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.

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