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MenuWhat SaaS should I use to coordinate email communication with customers so our whole marketing team has one consistent voice?
We are having problems with multiple people contacting the same customer, or the wrong person contacting them, or one member of the team who should be notified about a customer's needs not being notified. What SaaS can we use to clarify this?
Answers
HelpScout, ZenDesk or Desk.com.
HelpScout (help desk software) would be a great start – less options but even when I ran a 6 person customer support team (with over 500 emails a day), we never needed the complex features of Desk.com.
Have one person create 'saved replies' to quickly answer your customers in a cohesive voice and with consistent responses. (However, encourage your entire team to inject some of their personality!) This seems like a huge task, but if they dig through their sent emails, it can be done pretty quickly.
Good luck!
Salesforce (Desk.com) could be the most feasible and one stop solution for your need. Let me know if you would like to evaluate the appropriateness of the platform per your need. I can help you around business problem definition, mapping it with right technology solution, and helping you adopt the technology with necessary customizations.
There are a number of good systems out there but your real needs for that cross communications will determine the choice. One that we use is FreshDesk ( http://freshdesk.com/ ). There are a number of others if you would like to discuss.
Randy Tucker @ TeamAutomation.com
I have used Zendesk, Freshdesk and GrooveHQ. Zendesk scores the point because of its ease of use, its support, and an excellent knowledgebase platform to complement your support process. When you setup a help desk system, plan a few support articles in the Knowledgebase (Zendesk helps you here) to reduce the support calls.
I have helped business setup this support process, including the KB. Let me know if you need more details.
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Are there standard ratios that are used to calculate first level support staff needed for a SAAS product that is a non-technical product?
Hi. I'm a Business Intelligence consultant with most of my customers being call centers. There are definitely guidelines you can apply but it will be based on several factors. Your question references ratios, which I assume means you would like to know how many agents per customer. That number will vary greatly depending on a number of other factors including: -what is your ASA target (Average speed of answer)? -what percentage of calls should meet the ASA? -are their penalties below a certain threshold (if less than 80% of calls meet ASA in 24 hours, for example) -how long are calls waiting when they don't meet ASA? -what is the call distribution by day of week, time of day and holiday v. non-holiday. -what is the average call duration? -what is the % of calls requiring escalation or call back versus calls resolved on first contact? To simplify it though, the two most important (IMO) will be call volume and your target for ASA (assuming you aren't answering then putting them back on hold, etc). To simplify though, the top 3 are: ASA, Call length and call volume. Regardless of the size of customer base. A good reporting system that combines live metrics and daily/weekly/monthly analysis will help a great deal. Feel free to set up a call if you'd like to talk about this in more detail.RL
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If you have an enforceable contract, the client is obligated to pay for the services received. As a business owner, I would be very concerned if a SAAS was demanding upfront payment for 2 years.SN
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Could anyone help me find any legitimate companies who hire for work at home positions, online customer service, etc., which aren't scams?
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Good resources for structure/flowchart of an onboarding & ongoing support process?
I've helped lots of SaaS companies improve their onboarding processes over the years, but I just published my best (high-level) piece on doing this right: http://sixteenventures.com/customer-onboarding The bottom line is (though I suggest reading the entire article) you need to know what success looks like for your customer - what their Desired Outcome is - and then reverse engineer the steps necessary to get there. Going through that process will reveal the steps necessary to get them to that Desired Outcome outside of the product; we're not talking about functional steps within the product yet. Map this out using flow charts, line lists, mind map, white board, etc. The tool isn't important as much as doing this right. Now, once you understand the process required to move them from Step 0 - deciding to take action to reach their desired outcome to Step z - achieving their (at least initial) Desired Outcome, you can start laying out, designing, and building the in-product processes necessary to achieve those success milestones and ultimately, their Desired Outcome. You should then peg your email (or other lifecycle messaging) flow to those success milestones (rather than doing a timed follow-up), where each message is sent like this: "have they done this milestone? yes, then send this message to get them to the next one." Since each user and customer will achieve success on their own cadence, it's best to not have a timed autoresponder sequence but to actually trigger based on milestones reached. The good news is that this is relatively easy to do given the availability of lifecycle messaging services. See this post for more on this topic: http://sixteenventures.com/email-follow-up-sequence Hopefully this helps, but if you want more details or - more importantly - want to figure out how to apply this thinking directly to your situation, request at least a 15-minute call with me.LM
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Whats the best way to find commission sales reps?
This is not my specialty, however, I have been in your position many many times -- maybe this will help. If the product is in-tangible, then look for JV partners on the Internet. Try to find an expert that deals with these JV opportunities (like me). If the product is physical, then look for sales organizations that have networks of sales people across the country. You do the deal with the organization and the independent network of sales people sells your product. It's a sweet setup if you can negotiate a margin that works for everyone. Hope that helps - Cheers - NickNP
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