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by sanketc 1305 days ago
Some customers prefer asking in a community because that can lead to responses from other customers (at times it can even be faster response than a company rep getting to respond). A good example is dev infra related companies, where a customer can get a lot of value by hearing from how other customers think about a specific problem. You don't get that through a typical customer support software which is one to one.

It comes down to preference. The trend is that companies have to meet where customers are already hanging. Some customers will prefer only email (and for them you still need a ticketing software), some will prefer social (depending on industry), and some will prefer chat/forum communities. If you want to stand out as a company (esp when you are starting out), you have to serve them where ever they prefer. Sure, if you have an amazing product with a strong moat, you have more leverage on how you want customers to interact with you. But that comes much later in a company lifecycle.
2 comments
TheLML 1304 days ago
You can even do tickets on Discord. I've been on a server where users were able to create a ticket and then a new channel with the ticket number was created. The channel is private and only the ticket opener and users with the support role(s) can see the channel and communicate in it.
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tchock23 1305 days ago
I get what you’re saying and agree, but the synchronous nature of Discord and Slack aren’t the best interaction model for what you’re describing. Async forums (which have existed since the beginning of the web) are much better suited for that…
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kirso 1304 days ago
I am not affiliated with the folks here, but I think this is a matter of opinion and where it diverges.

I am part of several channels that like to have a native feature request / bug reporting in Discord => once the thread is created it sends the ticket to JIRA / Linear

The issue is that the alternative with communities is people sending you DMs with requests so its hard to keep track.

As a community user, I can just /command create_request, fill in my description + screenshot and send over to their team to process

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