We started using Zendesk early 2009. Before that we were managing support tickets the old and boring way - using a shared email inbox. Eeek!

Today, Zendesk has completely automated and centralized our support system. Every email to support AT deskaway.com gets logged in as a new ticket that can be picked up by anyone in our team. I think we save 1-2 hours each day, feel good that all support knowledge is stored in a central location accessible from anywhere. Here are the few things we really love about Zendesk:

Extremely easy to use and powerful.
Active rollout of features and new enhancements.
We can set macros, triggers - in other words, save and re-use answers for commonly asked questions.
Super active support and twitter team.
iPhone app for on-the-go support.
We share half the name :-).

If you are looking to automate and centralize your customer service then we recommend you give Zendesk a test drive.

Recently came across an interesting article in PC Mag title ‘Cloud Computing: Google vs. Microsoft‘ where the author Samara Lynn makes a good point that Google is moving fast to capture the small business market for its cloud services. I am extremely optimistic about Google becoming the cloud leader and happy that DeskAway is looking at even a much deeper integration with Google services and products.

In addition to all the points mentioned in the article, it will be clearly a game of positioning. After all, what do you think of when I say….

Microsoft……….windows, installing software
Salesforce………CRM

and Google……….web software.

See, who the winner is going to be.

As SaaS vendors, we are looking for ways to drive traffic to our site so that more people can try out our app. Besides your expensive SEM strategies, I have been curious to try out business app stores that help vendors like us to connect with potential buyers. One of them I came across recently is GetApp - a one stop shop for buyers to compare web applications.

I recently added and updated the DeskAway listing there. If you are a fan of DeskAway do check us out on GetApp and leave us a comment:

http://www.getapp.com/deskaway-application

Thanks!

PS - Good job by the GetApp Founders - Christophe Primault and Manuel Jaffrin

This post has been adapted from Sahil Parikh’s lifestream blog

That nasty bug on a new integration project refused to be found and we were fried at the end of the day. We felt lost and defeated. Leaving the office seemed hard to do but coming back the next day with a fresh perspective was equally important. I think I was in my own world that night. I sent a text message to our team: “I believe nothing is impossible. I hope you think the same”.

We assembled early on Tuesday morning. I think we spent the night thinking about what could have gone wrong. Starting fresh we decided to take a step back and work the basics. This would help us incrementally build our confidence again and find the error(s).

Step 1 - Downloaded new code libraries from the vendor site and went through the tutorials and how-tos. Were we missing something?

Step 2 -  Made sure our server had the correct requirements. It was important to double-check just in-case there was an incompatibility.

Step 3 - Kept the terminal window open and used the ‘tail -f’ command on the error log file. This would help us squash bugs incrementally as we progressed.

Step 4 - Setup the code and made sure that the most basic example ran. It gave us a few fatal errors that we couldn’t make sense of. After searching the vendor’s site, there were others who had the same problem. We applied these patches. At last, the basic example ran properly.

Step 5 - This gave us confidence to add our code and made sure it ran too. After some minor modifications, this ran too and we were well on our way to complete the integration.

Looking back, we figured it was some old libraries and something buggy in our code that returned empty session values and broke the processing. We could have probably commented our code in the first place, but we opted to start from scratch.

This process is something that all developers go through. Though, what we learnt was very powerful and will stay with us for a long time:

a. Take up a challenge positively cause it ain’t going away. If you are going to face it, you might as well give your best.
b. Going back to the basics helps. Building on stuff that works always helps.
c. Control your mind when faced with a challenge. It will wander and get excited. Calm down.
d. Keeping everyone motivated and encouraged as you will be working with people with different stress levels.

That same morning, I came across a quote from one my twitter followers:

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.”–Robert Louis Stevenson

Deep inside, I knew it would be our day.

No, I am not going away and this is not my farewell speech. Just thought that writing the title in past tense seemed to make sense.

After switching from a service company back in 2006/07, a large chunk of my life revolved around DeskAway. An inspirational article I read made me look at the things that I have learnt in the last 3-4 years growing and scaling a SaaS business.

Quick, rapid decisions: You can easily change things around if something does not work out. Don’t ponder and wonder if something needs to be done. Just do it and if it doesn’t work, switch gears and try something else. Try out different tools, policies, management styles, testing procedures, website design and keep only the ones that work. Move fast.

Measure early and often: Everything on the web is measurable. Initially, we were too engrossed in building software that we completely ignored analytics and measuring the customer acquisition funnel. This was back in early 2008. Once we realized that we could learn so much more about our users and business, we built an internal dashboard to track everything - sales, free signups, conversion funnel, upgrades, downgrades and other important metrics. Today, key business indicators are a click away. This is needed to make quick, rapid decisions.

Hire attitude first, then skill: Hiring the right people is a huge challenge. We learnt our lesson early on when we were doing website design and development. We hired an expensive designer who we had to fire after we found out that he was freelancing from within our office. I am not a fan oft hiring experts - they are generally very expensive for startups. Look for good attitude and a willingness to learn. Get the right people on your bus, the wrong people out.

Make time for play: I enjoy each day. Work does consume a large part of it but I generally take out time to pursue my other passions (like tennis, golf and traveling) and spend a good amount of time with family. I guess the family part is well rooted in our Indian culture. Life is too short to spend it away on all work and no play. Also, make sure you take care of your health - without a healthy mind/body there is no work.

Don’t chase success: In 2008 we concentrated on building good software and listening to our customers. This automatically gave us a decent amount of recognition on international blogs, print and TV. This was huge for our small business. The beauty of it was that everything happened so organically - maybe we were doing the right things and enjoying it while at it each day. Too much greed for success gets in the way.

Manage your time: When you are short on resources and need to wear different hats you better know how to manage your priorities. Be aware of where you spend your time. Learn to say no. Keep a certain alloted time for reading and social networking. These things can so easily consume you that by the time you know it, it is already time to go home.

Think purpose & brand: Features and pricing are not really differentiators. The real differentiator is your purpose and the perceived value within your customer’s mind. They should join you because of the message you are giving out. Do you stand for something important? Your purpose, brand and culture should be bigger than your product. This is something that I think about each day.

I am sure there are several more things that I have learnt and am learning each day. I will pen them down on another post soon. It has been an exiting journey so far and looking forward to some fabulous announcements in the next couple of months…