Ask HN: What tools do you use for your startups customer service

I chose Assistly to handle our customer contact, after assessing it against ZenDesk. Both are good. I went with Assistly because I found the user experience to be better (ZenDesk defaults to updating the user on every stage of their ticket's progress) and I found Assistly themselves to be responsive (answered my questions quickly and honestly, weren't afraid to admit that they don't have features and say what is / isn't under consideration for future updates).

I'm using the Assistly knowledgebase feature too, and it is well integrated. It's a bit basic so I expect to migrate as we grow. Probably to Joomla.

Do you plan on email support only, or are you looking at social media and phone too?

There're many solutions, from installable software such as Redmine[1] to hosted services such as TenderApp[2], GetSatisfaction[3], UserVoice[4], ZenDesk[5], FreshDesk[6], Groove[7], etc.

It all depends on what your needs are.

[1] http://www.redmine.org

[2] http://tenderapp.com

[3] http://getsatisfaction.com

[4] http://uservoice.com

[5] http://zendesk.com

[6] http://freshdesk.com

[7] http://groovehq.com

ZenDesk seems to be the most popular and the price is quite reasonable. Assistly has made some inroads but is quite a bit more expensive. Kayako used to be popular in the startup community but I'm not sure it's held up. FreshDesk is a new entrant somewhat similar to ZenDesk.

I use http://snapengage.com to interact with users of my website as well as companies who are inquiring about working with us. It works great and people really utilize the live chat.