Support Guidelines

Last Updated on December 12, 2024 by Neil Murray

Table of Contents #

Support System #

We have developed a system for offering support to CF7 Skins customers. We want each member of the CF7 Skins Team to offer support in a consistent way that we feel best serves the needs of our customers.

We add additional information frequently to these guidelines as we become aware of issues that need clarification.

You need to follow these guidelines whenever you offer support to CF7 Skins customers.

You may have previous support experience where you offered support in a different way. Please be aware that we want all CF7 Skins support done our way. We will very likely remind you of that when you stray from these guidelines.

Initial Training #

Depending on your level of support experience we may start you on our Initial Training program.

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Getting Started #

WORDPRESS:
We have a WordPress site which we use for CF7 Skins & Contact Form 7 Support.

Support Guidelines – you need to follow these guidelines when you offer support to CF7 Skins customers
CF7 Skins Support – provides useful information when supporting CF7 Skins
Contact Form 7 Support – useful information for supporting CF7
Testing Area – where you should test CF7 form issues as necessary

See Team Communication.

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Freshdesk #

We use Freshdesk for support on both CF7 & CF7 Skins. Support of CF7 Skins is email based using Freshdesk for paid licensees.

We may do a Skype screen share with you showing you how we use Freshdesk.

Canned Responses #

We’ve setup a number of Canned Responses to assist in answering questions. It will help if you become familiar with these.

Using Canned Responses brings the following advantages:

  • Consistent replies
  • Quicker & easier
  • Many questions can be answered quickly

Typically we start with a Canned Response and then add anything extra we need to deal with the specific issue. Use Canned Responses wherever possible.

We recommend you look through tickets answered previously for guidance.

Improve Canned Responses

We regularly review recent questions to help add new Saved Replies.
If you answer a similar question more than once you should add it as a a Saved Reply.
You can easily add current questions as a Saved Reply and edit it to suit use by others.
We regularly review existing Saved Replies to improve them.

Improve our Documentation

Support questions can help us to constantly improve our CF7 Skins Documentation. We use the following Help Scout tags to identify questions that can help:

faq – many questions that have been asked before are answered here
documentation – a great place to find detailed answers to specific questions

Tags #

Use past tickets as guidance.
Don’t create new Tags.

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Sync #

We’ll send you an invite to Sync shared folder.

We use a shared folder to store questions from customers that need some detailed investigation.

We store screenshots and other files which show how we resolve the question here so we can collaborate when necessary.

We also use this for any bugs which are initially identified by customers.

Also provides long term reference of issues.

Copies of latest versions of CF7 Skins plugins & Add-ons are available at Sync\Support\Zips – CF7 Skins Pro & Add-ons\.

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Hubstaff #

Make sure you are signed into Hubstaff whenever you work so we can review your screen shots.

Use “CF7 Support” or “CF7 Skins Support” as your Memo/Description for this work.
Make sure your User UTC is set in Hubstaff . This makes is easier for us to review your Hubstaff screenshots.

See Team Communication – Hubstaff.

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Skype #

Please sign into Skype whenever you are working. This allows us to contact you quickly & easily when we notice problems, errors & misunderstandings in your current work.

See Team Communication – Skype.

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Testing Area #

We’ve setup separate pages for each CF7 Skins Team member.

2016-12-04-testing-area

NOTE: Don’t work on a local WP installation where we can’t see your work

Contact Form 7 forms used for testing #

CF7 Skins Team members must follow our naming system for Contact Form 7 forms used for testing.

Use Name – Form Description e.g David – Contact form issue

Use Custom CSS plugin #

Include description of issue in CSS comment above code.
Target individual CF7 forms via unique CF7 form ID.

2016-12-05_-_simple_custom_css_example

Our custom CSS is targeted to affect only CF7 Skins forms used within a particular theme that is causing problems. We do this so that other styling imposed by the WP theme is unaffected.

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Support Tips #

Make sure you understand the question

Don’t assume
Don’t guess
Instead:
Ask or Confirm – no harm in getting the Original Poster (OP) to do some work

Use simple basic English

Get a link to the user’s CF7 form

When supporting CF7 Skins we NEVER offer a CSS solution without first receiving a link to the user’s CF7 form.
We then examine the form using Firebug or Chrome Dev Tools to look at the CSS that is causing the problem described by the user.
We should also use this to test that any changes we recommend work before sending a reply.

CF7 Skins Articles #

Further reading:

  • Item

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Notes

Save all Images to Sync – use ..\Sync..\Support\Support Guidelines\Support Guidelines\

Ajith – 2024-04-02

It would be useful if a documentation for that is created to use as a guideline.

The following to be addressed on the guidelines

  1. In how many days the reply should be given
  2. In what context we should/shouldn’t send canned responses
  3. What is the action when we did not received the response to a canned response. i.e, if ask for wp access. then how many days we need to wait for that before changing its status.