be pretty similar.

LiveChat rocks, the guys at Olark are doing it really well..snapengage is
pretty badass for that automatic messaging(sending a msg like: Hey, hwo are
you liking the site? <\-- typo put on purpose) can really start engagements as
I don't really want to send the same message every time a new visitor comes to
my site.

Btw, I'm building a support system which is targeted at sites which have
customers, which is really meant to cut down support(VisaulWebsiteOptimizer is
expecting to cut theirs down by more than 50%), and provide a natural
interface(both for your startup and customers) which basically creates a
powerful help page(and no, unlike zendesk, you dont have to rehire your
designer to spend a week triming it to fit your company's brand). In case
you're interested send me an email at hajrice@gmail.com and I'll make sure to
include you in the private beta.

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Thomaschaaf
We are currently building support software because we thought that the options
did not fit our needs. We'd love to get some more beta testers.
<http://suplify.me>

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Jsarokin
<http://www.olark.com/>

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smackjer
I've used <http://www.zendesk.com> before. Using <http://tenderapp.com> now
and liking it.

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imagetic
We built <http://tenderapp.com> to handle customer support on Lighthouse.
Tender quickly became a product of it's own.

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jeffepp
<http://snapengage.com> (real time)

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talbina
<http://www.assistly.com/>

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limebomb
<http://www.parature.com>

