Customer support software

[dannytaurus]

Anyone using any customer support software, like Intercom/Featurebase/etc? Or just doing it by email?

I've been doing by email for the last 4 years and it's mostly fine. I don't get a lot of support requests, maybe 2-3 per week. But when I do get them, they're hard to keep track of because they often require a few messages to and fro to resolve the issue and email clients are kinda crappy at tracking open conversations.

Also, collating data is basically impossible in emails, and relies on your own memory for identifying persistent/recurring issues. Having all that data in a queryable database, along with automated queries, could give proactive hints on what to work on or fix.

So, before I build my own support software (which I'm already part way through, of course ) does anyone have any suggestions?

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus I use fluent support (free version) - but I try to minimise support requests in general

[ustk]

@dannytaurus I've used freshdesk and was very happy with it, but after a year the trial period ended...

So I've made my own ticket support system. Seemed good at first but many people, once they get notified by email for a response, instead of clicking the link in the email they just respond from there, killing the purpose and making it messy...

Not getting a lot of tickets that being said, so it's ok for now... But when i'll be ready to pay 200€/year I'll go back to freshdesk, until then I'm opened to any cheap yet reliable solution too

[Chazrox]

Has anyone ever tried using Resend with Supabase?

[dannytaurus]

@Chazrox I use Resend with my website, but only a few emails a day to send generated discount codes.

Seems very easy to use, but it's expensive compared to SES if you're doing bulk. For transactional it's fine.

I use Neon as my DB currently.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus I uses SES via FluentSMTP

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey I'll probably start using SES when I move away from Gumroad.

For now, marketing emails are included in Gumroad's fee. But when I move to Moonbase, I'll need my own marketing stack.

Very likely SES for sending emails, with a Sendy or Mimeo campaign/automation front end.

I only use Resend for transactional stuff from my website at the moment. Too expensive for broadcasts.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Customer support software:

But when I move to Moonbase, I'll need my own marketing stack.

Maybe not:
https://feedback.moonbase.sh/p/email-campaigns
https://feedback.moonbase.sh/p/marketing-automations

https://feedback.moonbase.sh/roadmap

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Yes, these features might indeed be done by the time I move.

Definitely worth considering, since the rest of Moonbase is so well built, and their campaigns/automations live much closer to the list, but it depends on what features they actually build versus the features I get from third-party software.

I'm holding out for native GBP holding support. I don't relish the idea of my payments round-tripping through various currencies before they land with me.

Nothing on the roadmap for that, unfortunately.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Customer support software:

I'm holding out for native GBP holding support. I don't relish the idea of my payments round-tripping through various currencies before they land with me.

This would be nice. If I take all my gross income (excluding vat) for the month so far and compare it to the payout amount, my costs are about 12%. But I'm not paying for file hosting, or WooCommerce, or lots of other things, so Moonbase is definitely good value for me, even with the currency conversion.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey I had Claude run my last 6 month's Gumroad sales through the Moonbase fee/surcharge matrix.

Moonbase came out at 12.6% (similar to yours) versus Gumroad's actual 17.6%.

But Gumroad's 'Discover' system brings in a percentage of my current revenue, which I will lose when I move.

If Moonbase do GBP holding at 1% (same as USD) it goes down to 11.8%. GBP holding at 0% (like EUR) takes it to 11.4%.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Customer support software:

But Gumroad's 'Discover' system brings in a percentage of my current revenue, which I will lose when I move.

I don't know if there's a feature request for it but some kind of Moonbase marketplace would be nice.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Yeah, might be interesting.

I generally don't participate in marketplaces or use resellers, etc. but more out of an abundance of caution than anything else.

It would be yet another fee on Moonbase's already fairly extensive fee matrix. It would be good if they could simplify that a bit.

[soundsync]

@dannytaurus Hey Danny,
Not to Hijack your thread but figured I could let some light in on Soundsync.

The initial post is about support. I dont have this yet but I just added to the update list and will get it done ASAP! This feature would be included as "transactional" emails, so they will be free.

Soundsync also offers a Marketing Email option which segments your users based on useful info like products purchased, date range, imported list and more options coming soon (like plugin versions, etc).

You also mentioned wanting a more easy to follow fee matrix. Soundsync is easy.
10% fee covers everythinng except marketing emails (first 1000 free every month) and redemption overages (first 10,000 free each month).

So it looks like this:
10% Platform fee (covers transaction fee as well)
Email Marketing (First 1000 free each month, then $1/1000 emails)
Redemptions (First 10,000 free each month, then $0.005 each)

There is a $10 monthly minimum, but this is waved once you surpass that in other charges (like platform fee).

Soundsync is also a MoR.

Apologies again for Hijacking. if you feel this is crossing the line just let me know and I'll remove it.

Soundsync Information

Dev Signup

Best,

Aaron

[dannytaurus]

@soundsync Thanks for the info

[Lindon]

@dannytaurus said in Customer support software:

@David-Healey I had Claude run my last 6 month's Gumroad sales through the Moonbase fee/surcharge matrix.

Moonbase came out at 12.6% (similar to yours) versus Gumroad's actual 17.6%.

But Gumroad's 'Discover' system brings in a percentage of my current revenue, which I will lose when I move.

If Moonbase do GBP holding at 1% (same as USD) it goes down to 11.8%. GBP holding at 0% (like EUR) takes it to 11.4%.

We found the easiest and cheapest way to manage these cross-currency costs was to set up a Wise account (you can add a truck load of different currencies incl UK, US etc) and let each service you are using deposit in its "native" currency and then manually do the exchange (costs about 5%). But this depends on your distributor/web site being able to drop monies into Wise

[dannytaurus]

@Lindon Yeah, I've been using Wise since 2019, when they were called TransferWise.

Very cool service, never had any issues. I keep GBP, USD and EUR balances.

Moonbase uses Wise too, so their payouts go direct between Wise accounts, which is good. No other crappy banks in the flow.

The issue for me with Moonbase currently is that they don't hold in GBP. You can price and charge in GBP, and you can get paid out in GBP. But Moonbase holds it in USD/EUR (presumably EUR for GBP).

So when a customer pays in GBP, their payment is converted to EUR (at Wise standard rate, no markup apparently, which is cool) for holding, then when you get a payout, your EUR holding balance is converted back to GBP then paid to your Wise account.

Slightly more complicated than that actually. Depends on whether you price in GBP or in USD/EUR. But same thing applies either way - customer payment is converted from GBP to EUR, held until pay date, then converted back from EUR to GBP for payout.

You do have the option to be paid out in USD/EUR of course, but unless I have considerable business spending in those currencies, I'd likely end up converting back to GBP at some point.

And I feel like dealing in GBP as much as possible can only simplify our tax situations too.

manually do the exchange (costs about 5%)

By the way, I think your 5% number is too high. I just checked and Wise will convert 1k EUR to GBP at a rate of 1 EUR = 0.8553 GBP with a fee of 4.78 EUR, which is more like 0.5%, not 5%. Maybe the fee varies by amount converted.

[Lindon]

@dannytaurus said in Customer support software:

By the way, I think your 5% number is too high. I just checked and Wise will convert 1k EUR to GBP at a rate of 1 EUR = 0.8553 GBP with a fee of 4.78 EUR, which is more like 0.5%, not 5%. Maybe the fee varies by amount converted.

Sorry yes my typo...

[dannytaurus]

@Lindon

Sorry yes my typo...

Glad you weren't being charged 5%