Supporting Free Plugins on WordPress.org and Commercial Products has its challenges. Yet, when handled properly, even the most challenging of exchanges can benefit your product as well as positively market your solution to potential customers. In this talk, I will go over setting expectations, watching out for the curse of knowledge, and how to “trust but verify.”
I will go over the types of questions to ask in support threads in order to get to the bottom of an issue. Additionally, I will go over how to respond to the shoulds, the lashers, exergatertors, and unreasonables, along with the regular usage support to benefit you and your customers. This will include going over examples including how the support team turned a review titled “Run Away From This You Won’t Regret It” into a positive review and many more. The last part of talk will go over some ways to reduce support and go over support tools such as forums versus email.