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Is it a good idea to add an e-mail button to apps? — Gideros Forum
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    Is it a good idea to add an e-mail button to apps?

    bowerandybowerandy Guru
    edited June 2013 in Game & application design
    Folks,

    I'm just putting the finishing touches to my game (finally!!) and I'm currently in the process of implementing an "e-mail support" button inside the app. However, I wonder whether this is a good idea or not.

    I guess I'm an old-school type of guy but I would probably feel honour bound to answer any e-mails that came through and there's a chance they could run into the thousands. Let's say, one had a really successful game with 1M downloads and just 1% of people decide to leave feedback or ask "how do I solve this level?" - that would be 10,000 emails to get through. I suppose one could always not respond to the non-technical ones but that might result in reduced user satisfaction.

    So is there any reason to make writing an e-mail that simple? An address in the credits screen might be sufficient?

    I'd be grateful for any advice/comments, especially from developers who have real apps out in the field (I notice that @phongtt 's Game42 and @krisis 's Letter Stack are both IOS apps with e-mail buttons in the UI)?

    best regards
    tweets: @ insidebowerhaus blog: http://bowerhaus.eu/blog/blog.html
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    Comments

    • phongttphongtt Guru
      edited June 2013
      @bowerandy
      So far I've received more than 3.500 emails among almost 500.000 downloads.
      Out of those emails, only a few hundreds actually had contents (thank-you, praise, asking for more mini games, bug reports, suggestion for improvements, feature requests, saying that Caro is too hard even on Easy setting,... and even willing to help for free with localizations to some languages)

      For some very first blank mails I replied back asking if I could help anything, later I realized that they most probably came from kids so I haven't responsed any more :D
      For the other case, it's been really my pleasure exchanging emails with customers, it helps me understand them more, and also helps show my attention for my customers.

      The reason we decided to add that feature is simple: provide users with as less steps, as much comfortable way, and as much visible as possible to reach us. It would be more persuable than providing them just email information somewhere (most likely that no one bothers to write you an email)

      As we're small (or "indies") and poor :P I act as a technical support representative as well as customer support representative. But so far it's been a pleasured experience. Anyway, it's just my very limited experience with only this game.

      Btw, can't wait to see your game! ;)

      Likes: fxone, gorkem

      Greetings from Vietnam. We are mobile game/app development studio. Gideros/Unity/Cocos2d-x
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    • ar2rsawseenar2rsawseen Maintainer
      edited June 2013
      Mashballs also has an email/Contact button and similar to @phongtt lots of them were blank. Lots of them were praises, like cool game, etc. I've stopped responding after first hundred. :)

      But still I think that it was a good idea, because if receiving even only praises, there are sometimes such good ones, that I forward to the rest of the team, to keep up the spirit and motivation :)

      There were not lots of questions or suggestions, only couple of them.
      But actually in new version, we implemented sending and email to us as achievement :D lets see what will come from that.

      One suggestion though, create a separate email account for that ;)
      http://appcodingeasy.com/Gideros-Mobile
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    • MellsMells Guru
      edited June 2013
      This also helps to identify who your most engaged users are.
      You could then keep a separate mailing list and ask them more detailed questions about their experience with the game.
      They are also the ones who are most likely to :
      • buy your next game
      • talk about it
      • review it from day one when it is available
      • give you early feedback
      if you have made sure to keep them in the loop between releases.

      I'm not talking about my own apps but the companies I have helped with their marketing strategies. The mailing list can be your business's best asset.

      It's a lot of work, but a good strategy for the long term.

      Blank emails > "Scan later"

      To prevent yourself from losing too much time with blank emails like @phongtt and @ar2rsawseen mentioned, add a dropdown list (ex :
      Do you want to tell us | something (default) | you need some help | how much you love the game | what we should do to improve it |
      Filter all emails that were sent using (default), add to a "Scan Later" folder.
      Focus on the others.
      twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
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    • pykasopykaso Member
      edited June 2013
      One of the developers of Dead Trigger told me that they received 100k
      email in one week =))
      +1 -1Share on Facebook
    • ArtLeeAppsArtLeeApps Member
      lol.. thats when you need an auto responder...

      "Your email is important to us, you will be contacted shortly.. you are ticket number 98,987, estimated call back time 1st April 2025., have a nice day".

      Likes: fxone, vitalitymobile

      Likes: Gideros Mobile, Maltesers, Portal Devices
      http://artleeapps.com/
      Bubble Adventure - Colors
      +1 -1 (+2 / -0 )Share on Facebook
    • hgvyas123hgvyas123 Guru

      lol.. thats when you need an auto responder...

      "Your email is important to us, you will be contacted shortly.. you are ticket number 98,987, estimated call back time 1st April 2025., have a nice day".
      :))

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    • MellsMells Guru
      edited June 2013
      That article could be a good complement to that discussion :
      13 Critically Important Lessons from Over 50 Growth Hackers

      3. Customer development is cheating
      -------------
      (...) Talk to people instead of banging on a keyboard. It’s a shortcut to growth because you’ll be building something people actually want.

      4. Data-informed is better than data-driven
      -------------
      Data is good. But there’s a catch. Data should inform our decisions. It shouldn’t be our master, dictating our every move. The greatest asset of any startup is the profound ability of the humans who are involved. When people are willing to be “informed” by data, they can create something special. (...)

      7. There is one metric that matters
      -------------
      Now that we can track everything, we want to focus on everything. But for any startup, there usually is one metric that matters at any given time.
      If you are not talking to your customers directly, email is second. Social networks are last.
      Read more : 13 Critically Important Lessons from Over 50 Growth Hackers
      twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
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    • bowerandybowerandy Guru
      Thanks for the replies guys.

      @phongtt, thanks for the info about Game42. Interestingly, it seem my guestimate about the ratio of respondents to downloads wasn't that far off the mark. Of course, I'd be happy to ignore any blank e-mails so, overall, it encourages me to add the e-mail button, at least in this first version.

      best regards
      tweets: @ insidebowerhaus blog: http://bowerhaus.eu/blog/blog.html
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    • phongttphongtt Guru
      edited July 2013
      Sometimes I receive mails like this.

      But it's motivating and interesting huh? ;)
      game42mail.png
      640 x 305 - 32K
      Greetings from Vietnam. We are mobile game/app development studio. Gideros/Unity/Cocos2d-x
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