Nobody wants to buy a product and just walk away. Every customer wants to be heard and expects a response that’s not canned or from a template. Most don’t expect a response in real-time, but they do need a personal one when it arrives.
Get Satisfaction is a web app that’s hogging the limelight these days in the customer support and satisfaction domain. When arch rivals like Apple and Microsoft use the same app for communicating with their customers, there must be something good. If you are as curious as me to explore the app, do read on.
Overview
Get Satisfaction offers a simple way to build online communities that enable productive conversations between companies and their customers. With Get Satisfaction it’s not only possible to get customer issues resolved but also to get valuable feedback on products and services in an unobtrusive fashion.
Overview
Before signing up and jumping into reviewing the web app, I have a few words to say about the mind blowing homepage design. Sitting prominently on the homepage is a spin wheel which shows the logos of companies who use Get Satisfaction for communicating with their customers. Clicking on the logo gives a brief overview of the company and how it is putting Get Satisfaction to use.
There’s also a link to read the full case study in detail. If you happen to be in the same vertical as one of these companies, you can learn how Get Satisfaction can help your business. Brilliant idea Get Satisfaction team. To see more companies, there are 40,000 of them using Get Satisfaction, just click on the Spin button to get another set of random logos.
Pricing
Get Satisfaction has a four-tier subscription plan and ranges between $19 to $289 a month. Based on the number of moderators you use, the starter plan could cost either $19 or $39.
Pricing
If you aren’t sure which plan is the right fit for your business, you can use the plan genie to find one. Use the slider to select the number of moderators and toggle the buttons to choose which features you really need and plan genie will display the plan that is ideal for your business.
The Plan Genie
All paid plans come with a free, full featured trial that lasts for 15 days. There is also a free plan but there is no mention of the features that go with that plan.
Dashboard
Dashboard
After completing the sign up process that requires email activation, we are taken to the dashboard. The toolbar in the top is technically all of the dashboard and below that we have the customer support page. You can start answering customers straight away from the dashboard.
Starting a Topic
A topic of conversation, a question to be precise, can be started by both you and your customer. When a customer opens a topic it could be a support ticket while your topic could be for feedback or an announcement.
Topics can be created either from the Ask a question box or the Start a topic link at the top left. Either way, you will be taken to the same page that requires you to enter additional info.
Asking a question
When start in the Ask a question box, Get Satisfaction lists similar topics and asks if you still want to ask the question. If you decide to go ahead, click on the Finish posting the question link. But we are not done yet.
New Topic
When a new topic is started, you have option to choose if it is a question, complaint, idea or a positive feedback. Get Satisfaction has done a smart job in differentiating each category with a unique color. Once you choose the category of the topics, you can give it a title and add an elaborate account from your side.
Tagging & Moods
There is a visibility meter at the bottom of the page indicating how probable is your topic from getting noticed. Visibility can be increased by adding relevant tags to the topics and selecting an appropriate smiley face. You can also add a status update to the smiley face.
Once all the details are added and you click on Post the topic, a login prompt appears. Yep, you cannot post without logging in. It’s a bit sneaky that until now we are given an impression that no login is necessary.
But to add ease to the login process, there is a lot of integration and you can sign in with your existing Google, Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live or Open id accounts. You will have to submit a valid email address to receive answers when they arrive and you cannot skip this step either.
Posted Question
Finally, the question is posted for others to see and take part in the conversation. You can share the question with others by sharing on Twitter or Facebook or get a short URL to send via email.
User Dashboard
Just as for admins, Get Satisfaction offers a dashboard for users who ask question and start topics. From this dashboard, users can track their status in the community, explore new friends, change profile information and follow their topics for updates.
Monitoring Conversations
FAQ
Topics that spur conversations are elevated automatically to the FAQ section which again is segregated based on the topics. Users can vote on each topic if they were of any use or not. Ongoing conversations in Twitter can also be tracked in the On Twitter section.
Twitter View
Feedback Widgets
Widget Code
On top of integrating nicely with your existing webpage, Get Satisfaction offers four different widgets for those who do not need full fledged integration. These widgets help you add the feedback tab, satisfaction search, topic list or feedback page. Options to select the placement of the widget and color theme can be can be availed before getting the code for the widget.
Management View
Management View
User engagement in the topics can be monitored from the Management View tab in the dashboard. Although there are not any mind blowing graphics that interpret the data, it is pretty useful nonetheless.
Final Thoughts
The guys and gals at Get Satisfaction are full of awesome ideas. Even before I started using this amazing web app, I was impressed with the brilliantly designed home page and the plan genie page. Few other web apps offer help to customers for choosing the right plan from a multiple tier, but outright plan genie takes the prize for being unbelievably comprehensive.
Get Satisfaction breaks away the conventional user interaction means by forms, forums and static web pages. If you are looking to infuse a breath of fresh air into community interactions, do not look elsewhere.