How Do You Like the Support at Webflow?

Community resources General
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Hi All, I am very interested in WebFlow but have reservations with only email support available. I would at least expected chat support. What do you do if there is a problem and need immediate help?

Also, one of the reasons I wanted to ask about is the building and hosting relationships. I something like ‘hosting added’ in the business $35/mo builder plan. What exactly does this mean?

Do I need a hosting account? If so, is it multi domain or single?

Thanks for you help. Just trying to understand the landscape and would like to try it.

Jeff

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Hi @JeffInHighDef,

I am personnaly amazed by how fast webflow priority support is. Almost feels like a chat actually - I always got very helpfull answers that solved most of my issues in a very short period of time. Really happy with them :slight_smile:

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Thanks. Any rumors about them actually using a chat offering at some point? Email just feels so 1998…

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Hi @JeffInHighDef

I’ve always been very impressed with it, and there is some livechat support available in certain areas where the team receive a lot of enquiries like connecting domains. Maybe this livechat feature could grow as Webflow itself expands :crossed_fingers:

See this post from @Brando earlier this year clarifying a few points about what to expect:

Generally speaking if it’s Account/Billing/Hosting/Technical issues - those are the priorities of the support team, and if it’s a Design/Code issue post here on the forum, where either a community member, moderator or staff can offer ideas/assistance.

https://university.webflow.com/statement-of-support

On the Designer/Builder and Hosting question:

  • The Designer plan $35/m is the price for the tool itself (there are other plans available - it’s even possible to have a Free Designer Plan, and just add hosting if you are only making 1 site)
  • Hosting is an additional fee on a per site basis

What is your use case - are you just designing one or a few sites, or looking to run a website business/studio using Webflow?

Hope that’s useful, feel free to ask any questions on the forum, we are a friendly crowd :slightly_smiling_face:

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The support has always been spot on in my experience :+1:

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Excellent support is actually one of the selling points I use when pitching Webflow to clients. I’ve been very impressed.

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Hello @JeffInHighDef!

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m definitely happy to help provide some additional clarity and transparency for the Webflow Community. My name’s Andrew - I’m on the Customer Success Team here at Webflow.

For the first question, we definitely receive quite a few questions about plans and pricing, and it’s something we’re looking at clarifying on the dashboard and marketing site to help our customers make a more informed decision.

There are two different types of plans: Account Plans and Hosting Subscriptions.

  • Account plans are for you, the designer and they do not include hosting or the ability to connect a custom domain.

  • Hosting subscriptions are sold one-per-site, and they allow you to connect a custom domain, but they do not include code export features.

Account Plans include Starter, Lite, Professional, and Team plans. These give you access to your Webflow account, your dashboard, and the Designer. The Lite Plan and above allow Code Export. The Professional Plan and above include white labeling.

Hosting Subscriptions include Basic, CMS and Business Hosting. These allow you to publish your site to a custom domain, receive more form submissions, and collaborate with our powerful CMS tools such as the Webflow Editor. You will need a Hosting Plan for any website that you want to connect to a custom domain.

For the second concern, I definitely understand that on-demand support is a huge benefit. We actually do provide live chat, and it’s available on the hosting page of your dashboard or anytime you’re on the plan selection page for your account. Last quarter [Q2 2018]:

  • We had 3,629 live conversations
  • And sent 12,942 replies
  • With a 3-minute median response time

We provide live chat support for help selecting plans, DNS and custom domain help, and simple questions that don’t require engineers or additional resources to troubleshoot. But for technical questions, the best way to reach us is always going to be our support inbox.

For our email support, here are some statistics you [and the Webflow Community] may find interesting from Q2 2018:

  • 15,960 messages received
  • Less than < 1 hour average first response time across all inboxes [insane for this industry]
  • 36 minute first response time for the Priority inbox
  • 46% of conversations are resolved within the first reply

We did this with six Customer Success Specialists, helping many thousands of customers, and we’re scaling in Q3 for more live chat coverage and additional teammates. We aim for 95% Great or Awesome ratings across all channels for support requests, and we do our best to improve coverage and responsiveness without sacrificing quality of support.

We’re always going to take the time to work with you personally, review your account and all information, and provide a real response (even if your request falls outside of our statement of support). Additionally, we answer questions on the Forum and reach out to beleaguered designers on social media – all while creating new resources to help customers proactively and working on passion projects internally to help communicate our users’ needs within Webflow.

Please let me know if you have other questions – I’m always happy to help!

My Best,

Andrew

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Thank you Andrew, this sounds great. So as I build web sites for clients - and want them to pay their own hosting, I would just refer them to setup an account?

Also, I want to ramp up really fast - but do have a number of years doing web on and off. Is there a paid resource that I can get some live training from? Maybe something like zoom or skype?

This is one of my brands, www.digitalheroes.tv. I’m looking for someone who does this for web flow. Never know, I may add that offering once I get up to speed…

Thanks, Jeff

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Hey @JeffInHighDef

You can just use the Client Billing feature so that the client can pay for hosting and access the CMS while as the designer you have access to the Webflow Designer. Check it out.

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Hey @JeffInHighDef!

As Matthew mentioned, client billing will let your clients pay for their own hosting. If you’d like, you can even negotiate a retainer for additional services [for example, SEO, maintenance, etc.] and use client billing to charge them each month for more than Hosting.

As for ramping up really fast, there’s a few ways to do this. We’ve done our best to create comprehensive courses at Webflow University for free. If you have the Designer open and learn each part of the Ultimate Web Design Course, you can go from brand new user to awesome web designer in less than a week:

Alternatively, you may be able to find someone for 1:1 coaching here by posting on the Forums or via our Webflow Experts program. If you do, I would still recommend visiting Webflow University and working through our video tutorials. You’ll learn general best practices in responsive design and a ton of additional tips and tricks for each topic covered.

Kind regards,

Andrew

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Personally I have never got it to work. I get some transformation going and try to add interactivity and it all goes to pot. Nothing ‘sticks’. I move on to another element and try to drag and drop it into place just as they do in the video and it just doesn’t happen like they show, for me at least. I tried different browsers no good. I use other programs for svg graphics, Affinity Designer and for animation Keyshape, but when I try to upload these it just doesn’t work.I did post a question and got a reply that it’s hard! That from a member of staff. I looked at other web hosting like WIX and they don’t even support SVG let alone animation. I haven’t given up though. I might try paying and uploading the code.

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Hi Jeff,

I’m a complete novice.

I’ve found webflow email support (response time, clarity, effectiveness) nothing short of outstanding, regardless of time of day, day of week or holidays.

To date I’ve never once found myself needing Chat or wishing I could phone in.

There are a number of aspects of this company that I very much admire.

Wish they made and supported more of my software.

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Honestly, Webflow’s Support is AMAZING!

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Maybe it’s because I’m in the Southern Hemisphere but I find support VERY slow and this is not the first time. I’m on my second day waiting for a response and still nothing. It’s a little frustrating as my question is a very general one and I probably should not have to ask it in the first place. It’s not covered in the billing documentation and I went to the forums first and found the question asked two times by other people wanting a response with no answer. Question about upgrading fees from Basic to CMS - #3 by MattBott

Maybe I’m using the wrong contact method? It’s the Webflow Custom “Success” message window. Is the university contact page form at Webflow Customer Support | Webflow University any faster?

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@MattBott,

Whats your specific question? Maybe I can help?

Brandon

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Thanks! I cant find any information in regards to what happens when I upgrade hosting from Basic to CMS. e.g. If I paid for 1 year of basic hosting 6 months ago, do I have to pay for another full amount of 12 months of CMS hosting? I’m assuming there is some sort of pro-rata pricing structure but I cant see any reference to this at all. I need to let my customer know how much changing the plan will be.

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@MattBott,

No you wouldnt. I just explained it in your other post. Go check it out.

It is just the difference of the the two plans with the remaining time of your 1 year.

Hope that help?

Brandon

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Thanks Brandon! In regards to response times is the university contact form generally any faster than the Webflow Customer Success message window?

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@MattBott,

At this time no. I do know they are hiring more customer support staff to handle the load. SO hopefully that will decrease wait time.

But my suggestion would use the support button in the designer in the bottom left to get faster response. And you can also just post here in the forum as well. Those of us as ‘Community Experts’ are pretty good at responding to all messages. However, billing related ones are sometimes overlooked, but we still try to get to them all as quickly as we can.

Good luck and let me know if you need anything else,
Brandon

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Thanks Brandon. Appreciate your assistance!

I guess having three different support methods adds to the confusion (1. university support page form, 2. bottom left icon in designer 3. The webflow customer success support window.) As you have suggested I’ll stick to the bottom left support link in designer.

In regards to forum support I haven’t had much luck with that either lately. Maybe you can help on this one? Filter a collection list based on keywords?