Handling Support Without Rage Quitting
Congratulations! You now have users. That means bugs, feature requests, and the occasional person who thinks your plugin controls their printer. 🖨️✨
“The plugin’s not working.” – A support ticket, with no other details, ever
Let’s learn to survive the support battlefield without throwing your laptop into a volcano.
🚨 Step 1: Set Boundaries (a.k.a. Keep Your Sanity)
You are not Stack Overflow’s janitor.
- Add a line in your
readme.txt:“Support is provided in the WordPress.org support forum. Please include details like version, error messages, and your horoscope.”
- If you have a PRO version, support should be email-only or through a separate ticket system.
No one gets free 3-hour Zoom calls. Not even Chad.
🕵️ Step 2: Diagnose Like Sherlock
Most support tickets say:
“Doesn’t work.”
Cool. Doesn’t what work? You gotta investigate.
Ask for:
- Plugin version
- WordPress version
- Other plugins (👀 looking at you, Jetpack)
- Theme info
- Screenshots or error logs
- Steps to reproduce
Bonus: Add a debug logger to your plugin so you can catch silent errors like a sneaky ninja. 🥷
error_log( print_r( $some_var, true ) );😇 Step 3: Be Kind, Even When You're Screaming Inside
Write responses like you’re talking to your grandma.
❌ “READ THE DOCS.” ✅ “Hey! Thanks for reaching out. Based on what you described, it sounds like XYZ. Could you please try ABC?”
People will remember how you made them feel — and maybe leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of guilt.
🧙♂️ Step 4: Automate the “Obvious”
Create a knowledge base, use ChatGPT (heyyy 👋), or build a support wizard that checks:
- PHP version
- File permissions
- Common conflicts
- Whether the user has installed your plugin on a TI-84 calculator
Also... create pre-written replies for:
- “How do I install this?”
- “Can I use this with WooCommerce, Shopify, and my toaster?”
- “Where is the settings page?”
😩 Bonus: When to Say “No”
You’re not obligated to:
- Implement every feature request
- Support ancient WordPress versions
- Explain how to code custom features for free
Just say:
“Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll add it to the roadmap if there’s enough demand. For now, I’d recommend hiring a dev or bribing one with coffee.”