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Comment by prawn | Hacker News Reader

Would be smarter, less effort and maybe remove or change the spam vector if the process were this (myself being the developer):

1. Visit site. Enter my email address and maybe client name. It gives me a unique URL (supportdetails.com/jasd9s89ajd698/ or optionally support.mybusiness.com/clientname).

2. I email that to the client and tell them to click the link. [Risk of training them to click strange links...]

3. They visit the page and get a Thanks message. It automatically sends me all the info I need.

Burden on the client is lowered. First time I saw this site or similar (been around for years) I wondered about quickly building an alternative that offered white labeling and the above process instead. Easy weekend project for someone, I imagine.

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Have a look down on the right hand side. You can already create a link that has the form prepopulated. It rook me ages to find and I've been using this site for a long time.

I came here to suggest exporting via giving the user a unique url that anyone can go to, but your way is far far better for a layperson. Visiting a link is about as foolproof as it could be.

Could be implemented as freemium, too, by charging for more than 7 uses a week to the same email address.

And then a secret mode where, heading to the URL, a cat shows up on screen and appears to examine you through the display, measures up the browser window, tries to look up at the browser chrome, punches something into a calculator, etc. Cat Technical Support.

That's absolutely adorable. Anybody want to make this with HTML5?

It'd be a viral winner (puppy mode vs cat mode!), but how often do people really need this sort of function? And when they have the problem, how many people just email the client "What browser are you using?" (initiating that "Is it Windows?" conversation) rather than Google "best way to get support information from my nutbag client"?

Cat mode sounds immature, but MailChimp gets by.

Is there another common process where by technical people need to collect information from internet battlers?

"What browser are you using?" is probably one of the most commonly used methods, and also the most pointless question that one could ask of a non-tech-savvy client. You're bound to get replies like "I'm using Google" or "What's a browser?"

A "cat mode" that gets widely noticed could help many of us deal with clueless clients. Make the cat follow laser pointers and mutter lolcode while it collects every possible piece of information about the client's system. Really, anything to make it more viral would contribute to the Greater Good (tm) and more than compensate for immaturity.

Even something as simple as a browser-specific tuturial for clearing the cache would be immensely helpful. For example, Dropbox customizes its download & installation tutorial for each user's browser. It's really helpful.

I see this site being used heavily for phone support, and in that case your method - although perfect for email - won't hold up.

What'd be great is a a-z0-9 unique code that's presented on each load. Then the user would only need to read me that code, I could go to the site and enter that, and immediately see all the details that were stored for that user.

You can send a URL by text, you can view email on your phone - not sure how the method fails for phone support?

I think the parent to your comment has it right; getting a transcription of an arbitrary long alphanum code right over the phone can be tedious.

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