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How do you offer customer support for your side-gig?

Right off the bat, apologies if this has been asked before. I did a precursory search, but didn't find much. I am curious about how makers who are working on a side-project with active, paying users are able to offer support to their customers. Do you find yourself trying to troubleshoot customer issues whilst at your day job? Are you stepping away from your desk to respond to live-chat queries? I'm keen to hear everyone's experience in this area.

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    I have a full-time day job and am a startup co-founder. As soon as a customer support email comes in, I drop everything 99% of the time, and respond within 30 minutes. Typically, the issue is resolved via email, but I offer phone support and flex around their schedule. We're an early startup so response times, promptness, and flexibility are a must.

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      That’s great! Agree 100% that response times, promptness and flexibility are key to keep momentum and ensuring your customers don’t abandon your product. Nice work!

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    Customer support is one of the aspects that admittedly I've failed to automate for Zlappo.

    It's not something that I can or even want to outsource, as 99% of the time it's my only avenue of communication with my customers, and I want to learn as much as possible from talking to them.

    This means I prioritize it over anything else -- yes, I respond even if I wake up at 4 a.m. to take a piss and see a customer email -- let alone when I'm otherwise at work. It takes #1 priority.

    Apart from reliable trustworthy software, there's nothing else I can offer my customer other than tip-top prompt and helpful customer care and support, and I intend to keep it that way.

    I believe it's my duty to be available, reachable, and solve their problems ASAP, since I already take their money.

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      Fully on board with you Jayber. Have you considered using a live chat option?

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    Being a young startup, all of us at www.ruttl.com are engaged in solving the customer issues. Although we are growing in number, we have distributed the work load of marking sure we hear all the feedback from our customer issues and suggestions.

    Have you every tried to implement live-chat feature yourself @tomjr? I have been considering that option for quite some time now. I would love to know your thoughts as well.

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      Hey Harsh, great that you are able to distribute the workload across the team. In the past I’ve implemented freshchat which was pretty helpful as I was able to triage queries almost immediately via the app on my phone, even whilst at work.

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    I wonder if 5 indie hackers could partner up to offer global support.

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      Yeah! That’s kind of an interesting idea. Optimise it so that each IHer can allocate themselves a time slot that allows them to work when they are free and available.

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