The Highs and Lows of User Support
Originally posted on Tumblr, 3 November 2014.
I find handling support pretty depressing at times. Most of the people writing in have a problem, are often angry, and you start to wonder why you even bother developing software. It’s worse when you are the sole developer, because you take the criticism personally, even though you tell yourself it is all just business.
A few years ago, I reached a point where I felt I needed some distance from user support. I contacted Aptfolk (link no longer available), and they took it over. I’ve been very happy with the people there, and their service. They handle the brunt of the support, and I am just called on to tackle the difficult stuff. It’s allowed me to relax a lot more.
Very occasionally you get an email from a happy customer, and they are worth their weight in gold. In the weekend, I received this:
I’ve been using Mental Case since 2008, and it became a major part of my study method around 2010 during my bachelors degree in university.
Before I was using Mental Case regularly, I was not a very good student, my grades ranged around C’s D’s and the occasional F, and I landed myself in academic suspension once for poor grades.
However, once I began using Mental Case and understood how to use the program as efficiently as possible with my studies and readings, my grades took a major leap into the A to A+ range.
A few months ago, I was accepted into a Juris Doctor program at a Law School ranked within the top 10 in the world with schools such as Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Cambridge Law.
Mental Case was and still is a very important factor to the success I have been having academically in recent years. I am sending this email to you as a huge gratitude for all the effort you guys have put into this program. It has made it so easy and straight forward to study effectively and efficiently and I feel I could not have got to where I am today without all the help I have received from you guys.
Thank you and I look forward to future updates of the app.
From my reply, you can tell how this makes me feel as a developer.
Wow! That’s a great story.
We get a lot of angry emails from customers at times. It’s just the way it works with software: the angry ones are the ones who tend to take the time to send emails. It can make you think your app is worthless to everyone.
So it’s great when a satisfied customer takes the time to email. We really appreciate it.
Your story is exceptional, and it is so good that Mental Case could play a part in your success. That makes it personally all worthwhile from my perspective.
Thanks for writing in!