How I almost ignored our single best source for customer feedback.

(Disclaimer: I work for Twilio) You can do this for less money than you think too. For instance, with Twilio toll-free numbers are $2/month+$.05/minute and you can easily program them to have quiet hours or just do simple forwarding with one of our pre-built Twimlets: <a href="http://labs.twilio.com/twimlets/" rel="nofollow">http://labs.twilio.com/twimlets/</a>

<i>One day I discussed with her when to give a refund. I told her we had a no questions asked 7 day refund policy. She asked what to do if the person wanted a refund on day 8? I told her to go ahead and give it anyway. There were a lot of situations like this that had to be spelled out. To the letter.</i><p>I think it's a fair question. The answer is not obvious: in fact, if it were my business I probably wouldn't give the refund in that case.<p>She seems good. In my experience, most people doing customer service wouldn't bother to ask and would just follow the procedure. If she asked that before someone actually asked her for a refund on day 8, then she's a keeper. The poster's expectations seem a bit too high.

From my experience this article is spot on! The only thing that is missing is the bonus fact that this will save you money on support if you are currently using email. In my experience you can answer questions over the phone 3-5 times as quick as emails. So if you are going to give out your email, might as well give out a phone number as well.

I'd go one further and say that everyone (especially engineers) should spend time (either daily/weekly) on customer support (forums, emails, etc.). There's nothing like a customer gripe that gets engineers to prioritize stuff.<p>Having said that, I couldn't find Jackson Fish's 800 number.

User groups, when the developer is active, can provide similar benefits.<p>Two of the user groups I follow have significant developer participation (CONTAM building airflow simulation, and the Sundials suite of numerical libraries). On both, users actually address the developers by name, make feature suggestions, and (in the case of Sundials, which has open code) suggest code fixes. Those groups also have more of a sense of community than the ones where the developers don't seem to spend much time.

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>I'm sort of baffled when I see people using forums or getsatisfaction for support. You're compromising that important personal connection.<p>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.

(Disclaimer: I work for Ringio) You can be up and running with your own 800 number that routes to employees and pops on your screen who is calling (and match it to a Google Contact) in less than 10 minutes, and try it for free with Ringio. <a href="http://www.ringio.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.ringio.com</a>

I think it's really important for the people building a product to spend at least some time doing tech support. Right now, my tech team of three (including me) all "see" every incoming tech support email and we rotate through who's responsible to answer them. Since I have a tech support background, it's obvious to me that this is the best way to both understand what's broken, but also what works and what can be improved in a system. I don't think we'd bring on a dedicated support person until this strategy impinges on our ability to get things done.

My main concern is due to timezones I'll probably be asleep when a customer calls.

We are based in a far off land, with most of our customers in the US. I just include in my support emails: "If you'd rather discuss anything on the phone, just send me your phone number and timezone and I'll be in touch at a time that works for you". It works well - I normally initiate a few phone calls each day using SkypeOut. We are looking at a SkypeIn number with voicemail to allow customers to make inward calls, but I am pretty happy with the current scenario.

Another great option for this live chat services like Olark. Of course you can also have these routed to your mobile when they offer an app. Needless to say, having the chat requests manned by founders once in a while is great way to keep them checked into reality.