December 07, 2015

11 Ways to support your WordPress theme or plugin

51 minutes

With so many tools and communication channels available to us, choosing how you support your WordPress product can be a real head-scratcher.

Luckily, in today’s episode, Devin and I are here to explain the best methods we’ve found that work in our respective businesses. If you’ve been in the WordPress product business for a while now, you know how interesting support can get. Depending on your product, your support channel can span fairly broad spectrums. From supporting agencies that are using your plugin for client work, all the way to first-time WordPress users that just purchased your theme.

Bridging that gap is always a challenge. Our products are expected to work in an ecosystem that we have very little control over. Think about the various hosts, versions of WordPress, and conflicting plugin code a user might be running. It’s actually quite scary when you think about it. Recently the team at Yoast wrote about their headaches launching a new version. A good read for anyone considering pushing out a major update.

Support channels mentioned in this episode

While it’s best you listen or watch the video, here are the areas of support Devin and I discuss:

Documentation

Blog post

Seminars/webinars

Helpdesk (like Helpscout, Freshdesk, intercom.io, etc)

Forums (BBPress, Discourse, etc)

Ongoing training videos (like an “academy”)

Live chat plugins (Zopim, Olark, etc)

Provide a solid upgrade and development path

Provide industry knowledge relative to your client

Automation (for segmentation and follow-up)

Content marketing in the form of blogs & educational shows/podcasts

Listen to the audio

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Watch the video

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