Get Satisfaction is a "user powered" customer service company which applies social media techniques to customer service. Founder Amy Muller started off in the tech world as a project manager and web developer before starting Get Satisfaction (her 2nd startup) in 2007 with her husband Thor Muller and Lane Becker, co-founder of Adaptive Path.

Where did the idea for Get Satisfaction come from?

We had a fun and silly side project called Valleyschwag. You could sign up and get a monthly package containing free promotional tshirts, hats and pins, etc. branded with your favorite Web 2.0 company logos. We really thought it would just be something fun for our friends who didn't live in the (San Francisco) Bay area with easy access to all this free stuff. We had about 60 subscribers that first month. Then we got covered on TechCrunch and Boing Boing and by the second package, we had nearly 2000 subscribers! This meant that we now had customers. We instinctively felt the need to provide a very personal, high-value customer service so we answered every email, we posted regularly to our blog and we commented on their Flickr photos of their schwag packages.

Through all of this we noticed a few things. First of all the email support was VERY repetitive. There was a lot of conversation taking place in the comments section of our blog and sometimes we saw customers helping each other there. People responded very positively to us engaging with them publicly. So we figured there had to be some affordable web-based system that provided all of this in one place. We looked, couldn't find anything and decided to build it ourselves.

I have noticed that a lot of startups use Get Satisfaction? What, in particular, do you think you offer them?

A lot of startups don't have the resources to hire a full time support team. And they certainly don't have the time to answer hundreds of repetitive emails. With Get Satisfaction they can harness the power of community support by being able to answer a question once for the benefit of many and by allowing customers to help each other. An additional benefit is that potential customers can discover them via the GS network of support communities.

What's your favourite startup company case study?

Yola is one of my favorites. When they first launched their GS community, they had only recently released their beta. They started with one support person, Monique (now their Customer Support Manager) who handled all their support channels but who saw the potential power of the community support solution and so put a lot of energy into that channel. They now have a support team of six, plus five customer "champions", all providing help in their GS community. Their community is passionate and thriving; what I would consider a huge success. Monique tells me that in the month of April they had a 20% drop in trouble tickets being submitted while simultaneously growing their user base by 100,000 in the same period . She estimates that they've seen a 60-70% reduction in trouble tickets since the end of last year when the community really kicked into high gear.

I featured them in my recent community webcast series and actually interviewed Monique, who's got some great insights into community management and customer support, for my final webcast in the series. You can see that interview, along with my other webcasts, at GetSatisfaction TV.

Your Overheard feature (what people are saying about your company/product on Twitter) is pretty interesting. How productive is it?

Overheard is quite productive for the companies who use it. A lot of companies are on Twitterand using it to reach out to their customers opportunistically. What Overheard allows them to do is respond in more than 140 characters and allow a more in-depth conversation around the original tweet. We would definitely like to extend Overheard to pull in content from other services, blogs and the like. We also have a totally open API so if any enterprising developers out there want to run with that, go ahead!

How did you fund the company and what's the business model?

We started with a combination of bootstrapping and an angel round from friends and family. We've since taken a seed round involving First Round Capital, OATV and SoftTech VC.

Our business model is to provide additional value-add services to companies on top of the free service. This includes everything from more extensive community moderation controls to Single Sign On, full customisation to white labelling.

What is the biggest problem you have had to overcome so far in running the company?

I'd say it's always around money. Whether it's struggling with fundraising or struggling to figure out your revenue model or worrying whether or not you're going to make payroll... Money is the hardest thing to deal with. Thankfully, I think we're through our hardest days where that's concerned. We're feeling really strong and optimistic.

What's your greatest ambition for the company in the future?

That every company in the world would have a Get Satisfaction customer support community. Perhaps that's a wee bit lofty. Truly, though, I would love to be synonymous with redefining customer service; turning it from customer avoidance to customer engagement. It should become something that is a win for both organisations and their customers. Also I would love to get the Obama administration on Get Satisfaction. That's my own personal desire.

Did you always want to be an entrepreneur or did you just fall into it?

I guess you could say I married into it. My husband is a serial entrepreneur. When we got engaged he was running his first start-up in the mid 1990s. Get Satisfaction is his fourth and my second as founders. There's a lot of hard work and sacrifice involved with being an entrepreneur. You really do put your blood, sweat and tears into it. But I also love the flexibility and autonomy. I've been able to design a schedule for myself that allows me to spend more time with my kids than I'd get if I were an employee at a large company. It's certainly a rollercoaster ride, but I guess we both gravitate towards that.

What advice would you give to other Internet entrepreneurs?

Take advantage of open source as much as you can and give back to it too. You can save a lot of money that way. Reach out to others in the community It can be a very collaborative community. I really believe that you get back what you give.

Build as much as you can before taking any formal investment. In most cases, you'll find it's easier to get funded if you already have a functioning product.

I love the cupcake photo that is associated with new Get Satisfaction users. Where did that come from?

Haha! We had cupcakes on the brain when we were designing the site, I guess. We needed a default avatar that people could use when they didn't want to upload their own. As I recall, we felt that cupcakes were associated with satisfaction and happiness. What's not to love about a cupcake?

Republished from CEO seeks startup.