Automating Customer Service at a Startup

http://tomblomfield.com/post/16697498005/automating-customer-service-at-a-startup

by tomblomfield • 14 years ago

36 10 14 years ago

freejack• 14 years ago

I was surprised to see that you are using the native Zendesk chat and feedback. I think you mentioned you are on the $24/mos plan? I'm pretty sure this feature is included.

In my experience, the simpler the deployment, the easier it is to focus on what really matters - in this case, providing great customer service. You could easily do away with the third party chat tool and save a few bucks and eliminate any costs associated with supporting the integration.

just a thought... :)

kylemaxwell• 14 years ago

I found the title a little misleading. You're not automating customer service - which is almost always a terrible idea, particularly for small companies - but looking for ways to make yourself available to customers. The answers and service still come from humans, and that's exactly as it should be.

tomblomfield3• 14 years ago

Yeah - fair point. I think I meant automating everything around the edges of the actual conversation - from transferring calls to the most appropriate person to collecting metrics to drive NPD.

andrewthornton• 14 years ago

Can you expand on Olark's "Discounts for startups"? I didn't see anything specific on their site, but this service looks really cool.

dsr_• 14 years ago

Directing calls to a SIP client -- softphone or hardphone -- ought to be much cheaper, on the order of free to 3 cents/minute depending on how you arrange it.

davidw2• 14 years ago

Twilio has a gaping gap in their service: there should be some very simple/easy out of the box solutions like "voice mail system" that you can then hook into with your own custom stuff. Not simple as in hack together a bit of PHP, simple as in click a few things on a web page.

As a small business, I really need a simple voicemail system, but don't need their programmable stuff. Yet. But it's cool enough that I suppose I'd go for them over others just to have it available if I want it in the future, if I got the simple voicemail system for a reasonable price.

I also tried Grasshopper, but their site barfed on my (very standard, plain) credit card.

tomblomfield3• 14 years ago

I agree - I implemented it using Ruby, Sinatra & TwiML [1], but it should be a couple of clicks on Twilio.

Come to think of it, they should really have some simple "If-this-then-that" style rules that non-developers could choose to implement a really simple IVR system.

"If it's between 9am and 5pm GMT, then call 077xxxxxx"

"If no-one picks up, then call 077xxx"

"Else leave a voicemail".

Why do I have to support a sinatra app to host some static TwiML?

1 - http://tomblomfield.com/post/17571449233/home-brew-customer-...

tomblomfield3• 14 years ago

Maybe someone should provide this as a service on top of Twilio...?

edash• 14 years ago

This is the goal of OpenVBX. It's not as simple as a few clicks, but it is as simple as Wordpress.org circa 2006.

Automating Customer Service at a Startup

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