Inadequate Support

Those who have a small site as I do are not given a fair shake when it comes to receiving support from OceanWP. Just because I do not need a premium support package I am penalized because I cannot submit a support ticket and receive assistance for my specific problem. Instead, I have just two options, to join their Facebook community or attempt to get some kind of answer at OceanWP’s WordPress Support Forum. The Facebook option might be O.K. for those who are on Facebook, but I do not use Facebook. So OceanWP eliminates 50% of their free support options for those who are not Facebook users.? Now I am down to one option — a ‘so called’ Support Forum. I say ‘so called’ because the phrase, Support Forum, is an oxymoron. Trying to receive assistance with a specific problem is practically impossible with a WP Support Forum. If a submission on one of these forums receives a reply it is likely something like, “I had the same problem and tried this …” Well, I’m sorry but that is not support. Support is supposed to come from an actual support person who is capable of providing assistance until your specific problem is resolved. Receiving a reply from another OceanWP user who had a similar problem is not support. Also, trying to find a forum submission with your exact problem which also includes an actual solution is nearly impossible. And in the off chance you should find such a submission it would be just your luck to find the submission is five or more years old. That solution is not likely to work for you since both the plugin in question and the WordPress platform have been updated umpteen times during the intervening years. In short, Support Forums are a complete waste of time. The result is that those of us who do not need to pay for a premium support package are left out in the cold. I believe every customer of a theme, plugin or platform such as WordPress deserves to have the means to receive support for specific problems from the company’s support team. Unfortunately, support systems that essentially offer no support for their ‘free’ users are becoming commonplace. This means a company’s support policy has to now be considered as a major factor in choosing which companies those of us who have small sites will do business with. I should have looked more closely at OceanWP’s support policy before choosing this theme for my site’s redesign. I will be a lot more careful in the future.