How This Startup Reduced Its Support Time by 60%

Spending 4 hours a day processing support requests. Answering the same questions. Juggling between 5 different tools. This was the daily reality for the CloudMetrics team, a 12-person SaaS startup specializing in web analytics.

Six months later, this startup reduced its support time by 60%. Without hiring. Without sacrificing service quality. By simply rethinking how they collect and process incoming requests.

Here’s their story.

The Diagnosis: A Team Drowning in Requests

CloudMetrics is experiencing rapid growth. In 18 months, the customer base went from 200 to 1,400 active accounts. The problem: the support team didn’t keep up.

Three people manage all incoming requests. Their typical day looks like this:

• 8:30 AM: Opening the support email inbox (47 new messages)
• 9:00 AM: Checking live chat (12 conversations waiting)
• 9:30 AM: Reviewing the contact form (8 submissions)
• 10:00 AM: Reading product feedback (widget integrated into the app)
• 10:30 AM: Finally, starting to process requests

Two hours lost every morning. Just to centralize information.

The numbers are alarming:

Metric	Initial Situation
Average first response time	14 hours
Average resolution time	3.2 days
Overdue requests (>48h)	34%
Customer satisfaction (CSAT)	6.2/10
Daily time per support agent	7h15

The team is chasing problems. Customers are getting impatient. The churn rate climbs to 8% monthly.

The 3 Problems Identified

Before looking for solutions, CloudMetrics conducts a complete audit of its support process. Three major problems emerge.

Problem 1: Channel Fragmentation

Requests arrive through five different channels:

1. Support email ([email protected])
2. Live chat on the website
3. Contact form
4. Feedback widget in the application
5. LinkedIn and Twitter messages

Each channel has its own tool. No unified view. The same request can be processed twice. Or worse, forgotten between two interfaces.

Problem 2: Lack of Categorization

All requests arrive in the same flow. A billing question sits next to a critical bug. A feature request mixes with a basic usage question.

Result: the team processes requests by arrival order. Not by priority. A blocked customer waits while someone answers a documentation question.

Problem 3: Lack of Automation

Every response is written manually. Even recurring questions:

• “How do I reset my password?”
• “Where can I find my invoices?”
• “How do I add a user?”

These three questions represent 23% of total volume. Yet each occurrence takes up an agent for 5 to 10 minutes.

The Solution: Centralize, Categorize, Automate

CloudMetrics decides to rethink everything. The objective: reduce support time without degrading customer experience. Here’s the plan deployed in 8 weeks.

Step 1: A Single Entry Point

First action: close the floodgates. No more 5 scattered channels. CloudMetrics creates an intelligent contact form that becomes the main entry point.

This form isn’t a simple text field. It includes:

• Mandatory categorization: Bug, Question, Billing, Suggestion, Other
• Urgency level: Blocking, Important, Normal
• Search field: Before submitting, the customer sees 3 relevant help articles

Live chat remains active, but only for Premium customers. Email automatically redirects to the form.

With Skedox, setup takes less than 2 hours. The form integrates directly into the site. Categories and custom fields are configured in a few clicks.

Step 2: Automatic Request Sorting

Each submission triggers an automated workflow:

“Blocking” requests:

• Immediate Slack notification to the entire team
• Confirmation email to customer with guaranteed response time (2h)
• Automatic assignment to available agent

“Billing” requests:

• Direct routing to administrative team
• Automatic response with link to customer portal
• No technical team involvement

“Suggestion” requests:

• Automatic addition to product backlog
• Personalized thank you email
• No immediate processing required

This categorization eliminates manual sorting. The team focuses on resolution, not organization.

Step 3: Intelligent Automatic Responses

CloudMetrics identifies the 15 most frequent questions. For each, a template response is created.

But beware: no robotic responses. Each template includes:

• The customer’s first name
• An empathy statement appropriate to the problem
• Step-by-step solution
• Link to detailed documentation
• Invitation to follow up if the problem persists

Example for “How do I reset my password?”:

Hello [First Name],

I understand that access to your account is a priority. Here’s how to reset your password in 30 seconds:

1. Go to the login page
2. Click on “Forgot password”
3. Enter your professional email
4. Check your inbox (check spam)
5. Click on the link received and create your new password

The link expires after 24 hours. If you still encounter difficulties, simply reply to this email and I’ll take over personally.

The CloudMetrics Team

The agent clicks a button. The response goes out in 10 seconds. The customer receives complete and human help.

Step 4: Integrated Feedback Widget

To capture feedback without overloading support, CloudMetrics deploys a discreet feedback widget in its application.

This widget allows users to:

• Report a bug with automatic screenshot
• Suggest an improvement
• Rate a feature
• Ask a quick question

Submissions arrive in the same centralized dashboard. But they’re tagged differently. The product team handles suggestions. The technical team handles bugs. Support is only involved for questions.

Results After 3 Months

The numbers speak for themselves:

Metric	Before	After	Change
Average first response time	14h	2h30	-82%
Average resolution time	3.2 days	1.1 days	-66%
Overdue requests (>48h)	34%	7%	-79%
Customer satisfaction (CSAT)	6.2/10	8.7/10	+40%
Daily time per support agent	7h15	2h50	-61%

Support time reduced by 60%. The three agents who spent their day on tickets now have time for higher-value tasks.

What Really Made the Difference

The Funnel Effect

Before, all requests had the same weight. Now, they go through a filter:

1. Level 1: Automatic resolution (documentation, FAQ, templates)
2. Level 2: Quick processing by support team
3. Level 3: Escalation to technical team

45% of requests are resolved at Level 1. Without human intervention. The customer finds their answer immediately. The team is never involved.

Intelligent Prioritization

A blocking bug for an Enterprise customer can’t wait behind a basic question. Automatic categorization ensures that emergencies rise to the top immediately.

The team handles 100% of critical requests in under 2 hours. Compared to 67% before.

Reducing Ping-Pong

Before, a poorly formulated request generated 3 to 4 exchanges before resolution. The intelligent form forces the customer to provide key information from the start:

• What is the exact problem?
• Since when?
• What action triggers the problem?
• What browser are you using?

The agent has all the context. A single response is enough in 78% of cases.

How to Apply This Method to Your Startup

You don’t need 3 months or a significant budget. Here’s a 4-week action plan.

Week 1: The Audit

• List all your current support channels
• Measure volume by channel
• Identify the 10 most frequent questions
• Time the average processing per request

Week 2: Centralization

• Create an intelligent contact form with categorization
• Configure notifications by request type
• Write your first 5 response templates
• Deploy the form on your site

Skedox lets you create this form in less than an hour. Custom categories, conditional fields, team notifications: everything is natively integrated.

Week 3: Automation

• Configure automatic responses by category
• Set up routing rules
• Create urgent notification workflows
• Test the complete user journey

Week 4: Feedback

• Deploy a feedback widget in your application
• Create clear categories (bug, suggestion, question)
• Connect feedback to your centralized dashboard
• Train your team on new processes

Mistakes CloudMetrics Avoided

Several pitfalls could have compromised the project:

Wanting to automate everything. Some requests require human contact. Frustrated customers, complex cases, pricing negotiations. Automation handles volume. Humans handle exceptions.

Neglecting the transition. Customers used to email don’t switch overnight. CloudMetrics communicated the change 2 weeks before. An explanatory email. A reminder in the interface. Automatic redirection from the old system.

Forgetting mobile. 42% of requests come from smartphones. The intelligent form is responsive from the start. Each field is optimized for touch input.

Conclusion: Support Is Not a Fatality

CloudMetrics’ story proves that a startup can reduce its support time by 60% without hiring or sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Keys to success:

• A single, structured entry point
• Automatic request categorization
• Template responses for recurring questions
• A feedback widget to capture feedback without overloading support

Your team is probably spending too much time on repetitive tasks. The question is: how many hours could you free up each week?

Ready to transform your support management? Discover Skedox and centralize forms, feedback, and notifications in minutes. Your teams will thank you.

The freed time is waiting for you.