Both xyproto and Gustomaximus have solid examples.
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.
Just wanted to say thanks, I think you've given great advice. In particular this bullet point:
> 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.
But if you respond consistently quickly, then some lazy customers will email you rather than bothering to look in the documentation. So there can be a downside to being too responsive.
> 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.
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.
Sometimes it's valuable to receive a (clearly non-automated) support response indicating that the message was received and a proper response is in the works, just to confirm that the support channel is actually still functional.
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.
A large part of my job is end user support in a corporate environment. I always do this - even if I know an issue is going to take a while due to me having to reach out to other departments/a vendor, wait for an answer, and potentially go back and forth, I always reach out to let people know I got the email, that I'm working on it, and that I'll reach back out when I know more. If possible, I also suggest workarounds/alternatives for them to use/do in the time while I'm working on the problem.
Thanks for reaching out. The issue you’ve described seems to be on your end. Please check your settings or consult our docs for further guidance. If the problem persists, feel free to get in touch.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, as I am a customer rather than someone running a product with customer support.
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.
I'd 100% expect that to be a template from someone who either has no clue and can't investigate, or has 200 other tickets to get to and couldn't be bothered to look into a case that isn't in the FAQ. It also does not say what makes you have this assumption and so it works only as a brick wall to alienate any customer goodwill you may have built up. Please never write this unless it's self evident why it's on the customer's side and you have good reason to think they're just trying to annoy you by reaching out despite that
From the sound of it, the politeness is the shallow politeness that you can easily get with ChatGPT. The curtness is defending from the users expecting too much, which can include delaying handling issues before properly checking if they're real. I experienced this with Vercel and it probably makes economic sense for them. (BTW I really should cancel my Vercel account but haven't decided to take the time to migrate yet.) https://x.com/search?q=vercel%20benjaminatkin_&src=typed_que...
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!
