Jobs: |
See more on our Job Board. |
Seen by Matt on May 4 2009:
Submit a request to Blogger’s Help Forum and live search results guide you to potentially related FAQs. Smart attempt to head off customer questions at the pass and deliver answers immediately (without any human intervention). If it works, that is.
REWORK
The new business book from 37signals shows you how to build, run, and grow (or not grow) a business.
Getting Real
The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web app. Our bestselling book is now available as a free download.
Basecamp project management
Everyone's favorite web-based project management tool. Easy, fast, elegant. Free trial.
Highrise simple CRM
Keep track of who your business talks to, what was said, and what to do next. Free trial.
Campfire group business chat
Simple and easy web-based group chat for business has finally arrived. Try it free today.
Backpack information manager
Gather your ideas, to-dos, notes, photos & files online. Set email and mobile reminders. Try free!
Ruby on Rails
For developers we present our powerful yet simple open-source web application framework. Make coding easier on yourself.
Got a web design project in mind? Find a web designer on Sortfolio. Browse by visual style, portfolio, budget, and geographic location.
Over 1 million people use 37signals' simple web-based software to collaborate on projects, track contacts, and organize their business with an intranet.
11 comments so far
Matt White 04 May 09
Media Temple has been doing the same thing for a while now… It’s not often effective, but I’m happy when it is!
Ryan 04 May 09
Wait, what just happened here?
This was posted 20 minutes earlier, I comment on it about how Media Temple has been doing the same thing for a while now on their KnowledgeBase and for their customer support forms, and make a comment about how I feel it’s as useful as the rest of their services.
Then, the post and that comment were deleted, this post springs up with “If it works, that is.” added, and the first comment is word for word what I wrote, but with the second half removed, and “It’s not often effective, but I’m happy when it is!” added.
Really, what just happened here?
Tim 04 May 09
@Ryan
It’s not uncommon that 37signals posts something to their blog, then within a few minutes changes the title and some of the body content and then re-publishes the article.
But yeah, it get’s kind of annoying b/c if your RSS reader is quick enough to pick up the “old” article – it will try to display it.
How 37signals blog website works is that all posts are in the form of:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/{POST_ID}
So this post is: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1708
It wouldn’t suprise me if post id 1707 is the post you’re talking about.
Looks like that post_id is now private.
Tim
Anthony 04 May 09
There was something similar to this in Turbo Tax Online that I thought was interesting, especially since I was using the free version. It had user forum postings related to the page you were currently on. I’m not saying I would take tax advice from random people in a user forum, but for certain things it was really helpful.
Brade 04 May 09
Even better idea: never using Blogger
ML 04 May 09
Wait, what just happened here?
Ryan, sorry about that. I reposted this with a new image that demonstrated the search functionality better (and added in that line at the end too.) Didn’t mean to delete your comment. As for Matt White’s comment, my guess is any similarity is a coincidence?
Ryan 04 May 09
That’s okay guys, I wasn’t trying to imply there’s some massive conspiracy theory going on.
Thanks for clearing it up.
Julian 04 May 09
Weird. I had the exact same idea today – running an Ajax live search for help topics right next to a contact form.
Nice post.
Crystal 04 May 09
Ravelry does the same thing. It’s one of the many things I like about their interface, and it does cut down on a lot of the more basic questions.
MrTomahawk 05 May 09
StackOverflow and ServerFault (maintained by the same people) do this, I find it to be very effective. There have many times when I find the answer to my question as I’m typing it.
Michael Riley 06 May 09
Mediatemple’s thing isn’t quite the same, instead of drawing from user driven content they pull in related knowledge base articles. They aren’t trying to stave off human interaction for support, but rather trying to mitigate common support requests that they really aren’t liable for (“How do I do XYZ in Plesk?”).
I actually find the concept of them doing this a little insulting sometimes, I mean if I’m filing a support ticket my intent is to get assistance from a human.
Comments are closed