A simple, private, asynchronous customer support tool
I think the customer support tools that are out there are kind of lacking: they're bloated, confusing to use, track and record a lot of unnecessary data, and designed for a live chat experience that often cannot be delivered upon.
I created a simple landing page for a new customer support tool called Paper Plane. It has three core tenets:
- Simple and minimalist, yet well-designed and easy-to-use
- Thoughtful, asynchronous communication > live chat
- Privacy is a right for you and your users
I made a landing page at https://letterbase.carrd.co/. Let me know what you think about it!
Hi Richard, interesting one. Would like to know if the privacy would "zero knowledge" meaning the users will have the keys to it? Have you considered blockstack.org for building privacy focused apps?
I know about Blockstack and they're doing great work. However, I decided not to use them for several reasons:
That being said, I think it's possible to build a privacy-focused company without using blockchain, as long as you are transparent and honest with your users.
I like the idea and I'm sure there's a market for it. The only thing I'm at a crossroads is, personally, if I am looking for an answer, I want it kinda right away lol. I guess that's where live chat works because people these days want it instantly or right away.
I think you are right on the money with it being bloated, UI is confusing for some and not very user friendly. If you could find a way to provide asynchronous chat support with the "feel" of live chat, you may have found a pocket :)
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts! I agree that users often want a response as soon as possible. But I like to think that if a company cares about customer support, then using async software instead of live chat software should not affect the speed of their response (and may actually speed it up if the user initially provides more detail and back-and-forth is reduced).
I think the main confusion with live chat is that the users' expectations do not line up with what they receive: the user sees live chat and expects live chat, but often only gets a response much later. For small companies, this can be because the founders are generally not available to chat live all the time. However, this can still be a problem as a company grows bigger since chat volume increases as well.
I think the advantage of live chat is that it feels as if you're being heard by the company, which is in direct opposition to something like email which sometimes feels as if you're throwing a question into the void. But I do think it's possible for users to have a great customer support experience asynchronously as long as they know how long they need to wait for an answer and, most importantly, they feel like they're being heard every step of the way.
Hmmm, I can see where you are coming from. I agree it would slow down some of the bloated back and forth. Yes, them knowing how long they need to wait would be great. Kind of like when you're on the phone waiting for a rep and they tell you your wait time is 4 mins and then they give you the option to have someone call you back in 4 mins or wait.
I like this idea a lot. I want to add a help widget for plausible.io but I don't want to create the expectation that it's going to be live chat.
I want customers to be able to describe their problem, leave their email address (or have it auto-filled if they're a customer and I have it on record) and wait for me to get back to them. I want these requests to go into a simple todo list that I can manage alone or with a team.
As a privacy-first company, I like the idea of a customer support tool that aims for simplicity and privacy. Even better if it was open source like plausible itself.
Let me know if you want to talk more. This definitely piqued my interest.
Thanks for the response! Plausible looks really cool. I've definitely been inspired by it and other privacy-focused companies like Simple Analytics and Fathom.
The initial feedback that you've provided here is helpful. I'm still in the early stages but will be communicating more soon with the people who sign up!
Good job Richard, happy to see that you have put in the hard work. I agree with you that customer support tools can be pretty complicated, and most of them offer an overwhelming amount of data and features that one might never need.
For those looking for a simple, easy-to-use, yet powerful tool, I recommend you go for the ProProfs Help Desk (https://www.proprofsdesk.com/) . They offer 24x7 human support and even have a vast knowledge base so you can get started quickly and delight customers.
Good luck!