If you are experiencing any website technical issue with your WordPress site, you are probably already frustrated. We do not want to compound your frustration by having a long, unfruitful, back and forth conversation with the support team. Believe it or not, the support team can be equally frustrated if they are not receiving sufficient information about the issue at hand. We do want to deliver the best customer experience. Here is a short list of what we recommend including in your support ticket to ensure the quickest response.
Know the proper communication channels.
Should you send an email, make a phone call, send a message in Slack or any other portal? Knowing the right person to contact, and the correct communication channel is the most important first step. Check with your developer what his or her preferred method of communication is. Here at Watermelon Web Works, any of these is generally acceptable, but we prefer to receive support requests at our help desk ( https://www.watermelonwebworks.com/client ) or by sending an email to projects [at] watermelonwebworks.com – this routes the message to our support system, which can then be assigned to the right member of our team.
Include the URL of the page you are having issues with.
It might be obvious to you, but the person looking at your ticket, including the full web address (or URL – universal resource locator) is an important starting point that is very frequently overlooked.
Explain in detail the “expected” and “actual”.
Often the clients lack the vocabulary to explain what is happening so they settle on the obvious summary – “my site is broken”. What the developer really needs is an explanation of how the page, or a feature should look like or behave followed by an explanation of how the feature or page is behaving now. Then the difference between the “expected” and “actual” becomes clear and the developer can troubleshoot the correct issue. More often than not we have seen issues explained poorly and the developers resolving a problem that the client never reported.
Use screen captures or video
A picture is worth a thousand words, a video is even more valuable than a picture. There are many screen capture tools that allow you to draw onto them for further explanation. These are very useful for explaining the placement of specific elements on the page. Another fantastic tool is recording a video of yourself narrating what you are doing on the website and highlighting the issue you are encountering. These videos give the developer a great view of the error in the context it was encountered.
Submitting a well written support ticket can make a big difference in the response time and greatly increase the chances of getting your issue resolved on the first try.
Photo by MART PRODUCTION: https://www.pexels.com/photo/multiracial-employees-sitting-in-front-of-silver-laptops-7709221/
