Do you have an example of “polite but curt” tone? I’m struggling to see what you mean.
Here's more:
- Be direct, Hi, the xyz feature is available on the PRO plan. You can upgrade to the PRO plan at app.saas.com/billing
- Be brutal, Hi xyz, your card couldn't be charged for your Saas subscription, and hence your subscription has been deactivated. To reactivate, enter your card details app app.saas.com/billing
- Be honest, Hello xyz, thanks for the feature request. We'll put it in our wish list but can't guarantee it will make the cut.
- Be generous, Hey xyz, thanks for pointing that out. We have identified that as a bug and have pushed a fix for it. In the meanwhile, I've extended your trial by 7 days, on the house.
Couple of other tips:
- Dumb down your reply as much as possible. If you can't, throw your reply through chatgpt and make it dumb down.
- Unless a support issue is very basic, reply after a few minutes if you're near your computer. Usually users figure out things on their own if given some time.
- But don't allow issues to go stale. To really wow customer service, reply as humanely quick as possible, especially for existing customers.
- Make your support timelines clear somewhere in your product, eg: Our support will respond within max 48 hours, but most responses take 2-3 hours.
- Make your terms and privacy policy pages clear. People do read this. getharvest.com is a gold standard in this area.
> But don't allow issues to go stale. To really wow customer service, reply as humanely quick as possible, especially for existing customers.
As a customer, the absolute worst possible thing for me is to be left in limbo, not knowing if my problem will be fixed in the next minute, hour, day, or never. While I may not be thrilled if the answer is "never", at least at that point I can move on and know that I'll need to solve the problem some other way.
This is the biggest thing I struggle with. I have a couple of semi-successful side projects. They bring in some money, but not enough to hire someone to help with support. I have never been at a place in my life where something like "I will response to all support requests within 48 hours" is remotely realistic for me. I'm lucky if I get to a support request within a week or two.
I don't know what the answer is beyond just "don't sell products", because I hate dealing with support more than I enjoy making stuff to sell.
Even just confirmation that the website form isn't a black hole and that support tickets aren't now exclusively accepted through Twitter, Instagram, or a secret discord server can be very reassuring.
or just pass all support responses through "business support LLM" for uniform “polite but curt” tone
"Our premium support can investigate this for $XYhr. If the fault is at our end we will waive any fees. Please let us know if you wish to proceed."
I would say this would only feel justified if the product pricing page already had clear tiers outlined for paid support. Putting a price per hour on customer support otherwise would make me feel like I am just being milked behind closer doors for more money, and non-paying customers are getting shafted. If a paid customer support tier is something you offer, imo it should be clearly outlined on publicly available pages with explicit explanation about the differences between free vs paid customer support. You suggesting it in private communications only would feel suspicious and shady to me as a customer.
However, if the customer themselves suggested to pay you extra for that personal support, that’s a different story.
It was just an example, though.
The reason it can be framed as curtness is because they're being curt about the expectations, and the real expectations are pretty low. "Sure, I can delay really addressing the issue for a couple weeks. You're only paying me 40 bucks a month, why would you expect more? The goal of responding within two days is just for a canned response." See, they were curt and didn't let me demand something more than I deserved, like being able to use the product I'm paying for in the next several days!