This is dead on. We do Ninite support over email in our personal inboxes. I'd say the one-on-one interaction, not necessarily the phone, is key.
I spend about an hour each day answering it all and I've learned an incredible amount from emailing back and forth with our users.
It's helped us be much more clear in describing what our product does. We'd change a few words here and there and eliminate whole classes of confused emails.
We build relationships with our users so when we have a question about a new product, or how something should work, we can just ask some people. I love split-testing new stuff too, but that just evaluates if a change works. Talking with people helps validate your assumptions behind changes.
I'm sort of baffled when I see people using forums or getsatisfaction for support. You're compromising that important personal connection.
Also, feedback is incredibly valuable information on your strengths, weaknesses, customer desires, etc. Our main competitors have all this stuff out in the open and I love checking it out every couple days.
Nothing wrong with using forums. At some point, the sheer number of support requests can become inundating. Using forums and having the developers keep track of support requests and interfering/interjecting when necessary, poking around, asking questions while the support staff do the majority of the right-out-of-the-FAQ support can work, too. The key is that forums, unlike support tickets, are open sources of feedback. The developers is in the loop, even if not the primary "mover" of the loop.
I spend about an hour each day answering it all and I've learned an incredible amount from emailing back and forth with our users.
It's helped us be much more clear in describing what our product does. We'd change a few words here and there and eliminate whole classes of confused emails.
We build relationships with our users so when we have a question about a new product, or how something should work, we can just ask some people. I love split-testing new stuff too, but that just evaluates if a change works. Talking with people helps validate your assumptions behind changes.
I'm sort of baffled when I see people using forums or getsatisfaction for support. You're compromising that important personal connection.
Also, feedback is incredibly valuable information on your strengths, weaknesses, customer desires, etc. Our main competitors have all this stuff out in the open and I love checking it out every couple days.