Where To Draw The Line With Support Models

[greenshady]

I suppose I should comment here since I suspect it was my theme Jeff was having a bit of trouble with in the Widget Map thread. Whether this is true or not, I think my experience with this issue might offer some insight. I'm always open to opinion on these type of things from others as well, which is one reason my Ideas forum is open for non-paying members.

There's definitely a fine line when offering a support-based service. On the one hand, you have many people that are getting a free theme/plugin and are expecting the support to be just as free. On the other, you have your paying customers, which you must cater to first.

While I consider my themes/plugins sufficiently enough documented to use "out of the box," I understand that's not true for everyone. Sometimes, as a theme/plugin developer, it's hard to figure out what Average Joe needs to get up and running. What's easy for one person might not be so easy for the next.

Personally, I'd like to offer the whole package for free, but that doesn't put food on the table. Now, this doesn't mean the theme/plugin itself will be "crippled," but it does mean that something has to be sold. If there were no paying users, the documentation wouldn't be nearly as good as it is now. I'd probably throw up three or four tutorials (instead of 30+ for one theme) because I'd either not have time or couldn't be bothered with it.

Essentially, paying users give me time to sit around and write the documentation they need.

[dancole]

I think the thing here, that can be learned, is that sellers (as an economic term) need to make it clear on how users can get a hold of the information and support they need, as well as the conditions.

I think sellers that offer documentation/tutorials/support need a search feature that will provide everyone with similar questions that have been asked, but also instructions on how they can access the answer.

RANT
Justin's forum does something similar by hiding his responses (and posts) to non-paying members... although, I must say it does block out his forum notices to everyone as well. He doesn't have a forum search and the site search doesn't include the forum, which it should.

[vangogh]

I'm working on some themes now and the question of support is one that goes through my head a lot. I'm leaning toward a free support forum for any free theme I release and then a private support forum for questions specific to paid themes, which would be included with the price of the theme. At least with support forums you should only have to answer the question once and ideally the community will help out.

Beyond that I would think most support would start falling into customization, which I would think could be handled on a case to case basis. I could see offering free simple support for the word of mouth and charge for the more in depth work the same as you would if it wasn't your theme you were customizing.

[greenshady]

Justin's forum does something similar by hiding his responses (and posts) to non-paying members... although, I must say it does block out his forum notices to everyone as well. He doesn't have a forum search and the site search doesn't include the forum, which it should.

I just wanted to clarify a few things here so there's no misinformation.

My site does include a forum search. Of course, it's only shown for club members. Non-paying members shouldn't need to use the forum search.

The only forum notices that I post are meant only for people with complete access to the support forums. Any notices that need to be made to the larger community are on the blog.

[Jeffro]

I was'nt going to drop any names but yeah Justin, your the guy I had in mind when creating this post. At first I was upset because I couldn't find the information I needed but once I figured out that I could access that information after I became a pro member, things were not so bad.

I actually think your forum posts being blocked out is a great idea. While the forum is still wide open, I think your posts are the only ones which truly count and having those blocked off really enticed me to just pay up the 25$ fee just so I could read your responses lol.

I would have liked to have seen at list a detailed listing of the tutorials available for the theme for pro members. At least this way, I would convince myself that the only way to really get the information I need would be to pay for the membership, rather than HOPING that tutorial was written for the theme.

[greenshady]

Thanks for the input, Jeff. I've got a redesign on the way soon and will be soliciting advice about what will help out people more (such as listing the tutorials).

[Jeffro]

Thanks for the input, Jeff. I've got a redesign on the way soon and will be soliciting advice about what will help out people more (such as listing the tutorials).

Does this new design have anything to do with your BuddyPress project? :)

[dstrojny]

We have been using the pay for support model and it works quite well. I don't think many of users feel it is "unfair". We actually started using the paid support model because we didn't have enough time to support our free themes for free.

This model allows us to give better support to those who need it and who choose to pay for it. This is much better than giving marginal support to everyone for free and driving yourself crazy trying to keep up with all the support requests.