Ask HN | How to answer customer queries

[mabid]

For guys out there who are running own one or more products, what do you use to answer customer queries. Simply via email? A help-desk to raise and answer tickets? twitter ? Facebook ? any other online app or platform ?

[DiabloD3]

It depends on how much time you are willing to invest in it.

Simple email is easy for one or two people to handle, but from what I've seen Twitter/Facebook interaction (which also doubles as an advertising route) requires dedicated staff, and some companies even outsource the handling of PR through those just because it is expensive and difficult.

For everything small, a help desk tracker is great if your service is technical and your users are technical, it keeps tracking of issues much easier.

However, if you go the route of email, you would still need a tracker internally, and some companies have even plugged their email system into their internal tracker to make this easier.

[LeBlanc]

I highly recommend olark or a similar onsite live chat feature.

olark is great because its much lower barrier of effort than email, so your customers often come with questions they might not have bothered with via email. You can get some great insights into how people use your site, and you'll learn about bugs much faster.

[fezzl]

Facebook has the benefit of showing that you are the type of company that engages with its customers and users. It is also scalable in the sense that you can answer a question once and many people can read it. Email is quick, and most people are comfortable with using email.

[ianpurton]

Just use email, it's easy to set up and if you grow out of it then it's easy to move over to something else.