I am working on stuffing my face with burgers and chips prior to going back to the land of noodles and raw fish. Plus customer support emails, since birthdays and bridal showers don't stop just because I am on vacation.
I would be interested to know how much time you spend doing customer support; or, rather, whether you have tried to automate any of this using existing tools (like getsatisfaction, or even just a faq). Or since - as you have written in the past - your customers are not particularly techno-savvy, are these tools of limited use to you, and emails are the only way to go? This might be of interest to companies with similar customers.
I spend between 0 and 20 minutes a day on customer support for BCC, with most days (particularly in the summer) closer to zero.
Previously I used something which macroed responses (20% of the issues are 80% of the time, always) but I forgot to reinstall it, and support these days is fast enough that I don't really care enough to install it again.
My biggest tricks for decreasing the number are a) switching to a web app versus a downloadable app (< 10% the support burden, seriously), b) aggressively rewriting anything I need to on the interface to answer common questions before they arrive in my inbox, and c) optimizing the admin controls for common support queries.
I have a support page ("FAQ? Is that Arabic?") and some self-help support tools, like a password reminder system and a Registration Key lookup. (Support issue #1 for four years running.) My impression is that they help enough to justify creating them, but they're palliatives rather than solutions. I have no desire to use GetSatisfaction or any other third party which will confuse my customers to no positive purpose.
