Plain is a new customer support tool focused on API integrations • TechCrunch


Meet Plain, a startup looking to reinvent support tools. While the customer support space is a competitive industry with big tech companies like Intercom and ZenDesk, Plain believes it takes a different approach as it focuses on API integration to make your company’s product and support platform work hand-in-hand.

Plain has raised a $6 million seed round led by Coin Ventures and Index Ventures. A number of business angels also participated in the round, such as Soleyo, Alison Pickins, Nicolas DeSeigne, Matt Robinson, Mike Hudak and Zach Kanter.

According to Plain, a big issue for customer support agents is the disconnect between products and support tickets. They often have to go back and forth between multiple backend devices. Even when there is some integration between the support tool and the production data to synchronize data, the data is not available in real time and is often out of line.

While large customer support platforms offer APIs and many customization options, development teams often have other priorities and cannot spend much time on internal tools. This is especially true for support tools as they often do not interact directly with these tools.

Plain API’s strategy works both ways. First, Plain can display customer data directly in Plain. It makes backend calls to get useful information like subscription status, current plan name, some usage parameters, etc. Data is cached and deleted after a certain period of time. If you revert to an old ticket, Plain will bring up live data again.

Second, Plain is highly customizable when it comes to integrating support measures into your product. There should not be a chat popup in the bottom right corner of the webpage. Developers can customize the user interface and create new interactions such as early access requests, product feedback features, and native contact forms.

The startup is trying to make it as painless as possible to start using Plain. The idea is not to slow down development teams. The company thinks starting with Plain is as easy as building a Slackbot.

“The fundamental problem we’re solving is context: Plain provides a single source of truth for customer interactions, powered by a company’s systems and data – so when someone is dealing with a problem, the company knows who they are, what they’re up to. What their order has been created so far – and it can be solved with a single click,” said founder and CEO Simon Rohrbach said in a statement.

Plain doesn’t have the same track record and integration ecosystem as Intercom and Zendesk. But its API-first strategy is interesting, especially if you’re a startup building a modern product with multiple API endpoints.



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