I'm evaluating support software right now, so this is well timed. I've tried Zendesk, Desk.com, and just tried out SupportBee.
So far, SupportBee is winning on HTML email integration. Zendesk doesn't support it at all (and it's a long standing issue: https://support.zendesk.com/entries/80698-creating-tickets-f...). Desk.com does, but you have to view it in an overlay and inline images don't work. SupportBee supports displaying HTML email pretty much like GMail would. The only thing that doesn't work is inline images quoted in the reply message.
Zendesk and SupportBee both have very responsive UIs, but SupportBee's is simpler and maybe a little faster.
Desk.com is the only one that was able to ingest our existing support inbox, but it did a bad job of collecting threads into a single support request and did not include our replies in the tickets.
Zendesk is the worst for whole-company support due to its pricing model. Desk.com has flexible agents ($1/hour, billed in 5 minute increments) which is nice, but SupportBee's model of charging by ticket is probably the best of all for us.
Thanks for the checking us out! We have worked very hard on rendering HTML emails because we want to cater to designers and companies that need HTML emails (think newsletter companies).
If that's not working, it's a bug and we can fix it. We would just need a little more info from you. Can we email you? Or you can email us at support@supportbee.com.
Also, we thread emails as well as Gmail and we have a very robust importing infrastructure (maildir + inotify + resque == lightning fast). Please let us know if you see any issues in threading or importing. We think that's our USP and we want to fix any issues there. No matter how edge case(y) they are.
Oh my bad! I thought you were referring to having a high everyday email volume. We'll work on the importer at some point. Just focusing on other stuff right now. The idea is to make an importing API and let the community build the actual importers (after the reference one). Btw, have you looked at our API - http://developer.supportbee.com? Thanks again for spending the time to give us such detailed feedback. This is why we love HN :)
After watching the video, this looks like a very simple and effective way to handle email support. I think there are a lot of small businesses that will find a focused tool like this more effective than the typical, feature bloated solutions out there. Also, kudos for not charging by seat.
We currently use zendesk but our reseller model and everyone-does-support culture makes zd stupidly expensive for our company as we scale. We will definitely be checking you guys out!
SupportBee looks great, we've been using HelpScout.net for a while and love the shared inbox method of support. It is perfect for small teams. I do wonder how it scales up with dozens of people handling support, it seems like it might result in some clashes.
So far, SupportBee is winning on HTML email integration. Zendesk doesn't support it at all (and it's a long standing issue: https://support.zendesk.com/entries/80698-creating-tickets-f...). Desk.com does, but you have to view it in an overlay and inline images don't work. SupportBee supports displaying HTML email pretty much like GMail would. The only thing that doesn't work is inline images quoted in the reply message.
Zendesk and SupportBee both have very responsive UIs, but SupportBee's is simpler and maybe a little faster.
Desk.com is the only one that was able to ingest our existing support inbox, but it did a bad job of collecting threads into a single support request and did not include our replies in the tickets.
Zendesk is the worst for whole-company support due to its pricing model. Desk.com has flexible agents ($1/hour, billed in 5 minute increments) which is nice, but SupportBee's model of charging by ticket is probably the best of all for us.