Ask HN: Feedback tools with User Voice, Get Satisfaction, Olark

5 points·DanielRibeiro··5 comments

Several Startups use one such tool. Example:

* Hipmunk uses Olark: http://www.hipmunk.com/

* Has Voice uses User Voice: http://www.hascanvas.com/

Which do you recommend?

Olark is as close as you can get to having the kind of interaction with customers you have in a retail business. People wander in and you can chat with them casually or help them use your site.

Every single early stage startup should have Olark on their site.

It's one of the very few things I pay for and it's worth every penny.

Olark is a great tool. We (UserVoice) often use it when we're launching a new feature or change to our sign up onramp.

That said you can quickly find it overwhelming (and distracting). It's great feedback but you really need to dedicate someone to doing it. UserVoice comes in for all those times when you're not able to be online and dedicated to just talking to customers. We use UserVoice to deal with any support issues that coming in (via our Helpdesk product) and to sequester any good ideas and build up support for new features before we build/launch them (via our Feedback product).

If you're really early stage then definitely use Olark but if you're getting any sort of traction at all you'll want to have UserVoice to cover the rest.

I would differentiate the feedback forums (Uservoice, GetSatisfaction) from Olark & SnapEngage which help with converting customers via real-time chats.

Real time chat is much more important for a startup. You can learn from potential customers + convert them on the spot...

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't know SnapEngage, I'll look into it.

Based on their prior interactions with 37Signals, I have somewhat of a bias against Get Satisfaction, FWIW.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com