Wordpress and a helpdesk

[privsec]

How do you have your configuration set up so that WordPress form entries for contact get addressed?

My ideal scenario is that a customer sends a question, comment, or sales inquiry, and it goes to my phone, shared email, WordPress dashboard, and their email is added to our newsletter

Is that possible? What would you do?

[girish]

What does it mean for a support/sales question to go to Wordpress?

[privsec]

@girish let’s say a customer of mine sells a service.

One of their customers visits domain.com
After so long of browsing a pop up shows and asks if they would like to send the business a message.

The customer sends a question via the pop up

I am curious how everyone handles those situations.

Further, what is done to turn their site into a crm, similar to cloudron is account dashboard

[humptydumpty]

@privsec WordPress form plugins are... janky at best. I'm using Chatwoot for live chat which can send the customer messages as an email if I'm offline/off-hours. Every new chat user is saved in the "contacts" section. You can assign custom attributes (this can be whatever you want it to be ex: phone number, subscription plan, etc.), custom labels, and there's a notes section too for some CRM functionality. Chatwoot has mobile apps for both android and iOS and that's great to have when you're on the go. Oh, and there's a "campaign" feature (I haven't used it yet), but it lets you send out messages to encourage further engagement which is a newsletter of sorts.

[privsec]

@humptydumpty Perfect, this is what I was looking for. Thank you.

[BrutalBirdie]

@privsec
You visit a website:

1. Figure out how to decline all but essential cookies (disgusting anti pattern)
2. Close the support widget / live chat (bot) asking if I need help
3. Stop the auto-playing video (thanks Firefox you can block this)
4. Close the “subscribe to our newsletter” pop-up / contact us pop-up
5. Try and remember why I came here in the first place
6. A browser message asking if you’ll accept push notifications
7. Another asking if you’re willing to share your location
8. A banner suggesting you download the iPhone/Android app
9. An NPS survey asking you to rate the site.

just to name a few. . .
Does this sound familiar to you?
Please stop building sites like that.
If I only encounter 3 of these above items, I leave the page immediately.

[micmc]

@privsec said in Wordpress and a helpdesk:

@humptydumpty Perfect, this is what I was looking for. Thank you.

If you really want to do it all from within WordPress there's FluentCRM for WP that seems to work very well according to some reviews and people I know who use it.

On the other hand, I use WP since its beginnings and if the site is really busy then an outside of WP solution as suggested by @timconsidine will be better. Take note that fluentcrm has no live chat module, so there's nothing that would prevent you to run both things at the same time.

[micmc]

@BrutalBirdie said in Wordpress and a helpdesk:

@privsec
You visit a website:

1. Figure out how to decline all but essential cookies (disgusting anti pattern)
2. Close the support widget / live chat (bot) asking if I need help
3. Stop the auto-playing video (thanks Firefox you can block this)
4. Close the “subscribe to our newsletter” pop-up / contact us pop-up
5. Try and remember why I came here in the first place
6. A browser message asking if you’ll accept push notifications
7. Another asking if you’re willing to share your location
8. A banner suggesting you download the iPhone/Android app
9. An NPS survey asking you to rate the site.

just to name a few. . .
Does this sound familiar to you?
Please stop building sites like that.
If I only encounter 3 of these above items, I leave the page immediately.

While I agree it's often annoying when all the above is used at the same time on a site you visit, it is also due to a lack of knowledge of what's an ideal UX, but it must also be said that they're used because THEY WORK.

While slight wisdom must be at work when thinking of your marketing strategy, one should never neglect to implement some way or another to get your visitors ENGAGED with you through some kind of call-to-action that would put them in a somewhat relationship with you, at least as a LEAD for your business.

Of course, that's what should be the least you must do if ever you have a business with something to sell from your website and would like to start automating the process as much as possible.

[jdaviescoates]

@micmc said in Wordpress and a helpdesk:

they're used because THEY WORK.

Reminds me a bit of chuggers (charity muggers), those annoying people that try to sign you up to a direct debit. Annoying, but evidently works.

[privsec]

@BrutalBirdie no, I don’t build these sites.

All pop ups occur only when a user clicks a button for support

I use umami for tracking, so no cookies set there

WooCommerce is used for accounts, so a cookie is set there.

[BrutalBirdie]

@micmc

While I agree it's often annoying when all the above is used at the same time on a site you visit, it is also due to a lack of knowledge of what's an ideal UX, but it must also be said that they're used because THEY WORK.

I never said It does not work, but its highly annoying to me

@privsec

no, I don’t build these sites.

Sorry if this is the way it came across, did not mean it like that.
It was more of a lash out against sites that do that.
I did not want to insinuate that YOU are the culprit