Always keep your customers in the support loop

We all know that when someone submits a support request,we should get back to them as soon as possible, but what about the support requests that take more than a few minutes to resolve? If a problem isn’t resolved on the day that a ticket is received, let customers know where you are with the issue, that you’re working on it, and how much longer they can expect for it to take. They’ll appreciate and respect you for it. As a customer, it’s terrible to take the time to write in about a problem and not know if you’re going to get a response in a timely fashion, or at all. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and you’ll know what to do.

Friday February 8, 2013

Business

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User Happiness

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Web Apps

Never stop improving your design.

When Are My Sites Up launched in 2009, we didn’t have many options on the Settings page. Over time, as we added more and more features, we started to outgrow the original layout, which was a few fields that just contained email address and a few checkboxes to turn some options on and off, and a field for the user’s SMS number. Since 2009, we added

The ability to change credit card info
iOS Push Notifications
Android Push Notifications
Voice Calls
International SMS
The ability to buy SMS and voice call credits
RSS Feeds
User Management
Contact information for invoices

Each time we added something else to the page, I noticed that it was getting longer and longer, and that eventually the straw would break the camel's back, but there was always something more important, or more pressing. Today a user asked to get a copy of their past invoice, and I decided to add that to the site so that users can generate their own invoices at will. As I scrolled all the way down the page looking for the best place to add the invoice links, I realized that today was the day that it all had to change. It's pretty embarrassing that it got to this point.

Today I took the extra 30 minutes to implement a jQuery accordion, and now the page looks much better.

It actually contains more information than it did before (now there’s a list of links to all past invoices in there), but it is much easier to digest, scan and actually use. I’ve already heard from a few users who love the change. I just wish I’d made it sooner.

The moral of the story is: Always make your product better on both the technical and UX sides. Keep tabs on design choices that your feature set has outgrown, and assess your UX periodically to see whether or not things need tweaking. It’s a difficult balance, but your users will love you for it, and be more loyal because it shows that you have a dedication to improving the product over time. The same thing applies to iOS apps: if you continually make small fixes and updates, your users will notice and appreciate them. I’m working on getting better at both.

Friday February 1, 2013

User Happiness

Keep your users in the loop when doing support.

I’ve found that users really appreciate hearing back from me as soon as possible, even if it’s just to say that resolving their problem will take longer than expected, or that I’m working on it. In the world of web apps, where you can send an email and get a slow response, or even none at all, users find it really refreshing to get a quick response just so they know someone is on the other side, even if the issue isn’t fixed right away.

Friday January 4, 2013