Page not found – and forum issues

[Nathan]

I had a previous ticket here:

https://tri.be/support/forums/topic/page-not-found-title-on-calendar-page/#post-73357

The issue was never resolved on the forum, although it is now closed. This was because I received no notification that several replies were made, and I could not find the ticket again ‘manually’.

There are some glaring and problematic issues with the forum itself that cause this:

1) The search isn’t great. I can find the issue using Google, but not your own forum search (I have had email correspondence from you acknowledging this). Even exact term searches sometimes fail.

2) I work under Non-Disclosure for many clients, I cannot supply the links publicly. I am aware that there is a tick box to make private, but this does not appear (like on this post) on the initial contact.

3) If you do not tick the notify of follow ups, there is sometimes no way to find the post again easily. There is no ‘My Tickets’ feature of the login – like WordPress.com/.org for one example. I did not receive any follow up notification and the previous ticket was closed.

4) I have a developer licence. I am working on numerous sites. There is nothing I can refer to on the ticket for me to establish which site and issue refers to (I cannot see any URLs for example). I keep my own notes, but there is no way to maintain continuity regarding a particular site if you are working with, and have issues with more than one.

5) I was told I should bookmark the tickets. If 3) was implemented, I wouldn’t need to do this. I don’t bookmark Apple or WordPress (and many other ticket systems) tickets, because I log in and they are there on my account. Also, I don’t always use one particular computer. My bookmarks will not be on a 3rd party machine – rendering that idea non-functional (as well as impractical).

I have fixed the issue outside of your forum as it looked like it was long to take a long time to do here, if at all. I’m just a bit disappointed that prior to sale, it is clear that support is provided. I know you work hard on your product – hence paying for the dev licence by way of investment to my own business, but support is extremely lacklustre. I resolved this issue in the same way as I would a free open source plugin – hard graft on the internet looking at and finding similar issues and solutions – entirely outside of your forum (defeating the object of it).

I pointed this out in my last correspondence and received the unsatisfactory reply that I could have a refund, and use a different plugin product. This is not positive or helpful. I have sites that I have developed, and championed your product on them over the past year and a half or so (about 20 sites on single/business and developer licence). Now you are saying I should just dump your product, have my money back and go elsewhere?

All I’m asking for is a better system of support. The issues above make the current system prone to communication problems, and slowness of issue resolution. If, by attempting to be constructive about improvements that can be made – to make it easier for communication, and some specific concerns on privacy about your forum, that these points are not welcome, then please be explicit about this.

I work as part of the WordPress community, because it is generally constructive, positive and we all learn together. I’ve never come across a ‘that’s the way it is, tough sh*t’ kind of response from anyone, new, or experienced in the four or so years I’ve been using WordPress. I was a little surpassed and disappointed to receive that kind of response from a member of your team, and from a company that seems to support WordPress in general as a platform.

[Rob]

Hey Nathan. Thanks for the follow-up here and for posting this note. While we obviously failed you here on multiple fronts, I really appreciate you taking the time to write this out and explain the perceived shortcomings. These are things that will help us improve over time and will ensure others don’t face your same problem down the road.

Let me respond to a few of your specific items from the numbered list:

1. The search is indeed not as optimal as it could be. While we are actively working to get a new search module in place, since it’s as much a pain point for us as it is for the rest of the community. While I don’t have a specific timeline for that I expect it to be over the next few months. In the interim, we hope that the ease of accessing/reviewing forum content (via the search and other methods) is something folks will check out before buying the plugin, to make sure our support system is a good fit.
2. While I can absolutely understand the concern regarding non-disclosure agreements, please try and see things from our perspective here as well: without a link to the site where we can see problems in action, it’s almost impossible for us to provide meaningful support. The private message functionality should serve your needs here – but as you noted, you need to get passed the first post (ie send a reply instead of a new thread) in order to use that. Please let me know if it’s not functioning properly for you, though, and I can troubleshoot that.
3. While we definitely encourage folks who want to stay on top of their threads to make sure they enable follow-up emails, you can also – at any time – find the threads you’re participating in by clicking your name here on the forums. All yours for example are right here: https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/users/blitz/.
4. This is a really good point. While we are working on a way to specify specifically which of a user’s given licenses/linked sites their support requests relate to, so that you can accomplish exactly what you’ve requested here, at present unfortunately the only option is to manually select or submit the URL.
5. I think my explanation in #3 addressed this already; basically, you already do have access to what you’re requesting here.

As for the refund approach, let me provide my thoughts there (as that was a conscious decision): we take pride in and stand by the support we provide….we personally help hundreds of customers per day. We do this because we love it. We do this because we want a sustainable way to share our good work. As can be seen by browsing through the pages of archived threads here, the vast majority of our customers come away either with a resolution to their problem (assuming what they’re reporting is a bug or code failing on our end) or an overview of where they should go for next steps (if they need to hire a developer or find outside help).

But there are unfortunately limits to how deep we can go. In a world where time and resources abounded? Absolutely – we’d build a perfect support system and would help every user with every type of request imaginable. But the unfortunate reality is that this just isn’t possible. When you use our code, you are getting literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of development for $65. You have all the pieces to a website puzzle and all you need is someone to connect them. But that $65 doesn’t buy you a developer, it buys you user support. And based on looking at your past threads it seems the team has done their best to help you out. That said, when it becomes apparent that we’ve falsely set someone’s expectations as to how much support we can provide, or they want more than we’re actively able to offer, it usually makes sense to part ways rather than continue to create stress on both sides.

All that to say: it does sound like your needs are outside the scope of what we can provide support for. While I understand that you want a “better system of support,” the unfortunate reality is that this system – which certainly does have its limitations, but has also worked for literally thousands of other users before you without issue – is what we’re stuck with for the time being. Since it sounds like that’s a significant problem for you I think it might make sense to come to a decision here: either we try and get this relationship back on track by mutually accepting the limitations of this support system, or I must insist we refund your money and ask you take your business elsewhere. While I’d hate to have to resort to #2 I also hope you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I say that in order for support to function smoothly, we really need everyone to understand and respect our system.

Ultimately the choice is yours. Please email me directly (rob (@) tri.be) with your thoughts or if you’d like to continue this discussion offline, and we can take it from there. Apologies once more for failing to properly set your expectations.

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

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