Customer service fun | Hacker News Reader

Customer service fun

spencerfry.com

25 pointssetori8810 comments

That's all nice, but what do you do when you get so many custemer emails that you don't have time for coding anymore? I used to answer support emails within the hour and our users loved it. But as we grew it started to take it's toll and slowed down development. I still answer all customer emails everyday but now I do it once a day at night. It takes about 2 hours a day, so it's still manageable, but at some point it won't be. Suggestions?

Do the support emails have a few general patterns? Or are they all unique? If it is the former you can have a few canned responses and use a keystroke program to expand a few words into the support email. (e.g. something like this: http://www.smileonmymac.com/TextExpander/ note I have not used this program so I cannot attest to the quality but I am sure there are others out there that will fit the bill if this one is lacking.)

Another way to reduce your email overhead is to have a good search feature on the website with an indexed FAQ.

Just a couple ideas for you. Not sure how intense your customer support queries are so this might not work for you in a cost effective manner.

Thanks, I'll check that app. I have FAQ and help pages. And, when I see patterns in the questions I update the user interface to make it clearer and those emails stop. I've optimized it to a point where most of the questions are unique or are hard to optimize further.

Summary: customer discovers double billing for the last six months, and inquires with company. Company investigates, finds it's been happening for 8 months, and refunds the user in a timely manner.

A prompt refund is good customer service. But what pushes it up to 11 in my eyes, was that they refunded her $100 for a $96 overcharge.

Not because $4 is fair compensation for her trouble. Or because $4 is so much money that she should be happy.

But because they actually took a moment to consider what message a $100 refund sent to the customer vs what $96 would send.

Can you help me out here because I can't understand what message a $100 refund would send.

$96 sends "The overcharge on transaction 677348921 has been refunded to purchaser 2475244. If you have any futher questions please dial our busy call center at our convenience. <beep>."

$100 sends "Hi, we overcharged you how much? Nintety six dollars? Here, call it a hundred, keep the change. We weren't trying to skim six months interest on $96 from you maliciously and we're human and take a personal interest in your problem caused by our company and by us, we're not faceless and mechanical, we have kept your money but we've paid it back and more, have the small benefit of $4 and please consider giving us the benefit of the doubt and dealing with us again in future".

Exactly- we do the same thing when people ask for refunds of our iPhone app. It's only $1.99 so if they go to the trouble of providing their PayPal, we send them back $5. Half the time they return it and take another look at the application.

In general, most people have such terrible experiences with customer service that they go in expecting a negative experience, placing them on the offensive. If you're responsive, helpful, and personable then they'll flip right around and tell their all friends about how awesome you are.

Exactly.

This is only the summary of the first one of three customer support related stories described in the article. There are two more.

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