Aptfolk: Customer Support for the Indie Dev

Customer support can swallow independent developers' time. When you're bogged down with user feedback, it's easy to lose focus on what's most important: development. That's where Aptfolk comes in.

Founded by Ash Ponders in 2006, Aptfolk lets developers offload their customer support to experienced professionals. The service allows developers, Ponders says, to spend that support time "relaxing, or teaching their children, or hiking the Himalayas, or I guess, working on their application."

And here's where things get really cool: Ponders calls Tender the "best tool" for Aptfolk's customer support workflow. "I might never get over how easy Tender is set up."

What made Ponders decide to use Tender? "The Tender customer support," he says. "They're impeccable, helpful, and delightful."

Damn Ponders, you've got us blushing.

Aptfolk was a one-man shop for four years until atebits released Tweetie. That application brought Twitter to so many desktops that developer Loren Brichter hired Ponders to help with customer support. For Ponders, that meant high profile exposure with independent developers. atebits won the Apple Design Award for iPhone Development in 2009 and was among the most popular Mac apps that year (annnd, it was one of the highest volume accounts on Tender).

Now with nearly 20 employees, Aptfolk uses Tender for most of their support contracts.

"Every morning I open up each of our client's Tenders. I check the numbers and see how we did the day before. Then I make quick passes looking for any seriously low hanging fruit. After that, I hit the queues I have set up for me (tougher questions that require a bit more experience). That usually keeps me busy for most of the day."

"All of my clients should be using Tender," Ponders says. "Some aren't — I try not to push — but eventually I win them over."

This week Ponders told us about one of his recent converts: A client who had used a shared IMAP box for 12 years. "That was a huge win for me, efficiency wise but also emotionally."

Now with more than 30 clients, including Sophiestication, Realmac, Sparrow and Second Gear, Aptfolk plans to offer video work and documentation.

We're stoked.