Build the Arc Before the Flood – Preparing For Customer Support Inundation
I recently purchased another MacHeist bundle. This was my second one and probably my last. MacHeist is great at putting together very compelling bundles of software. But after several months of owning these bundles I find that I don’t use much of the software I purchase.
It’s not MacHeist’s fault. It’s due to software vendors being totally unprepared for the flood of new users they are guaranteed to receive when they participate in something like the MacHeist bundle.
Here is a summary of my experience with several software packages in the MacHeist bundles*:
Purchase the bundle and download the software. This usually goes quite well. MacHeist does a pretty good job of making sure the purchasing and retrieval of the software keys goes smoothly.
Install and start using the software. Sometimes I get far. Sometimes I don’t. A lot of the applications in the MacHeist bundles are basically in a beta state. There are often bugs or incomplete/unintuitive features.
Go to company site to look for information. My first step is always to see if there is some documentation or at least a user forum. Of the product sites I have visited from the MacHeist bundle I have never seen any form of legitimate documentation. There might be 3 or 4 FAQ’s but not much more than that.
Contact support. Since there seems to be no hope of getting help on the website I contact support via email. Inevitably I get an email back that says something to the effect that they are buried in emails and will get back to me as soon as possible. I have never heard back from any of them.
So what is the result? I have a bunch of software that I got a great deal on that I never use. This is a missed opportunity for the vendor (I am certainly not going to recommend their product to anyone) and MacHeist since the whole process leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
I have essentially come to equate MacHeist products with terrible customer support. I doubt that is what the developers want. They are probably very nice people who work very hard. But they got flooded in support requests and weren’t able to keep up. They are like someone living in the time of Noah who decides to build an arc after the rain starts to fall. Guess what? It’s too late. You aren’t going to catch up.
Build the Arc Now
So, if you are thinking about having your product in one of these bundles consider me the crazy old man with the long beard who is telling you that the flood is coming. BUILD YOUR ARC NOW.
How do you build your customer support arc? It doesn’t have to take a lot of time or a lot of money. Here are 3 simple things you can do to make sure you don’t drown. (Note: If you don’t like the services I recommend here then swap out your own. Just make sure that you have a solution in each product category.)
3 Steps to Surviving the Flood
1. Get a Help Ticketing System
If you get any volume of support emails, your basic email inbox is going to break. Immediately. You need to have some sort of ticketing system. There are all sorts of solutions out there, but for the independent developer I am going to recommend Zendesk. If you have other suggestions for 1 or 2 people shops please post them in the comments below. Zendesk costs $9/month for the solo plan.
With a ticketing system you will be able to track which customers you have responded to and which you haven’t. If you keep getting the same questions over and over again you can set up macros with automated responses.
Also, remember that all help ticketing systems are not created equal. A free help ticketing system that is hard to use will end up costing you much more than $9/month. Zendesk is simple to set up and at $9/month your ticketing system will pay for itself in the first 30 min. Don’t be cheap. Do it.
2. Prepare two or three screencasts
This costs a little more money and takes more time. We personally use Screenflow which costs $99. It’s worth it. Record one or two videos giving an overview of what your product does and some of the features in the product. Don’t try to document your product using video. That will take too long and you don’t have time. You should be able to create 1-3 two minute videos that you can publish to YouTube and embed in your site. As an added bonus, YouTube videos will be playable on iPhones and iPads.
Why do this? You are part of a bundle. Many people will purchase the bundle without any clue about what your software does. They are going to come to your site looking for more information. A few good videos will go a long way in helping them understand what your software can be used for. (I know that MacHeist produces overview videos on their site but you need something on your site as well.)
If you want a good breakdown of what content you should include in your videos, check out our webinar “Video, Screencasts and Still Images – Using the Right Tool at the Right Time“.
3. Prepare some documentation/help files
I know you don’t want to. I know that you are saying, “But the software isn’t done so the documentation might change.” That doesn’t matter. Your job isn’t to have complete documentation. It is to keep from drowning in support requests. If you can anticipate the top 10 questions users are going to have and answer them in your documentation you will save yourself hours of time.
“Wait!” you are saying, “Nobody reads documentation.” It doesn’t matter if they read it. You are going to reference it when you reply to support tickets. Sending links to task-based documentation that includes pictures closes your support tickets more quickly. Just make sure that your documentation follows a task based approach that is optimized for use in the customer support process.
Don’t bother with a PDF file. It is going to be out of date before the first 10 support tickets are created. Publish your help files to the web so that you can update them whenever you need to.
If you need tips on how to structure your documentation for use in the customer support process, check out our webinar “Why Your Documentation is Useless and How to Fix It“.
Might I humbly suggest that you look at our product ScreenSteps Live to create documentation/help files really, really quickly. It costs $19/month for a single user and includes everything you need. Most importantly, it will help you respond quickly to support requests with clear, easy to follow instructions. By responding with visual documentation you will close your support tickets much more quickly.
Even if you don’t use ScreenSteps Live, do some form of documentation and make sure you include lots of pictures.
Budgeting Your Preparation Time
I know you don’t have much free time. Your software is about to go out to thousands of people and it isn’t even close to finished yet. That’s all right. Here is how to budget your time.
- Sign up and configure Zendesk: 30-60 minutes
- Create 2-3 videos: 1 day
- Create some documentation: 30-60 minutes. (If you are using ScreenSteps. If not then it might take you a bit longer.)
You should be able to get everything set up and content created in 1.5 – 2 days. Doing this now will save you hours and hours once the support requests start coming in.
Budgeting Your Money
The approach I have laid out isn’t expensive. You say you don’t want to have recurring costs? No problem. Once the support requests have died down, cancel your Zendesk and ScreenSteps Live accounts. You can pull everything out of Zendesk with their API. With ScreenSteps Live you can publish your same content to static HTML pages and then host them on your site if you don’t want to pay the monthly fee.
But during the flood you want services like this in place because they will help you respond more quickly than the do-it-yourself alternatives.
Total cost for everything I have described:
| Product | Cost |
|---|---|
| Zendesk | $9/month |
| Screenflow | $99 |
| ScreenSteps Live | $19/month |
| Total Spent in 1st Month | $127 |
Depending on what your time is worth this just needs to save about 2 hours or less of support time in that first month to pay for itself. And all you need is a handful of people to recommend your software to someone else because of your great customer support to totally zero out the cost.
The Flood is Coming – Build the Arc Now
If you are participating in a bundle like MacHeist, the flood is coming. MacHeist and companies like them are very good at generating a lot of customers for you. If you build your support arc before the customers come you’ll be all right. But if you wait until the rain starts to fall it will probably be too late.
* NOTE: I should say that there is one app that I got via a MacHeist bundle that I absolutely love, Picturesque. It does one thing and does it well. I have never had to contact their customer support.
