The advent of Elements brought about a lot of questions and uncertainly for authors. Primarily, two main issues arose when Elements launched: 1) would selling your items on Elements be worth it, and 2) would Elements destroy Market sales?
As an author, I’ve been beyond satisfied (and even surprised) by the sales of items on Elements. Whats more, is that my personal marketplace sales haven’t been noticeably affected by Elements – so far.
I totally understand those who argue against the subscription model and how it could negatively affect the stock industry. However, in regards to Elements, I’ve always had the viewpoint that more customers is always better – even if that means offering expensive projects in a subscription environment. To me, more customers meant more exposure, and more exposure is never a bad thing.
That additional exposure and customers from Elements has had an unforeseen side affect: A LOT more support questions. While I don’t have exact data to provide, I would estimate that the amount of questions that I receive from customers about using MotionRevolver projects has nearly tripled.
Post-sales support questions has never really been a drain on my time in the past. I pride myself on the quality and robustness of my support documentation, and pretty much any question someone could have can usually be answered by watching my video tutorials. But with the popularity of Elements increasing, the amount of time spent answering questions has actually started to affect my daily schedule.
So, this spike in support questions has lead me to make a tough decision as an author: while Elements customers will still have access to the robust documentation I provide for all MotionRevolver templates, I’ll only be providing direct, one-on-one support to customers who acquire a template through Market (i.e. pay full price for it).
I don’t necessarily have a problem selling my premium templates for less money in a subscription environment such as Elements. But I also feel it’s unfair to sell that Premium template for so little, AND spend valuable time each day answering questions to customers who acquired it for such a minimal price.
Customer satisfaction is the most important aspect I’ve held since launching MotionRevolver, so this decision wasn’t necessarily an easy one to make. But time is the most valuable commodity we have as authors, and I’m unable to justify spending so much time helping customers who acquired a project for such little cost through a subscription.
It might be a complicated implementation, but perhaps this could be an opportunity for Envato to consider a “Premium Support” add-on for Elements customers who might want to purchase direct support from vetted authors.
With all of this said, I was curious if any other authors have experienced a noticeable uptick in support questions once your items were active on Elements? If so, has this changed your perspective toward the service you offer Elements customers?
I’ll pass it on to our Elements team.
