First time seriously disappointed with Webflow

Webflow is amazing, but… But I just can see the most alarming symptom for something very wrong with a web service.

Let me share my story chronologically:

(1) I post an issue in the forum: Problem with slug after rename - old slug still exists - #2 by cyberdave - Bugs - Forum | Webflow

(2) Cyberdave asks me to “send a quick email to support@webflow.com, so that I can get some additional information to help solve this issue?” [what is preventing Cyberdave getting the additional information on the thread does not become clear to me. Redirecting a forum thread to “support@…” is generally the first red flag for something going steadfast wrong, judging from my experience on the web. My premonition did not lie to me this time, either.]

(3) I sent an email to support@webflow.com with a link to my forum post. What I received as a reply was not any assistance with my issue but it was the following prefabricated message:

Can you please send me the following so I can take a closer look?

  * Read-only Link:

Learn web design with free video courses and tutorials | Webflow University
[1]
* Screenshots of issue:
Learn web design with free video courses and tutorials | Webflow University
[2]
* Browser Version:
Intro to the Webflow Designer - Webflow University Documentation
[3]

A prefabricated message in reply to a specific question!!!??? Is this Microsoft? What is Webflow turning into?

(4) I replied that I had already posted a read-only link and that the other two requirements were irrelevant for my issue

(5) I received a reply by cyberdave asking me to send an email for my issue from the email address with which I have registered the Webflow account for my site. What the hell? How does that help finding a solution to my problem? Anyway, I did send an email from the “proper” email account.

(6) Now I was truly amazed. Not by Webflow’s otherwise amazing capabilities, though. I received an email from a new person - “Will”. Will was promising to render much needed help to me if I were so good as to send the following:

  * Read-only Link:

Learn web design with free video courses and tutorials | Webflow University
[1]
* Screenshots of issue:
Learn web design with free video courses and tutorials | Webflow University
[2]
* Browser Version:
Intro to the Webflow Designer - Webflow University Documentation
[3]

WT* is going on with Webflow!!!???

Hello @uzzer,

First of all I’m sorry to hear you got frustrated by any reason while using Webflow or contacting Webflow Support Team. In my 2 year long experience I have never had any issues with neither of those two.

Let me go through your post one by one and try to comment things. Please remember that I am not a Webflow employee, but I’m just trying to help you with your problem.

I’ve read that post when you posted it, but because I didn’t know how to help I didn’t reply to it as well. It looked like a more in-depth issue. I was happy to see that Dave took your issue and replied asking for email to support email.

I have to disagree. Redirecting to support@ has its reason. Read-only link can only allow us to see the website in preview mode. Unfortunately it disallow us to look at the settings for each page. Having a problem with slug/URL needs to be verified by a Webflow Support Team. That kind of tickets must be started with an email.

From this part I understand that all you did was sending a link to forum. It wouldn’t take long to copy&paste issue or rewrite it with more indepth info. The prefabricated message you spoke about is a regular ticket reply as Webflow Team need those info to determine the issue, restore the enviroment you’re working on and try to find the fix for it.
Comparing to Microsoft is not nice - I’m working at the company where we need to work with Microsoft. Those guys are pain in the !@# and don’t care at all at bugs we tell them about.

All requirements were important. I know that as I know the ticket system in all companies. It allows us to restore the enviroment in which the problem appears and find a fix for it.

The email has to be sent from the same email as the registered account on which the problem appear because of an important reason. They need to identify that you are the owner of the account on which you’re experiencing issues. I had the same situation - my client had a problem with his account and I mailed them from my email asking for assistance. The reply was the same - you need to send support request from the email associated with problematic webflow account. I simply asked my client to send it and they’ve helped us quickly.
If you have sent that support request from the email associated with the webflow account on which you have the website with the issue, then simply reply to them saying so.

Both Dave and Will are working at Webflow. I appreciated their help ever since. Few questions - did you send a new email to support or did you reply to the previous one? Tickets are commonly assigned to different engineers to help maintain the amount of support tickets. I understood from your post that so far you didn’t send them those read-only links, screenshots of the issue nor browser version. If you did - I’m sorry I didn’t know, but you didn’t post those info here.

Webflow is going in the right direction. I’m working with plenty of users each day and I know how can both sides be pain in the !@#. Why don’t we all calm down and enjoy the beautiful tool that we can use to speed up our work?

You took your time to post that rage-post here. Did you manage by now to get all data required by Webflow? I’ve contacted Will and asked him to look closer to this issue as the last thing Webflow needs is an unhappy user. I’m the happy one :) Hopefully you will be soon too!

I hope best for you!
Bartosz

5 Likes

Bartekkustra, I am a paying customer and I do not care how Webflow’s ticketing system works or how any ticketing system works. I have an issue, I have posted it once and I expect it to be addressed. Instead I am asked to repeat it and submit some irrelevant information and then repeat all again just because Webflow’s support team cannot communicate effectively between themselves. Sorry but I do not have all the time in the world to adapt to Webflow’s support intricacies (and internal chaos). As a paying customer I am expecting the exact opposite.

It wouldn’t take long to copy&paste issue or rewrite it with more indepth info.

  • it wouldn’t take long for Webflow team to just open the link, either.

The prefabricated message you spoke about is a regular ticket reply as Webflow Team need those info to determine the issue, restore the enviroment you’re working on and try to find the fix for it.

  • if they cared to read the issue first, they would have noticed that they need none of the things asked in the prefabricated message. Blindly sending a prefabricating message is a sign of utmost disrespect to the customer’s time. Every bad services sends prefabricated messages mindlessly. Receiving a mindless prefabricated message is nothing new to me, but receiving such from Webflow struck me.

The reply was the same - you need to send support request from the email associated with problematic webflow account.

  • I did not just send an empty message from the associated email address, I did specify what issue it was about. They could have checked first, instead of dropping me the prefabricated message.

Both Dave and Will are working at Webflow. I appreciated their help ever since.

  • I have, too. The problem is not about those specific guys, it is how their work is organised. A system-level issue, that is.

I understood from your post that so far you didn’t send them those read-only links, screenshots of the issue nor browser version.

  • they had the read-only link in the link of my original forum post, which I did send them. Screenshots were irrelevant in this case, as well as browser version. For god’s sake, I have pointed the two urls pointing to the same page, they could have just opened them in any browser they wish and they could have asked me for a browser version only if the issue did not occur on their browsers.

You took your time to post that rage-post here.

  • as an avid users of many web services, I feel that I can very easily see when things are going in a bad direction. I wouldn’t have paid that much attention if this was about just a technical issue. The slug issue by itself is not of vital importance to me. But the system-level issue which might be behind this technical issue, is really serious. Once you accept that it is normal to ask customers to adapt to they way your support service works instead of the other way around, the path to hell, is open… Too much dramatism in my words, I know. But I am speaking out of rich experience. I can remember Wikidot, for instance. Wikidot is a wiki platform, aka “wiki farm”. For its day it was darn easy. To me and lots of other users it was the closest things to what Webflow is now. It was easy for the non-coder while allowing an unprecented scope of things to produce on a web site, at the same time. Then it gradually started deteriorating. No one cares about Wikidot anymore, because it is not useful anymore. It did not deteriorate in a day, though. But it was evident from very early days how it would, by tell-tale signs which showed clearly in their support. By not raging about an issue like this, we are not doing a favour either to ourselves or to Webflow.

Hi @uzzer, I just want to follow up with this thread in addition to what was shared by @bartekkustra:

(1) Super sorry for the mistake - you sent in two emails from two different email addresses over two different time zones (Dave saw one, I saw the other - honest mistake) :frowning:

(2) This is definitely a bug in our system and we’re working on a fix as soon as possible! Hopefully the issue can be resolved sooner than later :smile:

(3) If you ever want to talk to a team member about how you feel or about ways we can improve, just shoot us an email. You can reach me at will@webflow.com or you can reach any team member through DM here: https://twitter.com/thewonglv/lists/webflow-team/

Sorry about the frustration again! :-/ Hope we can keep working together to make this the best experience for everyone :smile:

Cheers,
Will

NOTE: Anytime you email us for help, please already include the requested information per our support guidelines (honestly, it just saves everyone a lot of time) :slight_smile: http://help.webflow.com/general/guidelines

Why don’t you use private threads on this forum (for instance) for detailed correspondence on issues, instead of emails? It would be far cleaner to track who said what and when, and a lot of time and confusion would be saved for both parties.