• Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact
CloudAve
Software in Business. The Business of Software.
  • Business
    • Analysis
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Marketing
    • Strategy
    • Small business
  • Technology
    • Application Software
    • Infrastructure
    • Open Source
    • Mobile
    • Platforms
    • Product reviews
    • Security
  • Misc
    • Design
    • Just for fun
    • Trends & Concepts
  • Your POV
  • Sponsors
Browse: Home / customer support

customer support

The $2 Million Dollar Man (/Woman):  How to Think About Scaling Your Customer Success Team

The $2 Million Dollar Man (/Woman): How to Think About Scaling Your Customer Success Team

By Jason M. Lemkin on October 1, 2013

In SaaS, there are a lot of great “rules” that do make sense overall but can be confusing or borderline misleading at times.  E.g., Sales +Marketing Expenses < First Year ACV = Success?  Great rule — at Scale.  But maybe not while you are scaling.  E.e.g., if Churn > 2% = Bad, Just Terrible.  Well […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged customer support, echosign, Entrepreneurship, saas, startups

How Cheap a Product Can You Have And Still Have Salespeople?

How Cheap a Product Can You Have And Still Have Salespeople?

By Jason M. Lemkin on August 15, 2013

One question I struggled with a lot in the early days was what price points supported inside sales reps.  It was clear to me that our freemium offering, priced at from $0 to $19/month, couldn’t really support a traditional inside sales team.  And it became clear to me that five-figure or larger ACV deals could […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged customer support, Entrepreneurship, Market segmentation, saas, sales, startups

Want better support? Then make that part of your buying criteria.

Want better support? Then make that part of your buying criteria.

By Chris Yeh on May 21, 2013

I was very entertained when I read a recent blog post complaining about the crappy customer service you get from big internet companies.  The writer titled it, “Hey internet giants, you’re no longer startups, get some customer service.” I was entertained for two reasons.  The first is that it’s quite possible for a startup to […]

Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged customer support, customerservice, startups, tech support

FinancialForce 2012 Release–Delivering a Loosely Coupled Set of Solutions

FinancialForce 2012 Release–Delivering a Loosely Coupled Set of Solutions

By Ben Kepes on September 11, 2012

Nicely timed to coincide with next week’s DreamForce conference comes the summer 2012 release from FinancialForce, the cloud accounting company that is both part owned by Salesforce, and built upon the force.com platform. While product announcements tend to be a little ho-hum, this one is interesting since it comes from

Posted in Application Software, Featured Posts | Tagged customer relationship management, customer support, force.com, netsuite, salesforce.com, Service cloud, workday, zuora

Ooma Phone Service Goes Down, So Does the Website.  Company Sleeps Through It.

Ooma Phone Service Goes Down, So Does the Website. Company Sleeps Through It.

By Zoli Erdos on August 17, 2011

The one thing a phone service can’t do is to simply disappear.  And it is normally those times we realize how much of a lifeline it still is.  Like I did, expecting a call from my Dad’s cardiologist re. his hospitalization. Waiting, waiting, I was getting p***d with the poor doc, when I noticed the […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Technology | Tagged customer support, ooma, ooma outage, outage, phone, phone service, telco, telecomm | 3 Responses

Why Microsoft is 3X Better than Apple for Customer Support

Why Microsoft is 3X Better than Apple for Customer Support

By Mark Fidelman on May 25, 2011

Tweet  The Apple versus Microsoft product debate has been a constant, four decade campaign. There are proponents on both sides. While recently Apple has emerged the trendier of the two, does having trendier products translate into superior customer support? In the last few months I have met with both the Apple and Microsoft teams in […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged #custserv, Apple, customer support, enterprise 2.0, microsoft | 1 Response

Image credit: Help Desk Notes

Why customer service can’t be outsourced

By Martijn Linssen on January 26, 2011

After briefly participating in last night’s #custserv chat, I found myself dissatisfied with chats like these via a medium like that. I like to get definitions straightened out and agreed upon when they get “volatile” so to say. So, for future chats, please find a web page that does (and can be scanned in a […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged 1.0, 2.0, application development, business exceptions, business rules, cloud computing, customer service, customer support, Exception handling, information, standardisation, technical support, trust, twitter | 2 Responses

Game Changing Customer Support Communities (Presentation)

Game Changing Customer Support Communities (Presentation)

By Mark Fidelman on December 13, 2010

The following was the Presentation I gave at the Gilbane Conference in Boston Self-Service support communities are beginning to replace the help desk for internal and external customer support.    In fact, these communities are simultaneously reducing costs (less support calls) and increasing revenue (SEO lead generation).   Follow along as I explore the history of documentation […]

Posted in Business | Tagged communities, customer service, customer support, CustomerSupport, enterprise 2.0, facebook, gilbane, mindtouch, scrm, technical support, wiki help, wiki support

About that Second “S” in SaaS – Awesome Service

About that Second “S” in SaaS – Awesome Service

By Zoli Erdos on June 28, 2010

”There is an app for that” – say the Apple commercials.  “There is a plugin for that” – was my conclusion, while lookin for the rigth tools to move the Enterprise Irregulars blog to WordPress a few months ago.  Seriously.  The WordPress ecosystem is simply amazing, things that a few years ago required messing with […]

Posted in General | Tagged blogging, customer support, enterprise irregulars, feedburner, feedwordpress, hybrid news theme, Hybrid Theme, open source, plugins, pressharbor, support, technical support, web hosting, wordpress

Why I Quit Reddit – Actually, Reddit Quit Me

Why I Quit Reddit – Actually, Reddit Quit Me

By Zoli Erdos on March 4, 2010

Three years ago I was quite active on Reddit – at least for a while, until I realized just how manipulated it became. I’m not really holding it against reddit, the same happens on Digg and probably on all similar sites – nothing new here, you’ve probably read all this a thousand times, so I […]

Posted in Product reviews | Tagged customer support, Digg, Reddit, social bookmarking, social news, Stumbleupon, twitter | 2 Responses

Customer Support in the Facebook and Twitter Era

Customer Support in the Facebook and Twitter Era

By Ben Kepes on November 4, 2009

I’ve been a follower of Helpstream CEO Bob Warfield since before I begun blogging. He’s a super smart, super analytical SaaS commentator who left the world of full time blogging to enjoy the rewards of corporate leadership. I’d have made this session no matter what, the fact it included a bunch of other really smart […]

Posted in Enterprise, General, Marketing | Tagged customer support, forrester, get satisfaction, Helpstream, heresay labs

The Future Of Small Web Hosts In The Cloud Era

The Future Of Small Web Hosts In The Cloud Era

By Krishnan Subramanian on November 4, 2009

The public clouds are yet to have a significant impact on the enterprise market but it has built up its success among the startups and SMBs who are more interested in the cost savings offered by the clouds. The success of Amazon stirred up the hosting provider market big time. Some of the big hosting […]

Posted in Analysis | Tagged cloud computing, customer support, smb, web hosts

Skype is not Only VOIP: It Reigns in IM But How Long?

Skype is not Only VOIP: It Reigns in IM But How Long?

By Zoli Erdos on October 15, 2009

Nowadays the only context we hear about Skype is the legal fight (care to bet how long it will take for the previous Net Celebs to become the Hated Greedy Ones who try to sc**w all of us?) – I would much rather read about new features, improvements. After all, Skype is the single most […]

Posted in Product reviews | Tagged chat, customer support, im, skype, video, voip | 2 Responses

The New Lenovo: Nice Hardware, Dumb Support

The New Lenovo: Nice Hardware, Dumb Support

By Zoli Erdos on July 20, 2009

Lenovo, home of the (formerly IBM) Thinkpad’s is not exactly known as a price leader: those Thinkpads have a great reputation and a matching price-tag.  But times are changing, and Lenovo is becoming budget-friendly: the recently announced Ideapad U series, the G550, and the all-in-one Ideacentre are all “cool” computers with an attractive price.  For […]

Posted in General | Tagged customer service, customer support, ideapad, laptop, lenovo, netbook, thinkpad, websales | 4 Responses

Are Free Customers Disposable?

Are Free Customers Disposable?

By Krishnan Subramanian on May 6, 2009

Image by CC Chapman via Flickr Phil Wainewright writes on ZDNet.com about how web giants are treating their customers More than any of these acts, though, the most constructive change would be to get rid of the mindset that leads these Web giants to belittle the circumstances of its ‘consumers’. Is it unreasonable of us […]

Posted in Strategy | Tagged business models, customer support, free users, freemium, saas, support | 2 Responses

Next »
feed mail facebook twitter linkedin

Popular Posts

  • Home
  • AMZN ‘Other’ Revenue in 2011+
  • 25 Definitions of Innovation
  • Why Online / Offline Mobile Integration is Going to be a Huge Business
  • 10 Critical Requirements for Cloud Applications
  • Looking Back 2010: Key Cloud Acquisitions
  • Blog
  • Google Chrome OS: Pre-Announcement in Classic Microsoft-style

Archives

Authors

  • Adron Hall
  • Chirag Mehta
  • Christian Reilly
  • Dan Morrill
  • Derek Pilling
  • Hutch Carpenter
  • Jarret Pazahanick
  • Jason M. Lemkin
  • Joel York
  • John Taschek
  • Krishnan Subramanian
  • Mark Suster
  • Michael Krigsman
  • Ofir Nachmani
  • Paul Miller
  • Quinton Wall
  • Randy Bias
  • Robert Duffner
  • Sadagopan
  • wprss
  • Zoli Erdos
Sponsored by: