Item Support Policy and Functionality Launched

ok, So your same support staff has a whole new detective job as you actually don’t have anything at your end. There are more proof always than what’s there on your system available, Like ‘RESPONSE TIME’ Normally people are giving support on their own support desk in that case, envato’s help office would get in touch with author and would ask all the details? or how? and What if authors gives wrong information? How you can validate?

Well, Envato’s Support staff response time was already 4-5 days and now it will increase to 10-15 days for sure with this new job if you have not setup a separate team to handle these requests.

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Hi Luminary,

Briany here from the Envato Help Team. I can assure you that we do not tolerate that kind of behaviour either and would support you as much as we can. What we would advise is that you ensure you have taken some practical steps to try and resolve the situation amicably with the customer first before just stopping all support and communication with them.

For example: Have you warned them that you will not tolerate that kind of language or threatening behaviour? Have you advised them that if they continue you will no longer be able to support or communicate with them?

While I’m not suggesting that you should accept this behaviour in any way, from a customer service perspective it’s important to at least try and give (even an unreasonable customer) a chance to redeem themselves before simply cutting contact as this has the potential to aggravate the situation more.

If the situation did happen to escalate to us we would try and a resolve it as best we could with the information we had available. Keeping in mind that sometimes these interactions happen in external support forums to which we have no access. If it was clear that the customer was being abusive, threatening or disrespectful you would not be penalised for that.

All that we ask is that you’ve attempted to deal with the situation in a professional way and not entered into the abuse or threats.

I hope that helps.

@scottwills @collis @natman @andrewfreeman Guys, can you please check this post: Supported item price vs Unsupported item price and answer here why you changed the pricing that way? Now an unsupported item has a higher value than a supported item. over to that why you made 6 month support (which is included for free as a good will gesture on purchase to buyers) paid as well? Why you couldn’t simply keep that NO COST for 6 month support that’s free with item and additional support is paid.

You current system is different in frontend for authors/viewes/buyers and different from backend. You don’t follow “what it shows, it is in real”.

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Exactly, what if authors are still providing free support after the 6 month period? How Envato is going to validate that on third party author sites or their personal emails? What if the author is lying? What if such author customers come over to me and expects the same free support.

Just like you depend on goodwill of buyers to follow the licenses, don’t tell me you are going to do the same with the authors. Seriously?

The 1 stars are real.

Just like the licensing system, this system is clunky. This could have worked if Envato had their own support system where they can monitor all the authors and buyers.

Can you explain? We are expecting much better system Envato. We want to be authors here forever. :cry:

6months option need to be down below (like 12months extend box), not together with item price.

Authors provide support any time, so this kind of support system is only a new feature. Like new forums, new badges, something new to have…

… I hope too, new support system to be better… After this, i will enable this option to my items.

Lol! Don’t cry #shutupandkeepworking :smiley:
Why i am laughing cuz no one is going to listen up us. There are now thousands of authors on TF who are unhappy. Multiple posts are popping in forum. One i referred above and two more here:

Envato @collis @scottwills @andrewfreeman Its now become a duty to make sure everyone is happy. Envato has lost credibility in current times and you need to get into to ensure every author feel excited and confident in envato’s marketplace

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Indeed, #shutupandkeepworking :cold_sweat:

Instead of all support packs recently implemented, its better increase the item price and keep it as is it is like earlier, this is my opinion.

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Guys guys, a little bird told me: Don’t write too many posts, the new support option will remain as is.
Let’s continue with our jobs, hobbies, daily day “routine”… : -)

Ok seriously, i think envato knows what it does, and if feels need to change something, will do.
We can’t do too much. We can post all time, yes, that’s it, no extra help. Unfortunately…

@andrewfreeman Till now I didn’t get any Support Sale, But I wonder why the Statement Page shows I’ve sold 6 Month Support? Everything should be same as before until I get 12 months support sale right?

And you guys started to deduct 30% extra from normal sale also? That’s nonsense.

So, What if I don’t support items? A normal HTML template costs $17 when support included and again $17 for an item where support is not included? So, please stop making confusions by splitting usual sale as support.

Only the extended 12 months support should be shown in statement page along with the fees.


Also the Non-Supported item says “Author does not support this item”

This will make negative impact on buyers. Instead the wording should be "Self-Service Support"
because we are giving documentation and knowledgebase.

No X icons please…


What if I wanted to give my buyers 6 months support but do not want to give 12 month support? Is that possible?


How to know whether the support package expired when buyer contacted through comments? The Purchased badge will remain same right? or any special tag visible for Authors to know the buyer’s support period is expired?


~Surjith

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Discussions (about pricing) are waste of time.

Full respect for the fellow authors who doesn’t worry about system’s virtual changes on item support and just focuses technical aspects of product/support “like before”.

Oh yea … everybody have to plug the heads into the sand … are u a “I don’t read the Terms and Conditions, I click directly on - I accept everything - button” guy/girl?

Sorry, but for what is this thread when not for a discussion on this case? ; )

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@TenserD

You missed my point… I can’t explain more detailed, we will need more posts. About “i don’t read the terms…” you are out of understanding of my post. I know and read very well my friend. Continue with your reading to learn more from important posts here… Delete mine. By the way, i’m man.

Hi @NRGthemes,

Thanks for taking the time to write all those questions.

There are a lot of questions our Help team will ask before offering a refund. For example, was the author responsive at all, was the author rude, was the buyer rude, were the enquiries within the definition of support, where did things go wrong, etc. Ultimately the Help Officer will assess the situation from both points of view with the information they have available.

The item and included 6 months support can’t be refunded separately. If there is something seriously wrong with the item and it can’t/wont be resolved then we’ll refund the full cost of the item.

Displaying a response time will help buyers decide whether or not the item is right for them and helps set expectations if/when the time comes that they need support. Authors can set their response time as they choose and if a buyer complains to the Help team that it is not reasonable then the Help Officer will review the case on it’s own merits.

Response time is currently only available on an account level but if it turns out to be a really popular feature with buyers and authors then we can definitely look at making enhancements.

Authors can manage their item support settings, and buyers will be shown whatever the decide. If you sell an item with support then you are expected to provide those buyers with support.

We’re not trying to say that an author’s time is worth $X/hr. Many author’s were offering lifetime support for free so we’ve reduce the time that’s included in the cost of the item, provided some extra money when buyers need extra support, and most importantly, we’ve done it in a way that balances buyers expectations with what they are willing to pay.

Cheers :grinning:

I have a partner with who I split the profits, but he doesn’t help me with support so the income from extended support will be just for me. So far I’ve been calculating profits by taking total earnings of each theme minus total earnings from previous month, however now I’ll have use statement for that. That wouldn’t be a problem if you wouldn’t show 6 records for one theme sale in statement. I really don’t get why you love to overcomplicate things that much.,.

Hi JoeMC,

It depends on how you choose to support your items:

  • if you provide support via a third party system then you can use the Verify Purchase API to see if the buyer has purchased the item and whether or not they have valid support;
  • if you provide support via email then you can use the link the email to verify the purchase and support; or
  • if you provide support via comments then we’ll identify buyers that have purchased and those with valid support.

For us the profit from those additional 6 month of supports is roughly equal to 1 men/hour rate. Considering the fact that I expect these packs to be purchased mostly by abusive buyers… Well, we’ll provide strictly that 1 hour of support. No less, no more. If Envato decided to assess the value of our time and sell it without our permission - okay, they can provide support to those buyers themselves.

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Oh yes, and third-party assets as well.

It’s like you’re building PCs and obliged to provide support not only for your hardware but also for Windows, Office, etc.

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Hi All,

A couple of updates to close things out for the day:

  1. Re: 6 months support for buyers that purchased a supported item before September 1st; We’re currently running a script to grant applicable buyers 6 months support. This will take some time due to the large number of purchases that need to be updated but we have started with the most recent purchases first and will be working back from then.
  2. Re: confusion about updates being tied to support; we have made some changes to the purchase panel and ‘what is item support’ modal and we’ll be monitoring the situation over the next few days.

Thanks again to everyone for their feedback, questions and GIFs :wink: - I’ll be back online tomorrow to answer any remaining/new questions.

No you can’t, this feature is still broken and doesn’t work. I don’t understand why you guys aren’t fixing it a lot quicker. The supported_until field is just blank.