Introducing Fern
The last few weeks have been a grind. We've shipped so many updates to Ferndesk, that I might not be able to fit them all into one changelog.
That won't stop me from trying though. Here are the highlights:
🌿 Introducing Fern - We've put a face behind our documentation agent.
💸 Simplified pricing - Pricing has been simplified and is now a lot easier to understand.
🔍 Help center audits - A better way to improve your help center based on support volume
📩 Follow up with Fern - continue the conversation and request edits
🏠 New homepage - Our marketing site got a glowup
+ dozens of smaller but mighty improvements
Customer spotlight: RightMessage
RightMessage is a website and email personalization platform: it segments visitors (via on-site surveys/quizzes and behavior), then dynamically personalizes page copy, CTAs/forms, and emails—complete with built-in A/B testing and ESP integrations to lift conversions.
In our very first case study, Brennan Dunn shows how he uses Ferndesk to ship faster without having RightMessage's 30,000 word help center go stale.
Introducing Fern + our new marketing site
Over the last month, it's become very clear to me that I'm not building a traditional SaaS.
I'm building an agent— an assistant for your company that'll help you get fewer frustrated customers in your inbox, and more customers succeeding with your product. A virtual employee that'll help you document your product better than even a founder could in a fraction of a time.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with two rockstar founders— Olly Meakings (cofounder at Senja) and Jesse Hanley (founder at Bento). Both strongly suggested that I call our agent Fern. So that's exactly what I did!
I reworked our entire website and app to show her off! Take a look!
Simplified pricing
Today I decided to make less money...
Up until now, figuring out pricing for Ferndesk has been unbelievably difficult. I've spent days playing with different models and I just couldn't find one that I was happy with.
As a result, pricing for V1 was unnecessarily complex (sorry!).
Today I'm drastically simplifying pricing for Ferndesk. You can read more about the thought process behind the change on our blog, but TL;DR:
You're now charged for articles published (no more edit credits)
Pricing starts at $59/month, with a flat fee of $0.5 per extra article.
If you're an existing customer, your pricing remains unchanged and no action is required
Out with Support Trends - in with Audits
Early testers LOVED V1 of support trends and gave lots of amazing feedback (thank you!).
One of the most common pieces of feedback we received was that customers wanted the ability to constrain the insights from audits to a specific time period.
Some users would sign up, and try to find content gaps in their help center using years(!!) of historic support tickets.
Also, some users hated that support trends functioned as rolling audit. No matter how many suggestions you approved, it never felt like you were "done" working through them.
So we shipped a second iteration, and I think you're going to love it! Audits are now live in Ferndesk!
Audits function almost exactly like support trends, except that their constrained to specific time periods.
At any time, you can find content gaps and inconsistencies in your help center using support conversations from the last week, month, or even year.
Once you're done working through your first audit, you can set up weekly, automated audits, and use the results to improve your help center.
In the near future, Fern will also scan your codebase and Linear to find features and changes that need to be reflected in your help center.
Learn more about how Fern audits your help center.
Follow up with Fern in tasks
Previously, asking Fern to create articles worked as a one-way process.
You would ask Fern to update your help center and review her changes.
If you were happy with the output, you would make minor touch ups and publish the articles.
If you were unhappy, or Fern made a mistake, you would have to delete the task and start from scratch.
That was a terrible experience.
I'm happy to share, that this is no longer the case.
Now you can ask Fern to continue working on your drafts. You can ask her to:
Rewrite articles she's created.
Add more links
and do more research
When you're happy with the output, you can publish it as usual.
Learn more about creating and editing articles with Fern.
Smaller changes
Redesigned the home view in the app. now you can ask Fern to create tasks as soon as you open the app.
We've improved Fern's reliability. now she makes a lot fewer mistakes.
Fern is now much more capable. with tools to help her create better articles every single time.
We've added a few example prompts to the home screen to help you use Fern better.