February 22, 2023
Making a customer service app
22/02/2023
I've had this idea for a while now (first with Galeby) but it was too much for my skills back then.
The goal is to find a way to help my customer service assistant work faster.
The first idea was a full customer support desk, but that would be too hard to make for now. So, I'm just going to start with a Chrome extension.
I have no idea how to make one so I'm just learning on the go.
Here is the plan:
- Use a Chrome extension for my employee. If it makes her work faster, I'll publish it.
- If I see people are interested, I'll add more features, including AI replies etc.
- If I see that people pay for it, I will make an even better version.
Of course, that's just the theory. It will probably not go past the "if people are interested" as it's very basic. But anyway, let's see. I need to make it for my employee anyway.
13/03/2023
Got a few people on my waitlist. The "boring part" starts. I'll have to manually contact each to see if they'd be willing to pay for the app.
14/03/2023
Needed to learn to make livechats using Websockets so I made WhoIsTheAI.com. Chrome extension has finally been published so I can start promoting the app more.
17/03/2023
The Chrome extension was published, and I made a "Guide" section 2 days ago. I feel like I need to add some free features to "make sure the app "start up" the app. I guess a free live chat would be a good one.
20/03/2023
Spent some time improving my UI skills by making a support panel mockup and taking a course, pretty satisfied with the progress so far.
21/03/2023
I improved my design skills by a lot, and was able to make an even better version!
Having mockups is nice but not I need to make the actual app. I'll skip email support for now because it seems like a headache to handle, so I'll focus on live chat to start with.
The hard part is how to handle the data, as there will be a lot.
15:37
Never mind, it's way too complex, I'll just improve the Chrome extension for now.
24/03/2023
Totally remade the design of the app + chrome extension.
Chrome app
And also made a landing page (I use Google Docs to do the mockup)
25/03/2023
Launched on Twitter yesterday:
Got 2 subscriptions in the night, but one seems to be a competitor, so, a bit disappointing. Got around 11,000 impressions, 200 visits and 2 sales, so that's 1.81% click rate and 1% conversion rate, which isn't that great.
Will try to post on Hackernews and other channels, but that's not a good start. I think I need to rework my landing page.
Going to send this email to ppl from my waitlist.
28/03/2023
The email got no result. Remade the landing page to add more details, and prepare to run ads:
05/04/2023
Working on making a free trial. That way people can start using the app before paying. I feel this will increase the conversion rate, who is below the shit tier right now.
The user just needs to put his email in and it creates an account, a trial and everything.
To ship faster, I haven't added options to pay yet (since having the free trial means I removed the direct payment page). I'll ship the free trial version and then add the paid tier, I just need to do it within the next 7 days.