CUSTOMER SIGNALS · ELVA
Turn support noise into a roadmap signal.
By Andrei VolkRole at the company: Head of Product · Elva · 2026
Structure recurring support patterns so they can change product, growth and engineering decisions.
Selected result: 50–80 · support threads / week
Elva received 50–80 support threads each week covering refunds, feature expectations, AI quality, rendering, billing and general confusion. Reading individual conversations made it difficult to distinguish recurring product problems from isolated cases.
I built a lightweight n8n workflow that deduplicated threads, grouped them into eight product categories and produced a weekly Slack digest with frequency, representative quotes and proposed actions for product, growth and engineering.
From support inbox to weekly digest
- 01
Monday · 10:30
Scheduled trigger
- 02
Gmail · last 7 days
Support messages; delivery errors excluded
- 03
Classify & build digest
Merge messages by thread, then apply keyword rules
- 04
Slack · weekly digest
Volume, category shares, signals, quotes and suggested actions
- Refund
- Cancellation
- Photo support
- AI quality
- Rendering / speed
- Billing / subscription
- How-to questions
- Positive feedback
No match → Unclear
Rule-based, multi-label classification — a thread may belong to several categories.
- support threads / week
- 50–80
- structured product categories
- 8
- photo and Live Photo support
- Strongest signal → roadmap
Photo support became a priority largely because of this recurring signal. After release, photo-related complaints went from a regular category to a few exceptional cases.