

Show HN: Mailflo – Customer support right from Gmail - nands
http://mailflo.io

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davidw
How does something like this work? What's it get access to? How much does it
depend on official or unofficial API's that may be killed at a moment's notice
by Google?

Is it free? If so, how are you planning on paying for developing it?

Does it work ok with multiple Gmail accounts? Can I install it in a work one
and not have its tentacles in my personal Gmail?

I ask because it looks really, _really_ awesome for small, bootstrapped
startups like what I work on over at LiberWriter. Small and simple and easy to
use is exactly what I want.

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nirajr
Hi, I'm Niraj, Founder, Mailflo. Answers to your questions below:

1\. How it works is answered in detail here:
[https://mailflo.io/help#underthehood](https://mailflo.io/help#underthehood).
Essentially, we use a browser extension to add labels in Gmail, and use our
backend to sync labels across Gmail accounts over IMAP. Its based on what we
built for our other product GrexIt ([http://grexit.com](http://grexit.com)),
which is a very popular tool for Gmail.

It needs full IMAP access. And IMAP is enough for Mailflo to work. We do not
use any unofficial or Google specific API.

2\. Is it free: For now. And we'll always have a free plan. Very similar to
what we have done for GrexIt.

3\. It works great with multiple accounts (both with 'plain' Gmail and Google
Apps accounts). The key motivation for us was to let teams collaborate on
customer support by assigning tasks and looking at who is doing what.

Glad that you find it useful. Do try it out and let us know if you need any
help.

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wise_young_man
This is a nice product! Congrats on making it. It really touches on some very
important workflows for people and we are working in the same industry, but
working on different problem areas. I think fresh out of the box thinking like
this is what customer support needs.

I wanted to ask, how does the collaboration work? Does it share an email I get
with my team or does it share the team email with me? I wasn't sure.

Also, your knowledge base is one really long page, any chance you would use an
embedded widget for it? Let me know. We could exchange feedback too.

~~~
nirajr
Glad that you like it.

Everyone continues working out of their own Gmail/Google Apps accounts. You
just use the Mailflo side bar on the left of an email to assign it to a team-
mate, and the email pops up in the team-mate's inbox. Its detailed here:
[https://mailflo.io/help#howtouse](https://mailflo.io/help#howtouse)

Would love to try an embedded widget for Mailflo, and for our other product
[http://grexit.com](http://grexit.com).

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hemaljshah
This is a fantastic tool for early stage start ups and companies who don't
want to invest in expensive and unnecessary support tools in the bootstrap
phase.

It would be great to add some aggregation or reporting on the side so you can
understand your queue and how it's growing as well as provide tags or keywords
to search on. Keep up the awesome work!

~~~
nirajr
Thanks. Reporting is coming very soon.

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ad93611
We use Mailflo for customer support at CallHub. Handling support and regular
emails from within GMail is slick.

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instakill
Hey.

You should consider changing your font color. The contrast is a little bit on
the low side. Also the images you use on your help page are better than the
ones on the landing page, maybe swap them around? Looks nice apart from that.

~~~
nirajr
We took your advice and corrected both the contrast and the images. Many
thanks for your inputs.

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neev1
How is this different from Streak?

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nirajr
This is way simpler to use. With Mailflo, an email thread is a unit that you
work around - by assigning it to a teammate, and by tracking its status. Thats
how email customer support works in most cases.

We have been using Mailflo to do customer support for our other product GrexIt
for a few weeks, and we know how effective this approach is. Do try it out.

~~~
alooPotato
Congrats on your launch!

As a founder of Streak, I'd love to know how we could be simpler/easier to
use. If you have any suggestions or specific pain points, would love some
feedback!

~~~
nirajr
We love what you're doing with your product.

GrexIt was built to help teams collaborate around email threads for customer
support. Overall, we make it very easy to assign/track an email thread and
move it through a very light workflow. Our focus would be on building on this,
and bringing in more functionality for the customer support use-case.

You guys are doing some awesome stuff on Streak!

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neonlex
How can I remove a project?

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nirajr
Yes - you'll need to login at mailflo.io. We haven't added that functionality
to the browser extension. Do note that deleting a project would not delete the
associated emails and labels.

Just email us at support@mailflo.io if you need help.

~~~
neonlex
Thanks!

