This is part of our series “Movin & Groovin” which profiles our amazing customers and how they use Groove. Below is some Q&A with Sarah Facini of Buzzdata. 

What does your business do?

BuzzData.com is a platform for sharing, publishing and collaborating on data. To geeks, we tend to describe it as a “github for data,” but to people like me (a non-geek) it’s more like Facebook — for data.

So for example, on Facebook I might post photos from Saturday night hanging with my friends at a hockey game. My friends would “like” it or make a funny comment. On BuzzData, I’d post a dataset that I compiled of the best places around town to watch the game, the geo-locations and some maps that I generated of that data. My friends in turn could follow the data to keep informed of any updates, engage in discussion about the data and contribute new versions with expansions or improvements to the data I posted.

How many people are working there?

We just brought on some new staff, so we’re about 10 people now. 

How many email inquires do you get on average per day for your business?

We’ve only been in public beta only since the beginning of August, so there’s no such thing as an average day yet :)! While I’m sure that this will eventually level out, the number of emails that we get through our support system seems to be relative to press coverage and new feature releases — when we get coverage, we get new users. Then we get more people emailing in to say everything from “this is amazing!” to “what the heck do I do?” 

How do you use Groove?

We use Groove to channel all of our support emails through support@buzzdata.com. We also have installed the chat widget on our site to allow people to connect with us in a way that doesn’t interrupt their workflow. 

When away from the office, I use the iPhone app to update our support tickets.  It’s really handy because I could be stuck on the streetcar and be working more efficiently than I would be if I was responding via email because the support tickets aren’t lumped in with all my other emails.  We also use the private notes to pass along pertinent information as it helps us make sure that we are all on the same page.

Why did you choose Groove?

Without naming names, I just wasn’t finding what I was looking for in the other apps. In all honesty, I had almost decided on another app when our CTO emailed with a link about Groove.

After browsing the features, I went to sign up and realized Groove was still in private beta, which I worried I wouldn’t get access to. Luckily for us, we got in early. 

When I first started exploring my Groove dashboard, the things that first caught my attention were the easy-to-use interface and the chat/email integration.  The user interface is fantastic. Everything is simple and straightforward and there isn’t a big learning curve. The chat/email integration is a huge bonus as it means that Groove is a one-stop shop and we don’t need to have additional support apps. 

In the end, what eventually sold me on Groove was their customer support. Sure, they have a clean, simple UI, it is super-easy to use and they are getting bigger and better each time they roll out new changes to the site. But they also understand good customer support — every time I connect with them it becomes more and more evident. They set the customer service bar high.

What do you love most about Groove?

The UI. The design of the UI is spot-on.  I really love that there aren’t any unnecessary pieces of functionality or visuals that clutter the page. As I mentioned previously, it’s super intuitive. I think that this is really important because it means that anyone could hop on and take care of support tickets.  

I also love how Groove isn’t trying to be the best app out there by baking in too many bells and whistles. There is an art to keeping things straightforward while not skimping on features.  Groove definitely strikes this balance well.

Probably most importantly, I love that our users love it. We’ve received feedback from our users on a number of occasions that they love the chat widget. People are impressed that when they say hello or send an email, that it actually goes somewhere and that someone responds.

What features would you like to see in the future?

This is hard for us because I think that everything that we wanted to see has been implemented or is on the radar already.

Things that we’re looking forward to is the option to include a screenshot to the widget messages, the Mac App and being able to fully add custom-styling to the widget.

What’s the best tip you have for delivering awesome customer support?

Aside from the obvious (prompt replies, taking time to write the best response possible, etc.), I really think that the best tip I could offer is to avoid canned responses.

It is hard to make canned replies sound genuine. Users can tell when you are writing to them and when you are just using a script. My best tip is keep it personal as much as possible.

• Tags
• case study

We’ve just released a ton of new features, enhancements and small fixes for Groove today! Lots coming up over the next 1-2 months :) Enjoy and Happy Holidays!!

• New feature: Keyboard shortcuts
• New feature: Made all emails plain. The ‘Please REPLY ABOVE this line’ is no more. 
• New feature: Option to automatically create @mentions for Twitter into tickets or to convert them to tickets once agents reply.
• New feature: Added Priority (Low, Med, High) field for tickets.
• New feature: Real-time updates for multiple agents replying to the same ticket.
• New feature: Contact us form for the Knowledge Base.
• New feature: For canned replies, you can now use meta information like the customers name to be automatically inserted in the reply.
• Enhancement: Agents can now configure email templates to use the ‘mailbox’ name as a variable.
• Enhancement: Pinned articles for the Knowledge Base.
• Enhancement: Added ‘Attach a file’, ‘Status’ and ‘Labels’ when creating private notes.
• Enhancement: Made the right side fixed for the tickets page when scrolling. 
• Enhancement: Now Include subject line of email in your mailbox list view.
• Enhancement: Agents can now optionally receive email notifications for all replies that are rated (Awesome, OK, Not good).
• Bug fix: Cleaned up the UI design for searching chats and tickets.
• Bug fix: Close and reply button now updating the status of the ticket if you just click on ‘Close and Reply’ without adding a reply. 
• Bug fix: Fixed padding issue for the help widget.
• Bug fix: Twitter headshots now coming in for all replies in a ticket.
• Bug fix: Fixed issue with deleting headshots.
• Bug fix: Now showing pagination links in the people view.

What’s coming up?

A ton of backend automation stuff :) Rules, Macros, Custom Filters, Groups etc. 

Blown away by the Groove beta for managing our customer support! Visit http://prefinery.com and chat with us live to see how it works. -@prefinery

Looking for a tool to handle your customer support? Look no further…GrooveHQ has everything you may need! -@SFInternet

Can’t wait to use Groove - a must if you handle customer support! -@AshleySchappert 

Checking out GrooveHQ. Looks like a nice support desk setup. A Zendesk alternative. Currently free cuz its in beta. -@davidrisley

Just signed up to try a new (multichannel) help desk that looks REALLY hot — #Groove. -@powerupcoaching

Groove-Easiest site support you will ever see! -@GregorBorsic

The folks @HipChat recommended #Groove so I signed up for the beta! -@yesware

Just had a phone meeting with a client. They told me at the end they are impressed with my customer support since we changed to @GrooveHQ -@pinebeltdesign

The praise is great but the feature requests are even better!! Lots coming up for Groove…

Lots of little goodies coming out for Groove :) Today we released keyboard shortcuts for taking actions on tickets. Makes your life sooooo much easier! Below are the keys that you can use:

• R: Reply
• N: Add Note
• D: Delete Ticket
• K: Next Ticket
• J:  Previous Ticket
• L: Add Label
• Esc: Cancel a reply or note

Have fun! Lots more coming up…

In the startup game there is nothing more inspiring than a customer praising your product or service, especially when you stumble upon a blog post they wrote about you on Thanksgiving. It’s almost better than the press writing about you. Here’s a few gems from one of our amazing customers about why they love Groove…

“First off, their website is just beautiful. Turns out, they are in Beta still. Nevertheless, I put in my request. I figured as a small business, I may be ignored. That was not the case.

Alex sends me an email asking me a little bit about my business and what I am looking for. He is personable and likable. He gives me an account, and I log it.

The thing that strikes you when you enter the dashboard is the beauty of the interface and the simplicity of the setup. Want the chat widget on your website? Just enter a little bit of code. Want emails piped into the system as a ticket? Just set up your email to forward it on. Twitter integration. Wow, I didn’t even think of that. Just enter your information and you’re done.

Right from the dashboard, you can take chats in a facebook style widget. There is a simple inbox of incoming requests. Nothing to distract you, while having everything you need. GrooveHQ has found a way to be feature rich without overwhelming. This makes me happy. Even more importantly, my customers are happy.

But the reason I am writing this post is that they do customer service right. Every time I have a feature request, idea, or question, they are quick to respond. And for that I’m thankful.”

Big shout-out to Justin at Pine Belt Web Design for sharing his thoughts about Groove! We love customers like you :) 

Today we released a highly sought after feature for the Knowledge Base. The Contact Us form allows your customers to reach out to you if they can’t find the answer to their question in your Knowledge Base. As you can see from the form below, it’s structured such that it encourages your customers to view your Top help articles and search for the answer first, before reaching out to the customer support team. This allows your customers to instantly figure out the answer to their question, saving both the agents and customers a lot of time. The customer is happier because they’ve found the answer to their question instantly and the support agents are happier because it cuts down on the number of repetitive customer requests that need to reply to.

“Under the Radar is returning for our 18th conference in Mountain View, CA.  As Silicon Valley’s most effective innovation showcase and business development conference, we continue to bring leading decision makers together with pre-vetted startups that are disrupting the way traditional business is run…

Under the Radar is NOT a funding event, however, in the past three years alone, 62% of our presenters have gone on to raise major funding and/or been acquired by companies such as Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, BT, Microsoft, Twitter, Fox Interactive, and others. It’s inevitable with so many dealmakers in one room.”

Please note: While we were very excited, and honored to be picked to showcase Groove at this weeks Under The Radar conference, due to potential business developments we chose to decline. Even though we won’t be presenting at the show, we will be attending and are excited to meet the other startups showcasing their apps as well as the other 300 attendees. 

Behind the scenes we’re working on some pretty big stuff which should be ready in the next month or so. While we’re working on these bigger features we’re also enhancing the user interface for some of the core components of the app. This weeks focus was the Tickets Page. Here’s a list of the enhancements: 

• Added an ‘Update & Close’ button to make it easier to reply and close a ticket in one action.
• Changed the way agents input notes. Many of our customers were getting confused whether or not they were replying to the customer or adding a private note. The modal input makes it very clear now.
• Moved ‘Assigned to’ above reply box.
• Changed the order of messages on the tickets page so that it reads from oldest to newest message top down with reply box at the bottom. We’ve also added an internal scroll and a fixed reply box at the bottom of the page so that the agents don’t have to scroll down the page to reply or change the status of a ticket if there are a lot messages in a ticket. It’s pretty nifty :) 
• When agents change the status or reply and click on the ‘Update’ button it brings them back to the tickets list page. This makes it take 1 less click to get back to where the agents want to be without clicking on the filter they were just in.

We’re currently working on the story boards for the Groove overview video but we figured it wouldn’t hurt to post the voice over script so that you can get an idea of the direction of our story. Estimated runtime 60 seconds. 

Keeping your customers happy is easy when you’re small. 

But delivering personalized service as you grow gets expensive, and can be overwhelming.

That’s where Groove comes in.

With Groove, you can manage your customer support channels in one centralized application; quickly, easily and even on-the-go.

 

Manage conversations on Twitter and Facebook…

….through email,

…and with Real-Time Chat.

With Groove’s iPhone and iPad apps, you can make your customers happy, wherever you are!

Don’t get bogged down by high volumes. Manage incoming requests alone or get your team involved!

…or enable Groove’s Knowledge Base feature and allow your customers to find the answers to their questions instantly.

Make Groove your own by styling it to fit your company or brand.

Companies large and small are falling in love with Groove because it’s simple, fast, elegant, and powerful.

Sign up for your free Groove account today and start delivering superior personalized customer service at scale.