Going on from my post this morning, one of the things I’ve been pursuing to stop the problem of my replies to customer support questions not being received is to install some help desk software.
Well, I’ve gone a step further than that. I’ve actually created my own help desk software.
I know this is me that’s saying this, but it really is very good.
Tip: If you want your software to be really good, use it yourself.
So, I’ve increased my range of business tools with my new support desk software. It goes into active use today, with support questions being looked after by Donna Maher (with a little help from me).
It’s very stable, very easy to use, and has been a long time in development, but I thought I’d give it a good testing out with my own business before unleashing it on the world.
So why have I gone down the support desk route rather then continue with email?
In a post I made the other day, I said that it was becoming increasingly difficult to use email for support. I thought it would be okay for a while when I started doing it, but when I look back at 2007, I must have spent hundreds of hours doing support by email
I could have cut that down dramatically if I’d started with a support desk from the beginning.
The annoying thing is, I was told this by one of my mentors and I ignored it.
*sigh*
But the primary reason I’m moving to a support desk is that email is becoming increasingly difficult to deliver.
As I said in my post this morning, I’m getting an increasing number of “second request:” emails from people. This is nearly always because they haven’t received my reply to their first email.
So with my new support desk software, that should knock that problem on the head.
So, once a ticket is raised, all a customer has to do is go check to see if it’s been answered.
The system sends out emails, but even if the customer doesn’t receive the emails and wonders what’s going on, the answer will still be there in the support thread.
So the line of communication between me and my customer (or you and your customer) isn’t cut off.
I say you and your customer, because I’ll shortly be putting my new help desk software up for sale.
As a subscriber to my blog, I’ll offer you the best deal I can come up with other than give it away.
What I’ve decided to do is price my support desk software starting at $1.07, and raise the price by 5 cents every time there’s a sale.
Yes, it’s a nickel sale…
I’ll run this for a short time before setting the final price, probably somewhere between $67 and $97. (When I do, I’ll be looking for affiliates, and I’ll be paying 50% of the sale price. Hint hint…)
The first person there gets it for a dollar and some change, in fact the first 18 people get it for under 2 dollars, but even if you’re the 400th person to get it, it’s still only going to be around $20 for software that will be at least 3 times as much when the sale is over.
Only those people on my blog notify list will get first warning of that nickel sale.
I think that’s good enough reason to be on the list, don’t you?
And that’s my way of saying “thank you” for being there.
Watch out for another post about this in a few days time, and when I’m ready, I’ll launch this sale with little or no notice.
I’ll put up a password protected post, and inside there will be the details.
If you’re reading this and you’re not on my blog notify list, then go to the home page, and look over on the top right. There you’ll see a box for your name and email address.
Fill it in, and click the button.
-Frank Haywood
