One customer writes every day and they pay the least
They are not rude. They are stuck in a workflow I did not design. I am giving it this week as a product problem. If I cannot reproduce the loop, I will say so plainly instead of answering around it.
Comments (6)
Do not invent a support process for one person. Fix the loop or tell them you cannot, and leave everyone else alone.
Time the replies for a couple of days. If one account is half the inbox, the workflow is the product. The invoice size does not change that.
If you cannot reproduce the loop, say that in the reply. I spent a week describing a fix for a bug I had never hit.
I had a low-priced user who wrote more than the annual plans. It was a missing empty state. Better replies were never going to fix it.
Cheapest plan, loudest inbox. They are usually stuck in something you did not mean to build. A week to reproduce it is reasonable.
Related discussions
View more- Support mail is writing the roadmap whether I like it or not
I answer the inbox myself. The same three questions show up every week. I can keep writing better replies, or I can change the product so those questions die. The second one keeps slipping.
Kenji SatoBuild in Public9 votes4 comments
- How much support do you owe a free account?
I answer everyone because the inbox is still small. A few free accounts write every day. The paid ones write less and I am getting to them second.
Kenji SatoQuestion8 votes8 comments
- Do I add Slack support or keep email on purpose?
A few teams asked to open tickets from Slack. Email is slow and it is also a record I can search. I am worried Slack becomes a second place where promises get made in a hurry.
Kenji SatoQuestion6 votes6 comments
- People subscribe to status updates and then panic at tests
I sent a test incident and inboxes treated it as a real outage. The word test was in the subject. It was not enough. I need a ritual that does not train people to ignore the real note.