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Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

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Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#71

Post by jfager »

ahoyhere wrote: post #39
spolsky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: Grandfather every existing customer, permanently.

That's not really an answer. If you're raising prices because of a profit issue, then you are prepared to lose some customers (the least profitable ones) so you can better serve the ones that give you a profit. Which is why I asked for strategies that worked, not "Don't."

How is that not an answer? Do you think ZenDesk has anywhere near saturated their market? Why should a company that's aiming to grow take the marketing hit that comes from pissing off their current customers? Why turn potential evangelists into angry detractors?

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#72

Post by paraschopra »

X-Istence wrote: post #64
robryan wrote: post #9

This seems to be a good example for the idea of setting your prices at the right level from very early on. Much better to err on the expensive side then drop them later than significant rises like these. Or initially offer a special deal so people know it will eventually cost more. Similar thing happens when going from freemium/ indirect revenue to charging. There was a big backlash when invision board did that, even…

Well, the backslash against Invision Board was mainly because the main guy that was working on it had promised that the product would stay free forever, and suddenly he started charging for it. I have two licenses from 2005 and 2006 respectively and each one of them was fairly cheap compared to the $149.99 that it costs now, also I've got a perpetual license meaning I get free support, and free downloads of the lates…

The issue isn't about an OS being much more than a forum (whatever that means), the issue is actually size of potential market. There are millions of users who would use an OS, but do you think the size of market is same for forums as well? Software doesn't cost high because it costs high to make it, actually it costs higher because the company making it has to survive and make profit (given the total size of market). (Or, of course, it can start making OSes).

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#73

Post by pcrawfor »

spolsky wrote: post #27
ahoyhere wrote: post #24

Anybody here successfully raised prices without a major blowback? I'd love to hear how you did it (as opposed to these clowns).

Easy: Grandfather every existing customer, permanently.

Bingo this is the key, it also makes a lot of sense to have some decent feature improvements/additions to coincide with your price increase

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#74

Post by blacklife »

paraschopra wrote: post #14
patio11 wrote: post #6

Do my eyes deceive me or are companies with 20 employees at their help desk complaining that a thousand bucks is a lot of money? I think we are seeing a later day MMORPG forum. At some point, it is easier to argue for a patch for your class than get 1 pct more stats, so you stop playing the game and start playing the boards. ZenDesk is the vendor most likely to drop prices by 1k for a single fauxraged posting, so sta…

If there is one thing that I have learnt from "Predictably Irrational" book, it is that humans make their money-related decisions by having a reference point. Zendesk could have always been priced at thousand bucks and no one would have complained. But once you set the price, you provide your customers with a reference point which they are going to use. You can't run away from that. For example, even though Microsoft…

Nice read if you have account. Similar to what you are describing: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/21451/abstract

Short summary: anchor points play a great role in setting human expectations. When plaintiffs ask for exorbitant amount of money*, then usually will get more money than they really deserve because jury's anchor point is set high.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#75

Post by chrisrhee »

pclark wrote: post #20
tyrelb wrote: post #2

Alternatives: http://www.activecampaign.com/help-desk-software/ http://www.kayako.com/ http://webhelpdesk.com/ http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/default.jsp http://tenderapp.com/ http://www.cerberusweb.com/ http://www.thevisionworld.com/ http://www.autotask.com/software/service_desk.htm

Tender App is especially great

Thanks! We're getting a bunch of signups right now.

If anyone has questions about Tender, feel free to comment here, tweet @tenderapp, or email support@tenderapp.com — Will's girlfriend is in town visiting, so let's keep him as busy as possible!

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#76

Post by titel »

Unfortunately this kind of moves from different companies affect the entire SaaS space.

There has always been a degree of uncertainty when committing your business to one service like this... what if they increase the prices? what if they will close? what if they turn bad and close my data behind a payed wall? will they be able to keep the service up most of the time (just think of the time when Gmail went down..)? And so on...

This is only going to make this worries a bigger issue when choosing to commit to one of these services.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#77

Post by piramida »

megamark16 wrote: post #69
Kaizyn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIRA is horrible. Don't use it if you can avoid it. While it kind of works once it's setup, the software really is terrible.

What's horrible about it? I ask because I really want to know, not because I'm defending JIRA (which I've never used).

It is big, it covers alot of ground, therefore it has large software product illnesses - complicated to setup, hard to master, tricky to optimize to run fast. However, it is a nice product for some heavy-duty task managing once you have it set up and running, absolutely nothing is horrible.

For a smaller project, though, I would roll your own to specific requirements, or would use a smaller package or product - because JIRA does everything and that could be too much sometimes.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#78

Post by Terretta »

troels wrote: post #51
jhancock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

I don't recall if RT from Best Practical has the particular feature, but otherwise it's a well-rounded and battle proven solution. It's ugly as hell though.

In my haste to up vote this, I accidentally down voted.

We've handled a couple hundred thousand support tickets in RT, some of them hundreds of interactions long, and it's still scaling happily.

Using email for support is liberating and using the web interface is phenomenal too. Can't complain about the licensing, but you'll definitely want someone who knows Perl and or the O'Reilly book.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#79

Post by ahoyhere »

jfager wrote: post #71
ahoyhere wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really an answer. If you're raising prices because of a profit issue, then you are prepared to lose some customers (the least profitable ones) so you can better serve the ones that give you a profit. Which is why I asked for strategies that worked, not "Don't."

How is that not an answer? Do you think ZenDesk has anywhere near saturated their market? Why should a company that's aiming to grow take the marketing hit that comes from pissing off their current customers? Why turn potential evangelists into angry detractors?

Why would you assume that market saturation is the goal instead of the highest possible profit margin?

Not everyone thinks saturation is economically viable, or even desirable. And honestly, in a market like SaaS web apps, it would be very hard to achieve, even at rock bottom prices. A help desk tool, no matter how crappy, is not a true commodity. One will serve a given customer better than another.

Also: I wasn't asking about ZenDesk, I was asking for other examples.

In my consulting business, I raised my rates from $75 to $300 in a couple of years. I wasn't going for saturation, and I didn't grandfather at all. But that is a 1:1 relationship with clients, and I radically changed my business over that time. I also raised the price of my ebook package from $24 to $39 but that was not the same customers, being that it was a one-time sale.

I am a big believer in raising prices. I like more money from fewer customers, which means I can simultaneously work less, and have higher quality interactions with my customers. It's a win/win/win.

My SaaS is one of the most expensive in our category, and for good reason. We're growing at a nice pace, too. I want to think about how we might raise prices, if we decide to, and for future products that I am planning.

And that is why I wanted real examples. Which other people were able to provide me.

Thanks, other commentors.

Re: Zendesk raises their prices 60%-300%, users predictably revolt

#80

Post by jackowayed »

jhancock wrote: post #43
ahoyhere wrote: post #17

I think anyone who uses ZenDesk will know that they don't love their users, or treat their tool like a serious business. (More like a cashcow.) Their software is horrible. There are 6 different ways to view the single table of incoming messages, and it's nondeterministic which one you will come to at any given time. And the first time you accidentally send an internal message to a customer, instead of your team - sin…

I need to setup a helpdesk system next week. Any recommendations? Our key requirement is to be able to reassign incoming tickets and have simple notification to the person it was reassigned.

Tender (http://tenderapp.com/ ) is pretty nice, and it looks like it's almost always cheaper than Zendesk. (I think the only time Zendesk would really be cheaper is if you're a 1- or 2-person team that can get by on the starter plan.)

As a support person, I don't find Tender especially amazing, but it gets the job done and never really gets in the way. But, more importantly, as an end user, I find Tender to be much easier and more pleasant to use than Zendesk. I cringe whenever I go to someone's support site and it's Zendesk.

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