So, since we mentioned offhandedly the topic of support woes yesterday, let’s dig around a little and see just what kind of services are out there to make that process easier, shall we? Especially since as it happens, the topic came up on the iphonesdk list a couple days ago and there were a number of options suggested:
- The GetSatisfaction.com people that just a little while back we mentioned the library that you can embed right into your app; but after following up the links that Informed Reader “Jer” was kind enough to grace that post with, we’re just a bit skittish about doing business with them, slick integration and free signup notwithstanding.
- Lighthouse for tickets paired with the from the same company Tender for customer service. This one piques our interest because as you may recall if you’re a really old school follower, we decided waaaay back when that Lighthouse Keeper was the sine qua non of OS X simple issue tracking, and why yes it still has pride of place in our Dock, no reason to second-guess that since. (And our gushiness was enough to merit a quote on their product page, no less. Heh.) Pricing starting at $19 a month though … hmmm, we’d have to have a good bit more support needs before that really made sense.
- Hesk.com, which looks quite interesting; PHP/MySQL software you install on your site for free (long as you don’t mind their logo) or can have hosted if you want. Client interface demo looks nice and clean as well, a strong consideration with support software indeed.
- SupportSuite from Kayako.com, as you can see on the recommender’s site here. If you want really full-featured that certainly looks like a top contender, but we at least don’t have any particular need for any of that so far, especially at the $30/month and up their solutions cost.
- Fixx which is free for individual developers you might look at … but the recommender added “after looking at Hesk it definitely has a more user-friendly interface”; which as you see above had struck us at first glance as well. So we won’t investigate that one further we don’t think.
So there’s a number of interesting options. So far our support needs don’t actually merit the trouble of setting up even a free one; but hey, always nice to keep abreast of the subject in case the need ever does suddenly become compelling! In that vein, any opinions on these or other services worth (or not) considering, Dear Readers?
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