Raycast powers productivity for hundreds of thousands of users and has a vibrant community of more than 20,000 developers. With a lean team of just over 30 people, most are engineers, their support has to be as smart and efficient as their product.

The challenge

As Raycast grew, managing support requests across multiple channels – Slack, email, Reddit, Twitter, and in-app forms – became harder to keep track of. The team struggled with prioritizing requests and integrating support with their engineering workflows. Limitations in threading and prioritization made it harder to manage feature requests and bug reports. Tirta Wulandari from Raycast's support team noted, "We realized we were treating every issue with the same priority, which was neither efficient nor scalable."

Why Plain?
When evaluating tools to migrate from email-based support, Raycast considered a number of options. However, Plain stood out for a few key reasons:

• Developer-first approach

• Modern UI and UX

• Deep integrations with Slack and Linear

• Streamlined handling of multi-channel support requests

Daniel, who oversees Raycast’s support and community, shared, "Plain is solving a very real problem with a modern, developer-first solution. It’s been a game-changer for us."

The solution

Raycast adopted Plain to take control of their support operations. Here’s how they use Plain to streamline their workflows:

• Unified support across channels: All support queries, whether from Slack, email, or in-app forms, are routed to Plain. This ensures that nothing slips through the cracks and allows the team to manage requests efficiently from one place.

• Easy prioritization: Urgent issues such as app crashes and freezes are flagged automatically using keywords with workflow rules, and auto-triaged with Plain AI. This ensures the team can focus on high-impact problems without manual sorting. 

• Integrated collaboration through Slack: Engineers collaborate directly on support tickets within Slack. Bugs are validated and escalated to Linear with just a few keyboard strokes, creating a seamless flow from issue discovery to resolution.

• Customizable workflows: The team leveraged Plain’s API to fetch data like user details and Stripe billing information directly into support tickets, eliminating repetitive back-and-forth communication.

• Improved insight into feedback: Feature requests and bug reports are logged more effectively, giving the team visibility into what matters most to their users.

The impact

Since adopting Plain, Raycast has transformed the way it handles support. These changes have delivered measurable results:

• Simplified queue management: Plain’s centralized platform replaced the need for multiple tools, reducing complexity and streamlining processes. Their support team no longer needs to juggle Slack, email, and form fills independently.

• Faster response times: With automated prioritization workflows, critical issues are resolved faster. The ability to triage and escalate high-priority issues quickly ensures paying customers and urgent bugs are addressed promptly.

• Stronger internal collaboration: Engineers and support teams now collaborate faster. Raycast’s streamlined workflow reduces context-switching and ensures clear communication, leading to quicker resolutions and happier customers.

• Actionable insights from reporting: Plain’s reporting capabilities enable the team to track support trends and identify recurring issues. This helps allocate resources efficiently and drives improvements in product support.

• Customer satisfaction: The ability to close the loop on issues directly within Slack or Plain has improved communication with customers, earning positive feedback from the Raycast community.

Tirta highlighted these improvements, saying, "With Plain, I can now go back to a Slack message and inform the user immediately when an issue is resolved. It's straightforward and user-friendly."

Looking ahead

As Raycast continues to grow, expanding its platform to Windows and iOS, the team plans to increase its support operations. They are also exploring how to better separate community management from support roles, given the overlap in responsibilities. Plain's flexibility and developer-first design make it the right tool to support Raycast’s evolving needs.