When Support Goes Right: From Customer to Superfan in Just 6 Minutes

If you’ve been following along, I like to rant.  Like most people I’m typically motivated to rant about things that are bad…and I’ve been doing that judiciously regarding the woeful state of most technical support teams (as you can see here, here, and here).  If there’s one good thing that those poor experiences offer, it’s the contrasting joy I feel when someone does it right.  So today, I’m thrilled to pleasure-rant about one of those someones: Discern.

We signed up for Discern because we needed the service they provided, yes, but chose them specifically because the founders’ previous company, MANTL, was an early customer at my last startup, strongDM.  We had a relationship and I respected them. In my experience, that kind of built-in trust is as good a reason to choose a piece of software as any. This time was no different. The product is exactly what you want from a compliance platform (or any other kind of platform). You barely know it's there because it’s so simple and intuitive. A delight to use.

Then I had some feature questions.  And that’s when things went…gloriously RIGHT!

‍

Question One:

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 10:54 AM Elizabeth Zalman <liz@sandgarden.com> wrote:

My lawyers asked me to send over a copy of our corporate transparency filing and I thought, man, I wish there were a way to invite them to Discern in some sort of fractional viewer thing (sort of like with a cap table management system). 

Response:

On Wed, Oct 9, 2024 at 11:01 AM Mike Bosserman <mike@discern.com> wrote:

Hey Liz, you can add them as a user on your account if you would like. Just add their email to your users in settings. People do it all the time!

Keep in mind we only have two roles however, Owner (you), and users, which can do everything except remove the owner.

Is there something you wouldn't like them to be able to do?

‍

Two things immediately stick out. 

1. The response time was 6 minutes. I couldn’t have made a cup of coffee in the time it took Mike to get back to me.
2. He explained how most people use the feature and what the current limitations were.
3. And critically (and this is what really makes it so great) he asked me a fucking follow-up question! 

We went on to debate the pros and cons of role-based access control, he asked me exactly WHY I wanted something, told me it was on their radar, and explained how to solve the issue in the meantime.  Bravo.  Seriously, I’m already a customer but now I’m a superfan who’s writing a blog post about it so other people can benefit.

‍

Question Two:

On Fri, Apr 4, 2025 at 7:39 PM Elizabeth Zalman <liz@sandgarden.com> wrote:

Hi - product question for you. XXX is listed as an Officer, but I no longer have him defined in the account.  Any way to eliminate him altogether?

Response:

On Fri, Apr 4, 2025 at 7:59 PM Mike Bosserman <mike@discern.com> wrote:

Hey Liz,

‍I'll see if there is a way to remove a person from an account. Keep in mind XXX’s presence on that list is only to make it easier to enter his information on a form, should you need it. 

‍The actual data model for Sandgarden is updated by filing something. So when you remove him from a filing that shows "All Directors" he will be removed from future filings where that's the case.

‍Make sense?

‍

Mike’s getting lazy - it took him 20 minutes to get back to me this time.  But seriously, he and the team are consistently lightning fast in their response times.  And again, he made sure I was squared away by asking if it made sense to me.  Not only that, but three days later he comes back unprompted, proposes an engineering fix so that I can avoid the same friction moving forward.  AND. THEN. DEPLOYS. IT.

Now granted, this is not an expectation you should hold for every interaction with even the most capable and empathetic support teams. BUT, what you should and must expect, if you are as frustrated as me with the blase attitude most companies have towards paying customers, is prompt response times and a willingness to actually help solve your problem.

Mike and Raj and the team at Discern went way above and beyond that.  They made me feel like I was their only customer.  They made support interactions simple and seamless, and dare I say delightful.  Just like their product.  Thank you, my friends, SO VERY MUCH!!!  You have a customer for life.