If there’s one type of software that is hard to get perfect, it’s support software. There are dozens of popular customer support web apps, but it’s often hard to find one that fits exactly your needs. Some keep everything private, others keep all of your support public. Some work great with email, others work great for creating beautifully formatted documentation for your own app. But with hosted services, you’ve got to take what’s included, and often you’re not going to be perfectly satisfied with the feature set.
That’s why I’m excited that WooThemes has created a brand new support system out of WordPress: SupportPress. WordPress may have started out as a blogging system, but it can be used for far more than just that today. WooThemes is pushing the boundaries again by creating an advanced theme that uses custom post types and taxonomies to turn WordPress into a full features support center. You can manage support tickets, create beautifully formatted documentation, and update users on your site’s status, all from one simple WordPress install.
By default, support tickets in SupportPress are private, but you can turn them into public knowledge base articles anytime you want. Your customers will get customized emails when you update their support tickets, and the theme is designed to work great on any size browser, even a smartphone. And you can manage profiles, respond to tickets, send internal messages to other team members, and more, without ever opening the WordPress dashboard. It does so much, it’s easy to forget that you’re still using WordPress.
So, now with a free WordPress setup on your server and a $100 copy of SupportPress, you can have a fully customized support system for your whole team. No restrictions on the number of users or customers, no extra fees or even ongoing costs for updates. Want to customize the design, or change how something works? The whole theme is built on HTML5 and CSS3, so you can tweak it to your heart’s content.
I’ve been using it today on a test install at support.techinch.com, and have been really impressed with it. I’ll be writing up a full review of it on Web.AppStorm.net soon, but for now, feel free to check it out there and read more about it on WooThemes’ site. If you’ve been wanting a more customizable way to support your customers, or have wanted a cheaper alternative to the increasingly expensive support web apps, this might be just what you’ve been looking for. I’m personally very excited about the potential of app themes like this, and the new ways we can take self-hosted web apps farther than ever before!
