Re:How to Support 5,000 Customers with No Support Staff
by callmeed on Friday July 30, 2010 @01:06PM
(#1561779)
We have about the same number of customers (maybe a bit more). We have 2 full-time support staff plus another that does support half-time.
This article makes some good points (about product quality and fixing bugs), but I would counter the article with:
1. Just because you support X customers with 0 full-time staff doesn't mean you do it well. I like to think of our support staff as a sales channel. When you have a great support staff, it builds a reputation for your company and results in a lot of referral sales.
2. A product like NewRelic is for developers/sysadmins. That makes it a lot easier to have engineers support it since they're usually talking to other engineers. I doubt it would be as effective for Saas apps for Joe the Plumber.
This article makes some good points (about product quality and fixing bugs), but I would counter the article with:
1. Just because you support X customers with 0 full-time staff doesn't mean you do it well. I like to think of our support staff as a sales channel. When you have a great support staff, it builds a reputation for your company and results in a lot of referral sales.
2. A product like NewRelic is for developers/sysadmins. That makes it a lot easier to have engineers support it since they're usually talking to other engineers. I doubt it would be as effective for Saas apps for Joe the Plumber.