A. You actually typically don't have to pay for asking questions. We have a
support section in the members area and an
FAQ section on the sales site which at both places you can ask questions for free. You have to first search for the question to see if an answer already exists before you are able to submit the question.
There are times when you would need to pay for the time spent answering a question. Any question that is related to a support request should be part of the support request it is related to and you would pay for the time spent answering it. For these type of questions you can post the question as a note on the support request. So for example if you ask the question "How does XXX work?" if XXX is a part of the software you wouldn't be charged for the question and can ask your question through the support section, but if XXX is a customization specifically created for you (something we did as a support request) then the time spent answering it would be charged.
Also, questions that require research on our end within your system to answer is a second type of question that we charge for the time spent. For example if you ask "How can I know if an email was not delivered because of a system issue or because of an email delivery issue?" then we can answer that question without having to login to your system. We can tell you which page you can go to where you can find the email and the SMTP response that was given by the receiving Email Service Provider (exa: GMail) server saying that they received it, or if they blocked it. If no record exists then there is an issue in the system, and if it exists and says "250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as XXXXX" then it was sent from our server and there was a delivery issue after it left our server. This is an example of a question that is free for us to answer.
In contrast, if you ask the question "Why are my emails not being sent out?" we have no way to know without going into your system, and checking to see if the emails sent statistics indicate that emails are being sent. And then from there we may have other items to research to come up with an answer. Because this question is specific to your system and requires research within your system to answer it then you would be charged for time spent answering it. However, if it turns out after research that the reason emails are not being sent is because of an error in the software, with the server, or some other issue on our end, then you will not be charged for the time spent on the question and any fees you might have paid are refunded.
If you are not sure if your question is one we will charge for or not then you can ask it either way (ask it as a question at one of the 2 pages linked above, or make a support request for the question). If you make a support request and it is a question we would answer for free then we will refund the bench fee and not charge for the time spent (so in the end it doesn't cost you anything). If you ask a question where we would charge for the time spent as a question using one of the 2 pages linked above, we will turn it into a support request and you will receive an email asking you to approve the support request before we work on it. This means that the fastest way to ask a question is to submit it as a support request. Because, for example, if you ask the question "Why are my emails not being sent out?" we will turn it into a support request, which causes a delay for us to respond to you that it is a support request and for you to approve it. If you had asked it as a support request we could work on it right away.
So in summary, if you are fine with paying for a question if it is the type of question where you would need to pay OR if you need the fastest response it is best to ask it as a support request. If you do not want to ask the question if you have to pay to have it answered then ask it as a question. Most questions asked as support requests have their bench fee refunded, so anything that is critical to your site, we encourage you to not be afraid to ask it that way so we can take care of the issue right away.
A. The process is:
1. Use questions for only general questions. That would be a question not specific to your site, that anyone using our system could benefit from.
2. Specific questions, request for detailed step-by-step instructions, assistance, customations should be setup as a support request.
