by kur0 July 20th 2014, 6:04 pm
Thats what I thought and I do try to be respectful. You been here for years that an achievement on the internet, so what your doing is not bad. My point from the start was a suggestion to make this easier to access. If set up right you can make this even better for you guy in the long run and help with growth of your site.
I thought of a good example.
Have a contact us button that takes you to page that has:
Link to your forums if people would prefer to use that.
or an email option. the email option would look like below.
email information box,
nick /preferred name to be called box,
a few drop down selection boxes One main that ask what sort of problem I'm having (with my account) (With my forum)
a sub drop down box that has common problems, (I need help with getting my password) (I need help doing ____ on my forum),
a title box
a description box that based on the selection would tell the user what infmation to include and what information not to include.
a disclaimer that it might take x amount of time. 2 business days would be good I would think.
Then you can do multiple things,
1. An automated bot post to an area where only the staff can see and solve the problem and any response would be email back to the person seeking help. This shares the workload keeps it nice and clean and user are not frustrated seeking help promoting growth.
2. An automated bot that post some thing or send some things to the staff. If there a problem where only Buttercup could help it would send them directly to Buttercup, if it was a problem that the community could help with it could post as as a guest using the nick/preferred name from the box might say (guest kur0) uses topic for topic and posted the description in the chat box.. If you use this method make sure to include another disclaimer saying somthing like "To hasten an answer of your problem we open this question to the public" a box that they can check that would notify by email. And after they fill it out they can get an email and be redirected to a link that says check the status of my problem.
Sure it sounds complicated but it would make it easier for the user to seek help in the right place and it would keep the topics posted in the right place. After the work to set up it would make your lives easier I'd image, keep the forum cleaner, and help out the people who are really confused or cant find the right spot for their topic. It also reduces the time it takes to seek help and dose not create multiple accounts for one person.