
Ask YC: best (multi-user) startup email support/helpdesk system? - apexauk
Howdy all,<p>What's the best email support/helpdesk system to use for our startup that lets more than one person process incoming email?<p>Currently we have an email alias support@ which simply sends to two of us (web feedback form submissions come this way too). When one of us replies then we BCC the other so they know not to reply too, but this is obviously a pain. Additionally if we reply from our personal address then the other person no longer receives future messages in the thread.<p>As well as solving these two problems, it'd be useful to bring some more of the team into the process so they at least can read the incoming support requests to get an idea of user feedback - this would quickly get out of hand with our current simple setup.<p>Any recommendations?
Cheers!
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benr
HelpSpot is exactly what you're after -
<http://www.userscape.com/products/helpspot/>

We've been using it for about 3 years and love it.

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pmjordan
Although I haven't used it myself (though I'm planning to once I need to deal
with such issues) I hear Fogbugz is pretty good at this kind of stuff.

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rksprst
Yea, this is one of the main reasons I use FogBugz. It checks email via POP
and then imports emails as cases. You can handle the case just like another
case/ticket/bug. You can reply right from the website, or assign it to a
project, user, etc...

They have a free startup plan for two users, and free unlimited users for yc
funded startups.

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mischa
<http://tenderapp.com/>

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1gor
<http://www.redmine.org> is Ruby on Rails -based project management app. You
can configure it to run your code development projects (it basically an
improvement on <http://trac.edgewall.org>, features
wiki/tickets/milestones/integration with git/svn... etc ) and set up a
separate customer support section.

They have email gateway and a very flexible user rights management features.
You could set up customers to email you issues which will automatically become
tickets in your development project (which is accessible only for developers).
You can also set up a wiki available only for customers.

Since you are (hopefully) already running issue tracker/version control
environment for developers, you can thus avoid creating a redundant extra
layer of 'support ticket' database and 'customer knowledge base' altogether.

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jonasvp
Check out Roundup (<http://roundup.sourceforge.net/>). Written in Python, easy
to extend, has a web interface and email gateway. The UI is pretty ugly,
sadly, so if you want something easier on the eyes, you need to hack up some
custom CSS.

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ralph
Yes, I'd recommend Roundup. It has a good, easy, clean design.

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zackola
Pretty sweet and easy to get this working in a Rails app
[http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToReceiveEmailsWi...](http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToReceiveEmailsWithActionMailer)
Then users in the rails app can claim feedback, and reply through the system,
so everything gets nice and logged. I'm not sure what your development
platform looks like but you should be able to wire this type of thing up
somehow.

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theantidote
I haven't used any but check out these recommendations:
[http://ask.metafilter.com/44577/FreewareOpen-Source-Help-
Des...](http://ask.metafilter.com/44577/FreewareOpen-Source-Help-Desk-
Software)

There's also a whole list here: <http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/>

Are you hosting this yourself or do you want someone else to host it?

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jaaron
Zendesk: <http://www.zendesk.com>

Not sure if it's the right fit for you, but it's run by some friends of mine.

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staunch
<http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/StudentAndStartup.html>

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Corrado
What about something like GetSatisfaction? It's all web based and comunity
driven. You don't have private areas (I think) but it does look nice and I
think you can even tie your FAQ page to it.

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DenisM
I tried it and I didn't like it. I appreciate what they are trying to do, but
I am not looking to redesign my workflow around getsatisfaction but rather
optimize my exisitng worflow (currently around gmail).

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seiji
OTRS: <http://otrs.org/> or RT: <http://bestpractical.com/rt/>

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mrkurt
Zendesk is nice, but maybe a bit expensive for what you need (it was for me).

I use Cerberus myself. Once you figure out its quirks, it's pretty handy.

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amobilebiz
Recommend Kayako - <http://www.kayako.com>

Very robust and full of features.

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rishi
anyone use <http://sproutit.com/> ?

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zack
Cerberus. It kicks ass. I used it at two of my internships...quality software.

<http://www.cerberusweb.com/>

It's super-easy to use, too.

