Ask HN: outsourced support | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: outsourced support

14 pointshuhtenberg12 comments

I am in need of a simple outsourced support service. It is for a simple, end-user oriented, installable product, and so I'm not expecting an avalanche of calls nor any complicated support cases.

For starters I need a 1-800 number and someone to tell the user to look at FAQ and file a support ticket otherwise. Initially I am planning to look at the tickets myself, but that too can be outsourced as the next step.

Additionally, if tickets can be automatically created for the inquires received via an email that would be a big plus.

Any suggestions ? Personal experiences are of course preferred.

Thanks

(edit) I should probably add that I have built a one-man software service company before, which accumulated about 200k active users at the time I sold it. If there's one thing I remember with shudder, it's the support. It was exceptionally time consuming and 99.5% was a dozen of FAQs. No way in HELL I'm talking to users directly this time around. Not on a daily basis. Not over the phone nor via the forums or the email. An occasional exchange is fine, but the bulk of the support should be handled by someone else. There should be a frontline.

I had to design something like this recently for a consulting job and here's what I did. These steps were in addition to him writing a document that covered the basics of supporting the program (that he could give to support people)

First, I convinced the client to not have phone support. My argument was that e-mail support was sufficient if you put a guarantee above the e-mail link (something like "every e-mail answered within an hour of being received")

Second, I designed a very simple system that would allow him to hire freelance help. Basically all the support e-mails went to my custom e-mail program (I use .net and aspose components so it only took me a few hours). The e-mail program logs the question and when the support person e-mails a response it turns the response in to a knowledge base article (that the users could also view)

Third, to further simplify the process I built a very simple keyword search into the e-mail program so that it could suggest solutions that might work to the support person. If the support person sees a solution they like they can send it as a reply with one click.

Finally, I had him recruit people off Scriptlance. He created shifts where people could monitor the system while they were doing other things. Because they were from overseas and didn't have to speak fluent English (just write it) this labor was extremely cheap. They were then paid a flat fee plus extra for each support request. He ended up able to afford 3 people per shift, 24 hours a day with the same money he was going to pay to get one support person.

Anyway, sorry for the long post but I really am kind of proud of the idea (now that I'm a few months out and I know that it worked). Hopefully if you can't do something like this it will at least help you to "think outside the box"

Thanks a lot. This is interesting and helpful.

I've used http://liveops.com/ with some success. On-demand agents "in the cloud". Requests can be routed to agents based on training, experience, language, time of day...

Thanks, looking ..

How about getting a couple of college students who get paid on a per-call basis? Then you find a way of routing the calls to their personal lines, using for example the services that the telephone sex people use?

Get cheap phones with extra numbers, so they can answer professionally, and don't open with "DUUUDE" or something like that.

I would suggest doing it yourself first, and then, once you've already developed the FAQ and canned answers, hire someone to do a specific, time-consuming part of the support for you - rather than trying to find a whole "outsourced support" provider that will no doubt have lots of issues and restrictions.

> hire someone to do a specific, time-consuming part of the support

This is exactly what I am asking about. How ? I really don't want to rely on a random guy I found on the Internets to mess up the impression of the product with an abysmal support quality.

college student? i hear they love internships and are having a hard time finding them :)

OK so you want someone on call all day to answer your 800 line and read from a script. Wow I sit in a quiet room at home most days and if the phone rings I could switch over to a script and answer your customer support calls. I've done phone tech support and can handle customer service questions. I'm working on a startup right now but I have spare cycles for random calls. To monitor quality maybe you could just call in now and then to spot check me. It's just an idea in case you're interested and want to pursue a conversation. We'd need to work out a couple details but if we're reasonable people that shouldn't be a problem.

I'd do this:

a) Get a Google Voice account. Forget the 1-800 number, it just makes them want to call you. Get a local number that looks professional. i.e. something that looks like 1-404-444-000#

b) On the #, create a voice message stating something like "please check our FAQ and if you still can't find an answer to your question, please contact our support staff via the website"

This way, your new customers will give you the extra points for having a support # that they think they can call. And you won't have have to waste all that time answering questions. And 99.999% of your users will never know that the # doesn't go anywhere

I know nothing makes me happier as a customer than calling a phone number for help, just to have it tell me to go back to the website that I found the phone number on.

Thinking of starting a service provider in this space. Huhtenberg, if you're still reading, feel free to give me a ping.

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