Interview With ThemeRex – Lessons in WordPress Theme Support

Whenever a freelancer or a web design studio decides to start selling digital products to the web community, they need to get ready to assist their customers to use the purchased items properly. Whether it’s a beginner web developer who downloaded a theme for educational purposes or an experienced webmaster that needs to personalize a ready-made design to meet the demands of his customers, the provider of digital products should be ready to provide proper assistance.

Supporting buyers is indispensable if you want to make your clients believe that you really care about the success of their web projects after they buy your theme. However, working with customers you should be ready to face some challenges, which nobody will teach you to. Luckily, ThemeRex, Envato Power Elite Author, shared their own experience and let fellow webmasters learn from their own example.

A Couple of Words About ThemeRex

ThemeRex is the Power Elite Author from ThemeForest. The web design studio joined Envato in March 2013. Since then, they have expanded their collection of WordPress themes with 150+ quality ready-made WordPress themes. The ready-made designs are suited for micro-niches, making every template a solid foundation of websites that are ready to go straight out-of-the-box.

About 27,000 customers enjoy the modern designs of the themes powered by the custom ThemeRex framework and add-ons, featuring 1-click installation and top-quality support. The cost of niche-specific themes from ThemeRex varies from $17 to $59. All themes vary in their designs and purpose of use. Thus, the portfolio includes pre-designed templates for literally every business niche imaginable.

Interview with Henry, CEO of ThemeRex

Most of you know, my brother and I develop two premium WordPress plugins over at forgemedia.io. So I’m always interested to hear others thoughts on support, especially those on marketplaces such as Envato. Today, I got the chance to interview Henry, the CEO of ThemeRex. I’ll let him take it from here.

ThemeRex Customer Support Experience

ThemeRex is proud to have a professional customer support team that is available 10-18 EST, Monday – Friday. The total number of the tickets closed during 2017 makes up 5341, and we are happy to confirm that all of our customers managed to get their sites up and running within a few weeks.

All themes designed and developed by ThemeRex are well-documented and are supported via the tickets system. Answers to the most frequently asked questions can be found in the respective section on their website, in written and video documentation, as well as customer support via a tickets system.

Customer support
Customer support

As soon as you purchase a template from ThemeRex, you are guaranteed to be provided with the quality support services from a team of technically skilled professionals. ThemeRex Support doesn’t provide theme installation and customization services. What’s included are the minor technical issues. The approximate time for a client to receive a reply is 8-16 hours. If the issue requires additional attention, up to 24 hours. If a customer needs the technical support team to proceed with the request immediately, he should attach the purchase code from the “downloads” tab in the personal account.

ThemeRex Customer support responds to all types of tickets submitted by the owners of their ready-made themes. The most common cases include:

  • Importing demo data
  • Installation difficulties because of server configurations
  • Basic customization questions (theme style, layout, color scheme, shortcode settings)
  • Minor technical fixes
  • Custom changes while tweaking the source code
  • Minor display bugs
  • Server errors and warnings;
  • License and bundled plugins questions
  • Admin panel issues, etc.

On the average, it takes 12 to 24 hours to resolve an issue that a customer described in the ticket. More complex issues are resolved within 2-4 business days.

Submitting a Refund

Each author on the Envato market is responsible for the templates sold to the customers. If the purchased item doesn’t fall under the buyer’s expectations, the customer can request a refund. We keep to the Envato refund policy and consider only the claims connected with the quality of the theme itself, its functionality and features.

The refund is issued only in case there is a theme flaw and the customer does not want to wait till the fix is ready. This happens rarely. We refund the HTML version of the theme if the customer intended to purchase the WP version.

Most common requests:

  • mistaken purchase (if the client wanted WP instead of HTML and vice versa);
  • installation or some theme option not working because of server settings (e.g. color scheme changes are not saved).

If the dispute is not resolved, a client receives a 100% refund. Approximately 20% of ThemeRex clients requested a refund for the purchased items.

The theme authors may not refund a client if:

  • He no longer wants the theme after downloading it
  • He changed his mind
  • Purchased a theme by mistake
  • He doesn’t have enough experience to tweak the theme
  • He can no longer access a template since it was removed from the inventory

The Key Challenges in the Work with Clients

Every web design studio that provides customer care services should be ready to face certain challenges in the work with the clients. The most common issues occur due to the fact that the users do not learn about the services that are included in the support of the chosen theme.

For example, ThemeRex doesn’t provide installation and customization of the template. They can guide you to the focal points that are worthy of the special attention, as well as help you manage the admin panel, thus making it possible to apply all fixes on your own.

Working with clients
Working with clients

All ThemeRex templates feature 1-click installation. Minor technical and bug fixes are supported. ThemeRex themes run on the custom ThemeRex framework. They also include collections of ThemeRex add-ons. Installing third-party plugins, software and resources, the customer support team won’t take any responsibility for these.

Each ticket and dispute submitted by a customer is individual and is due to be reviewed separately. ThemeRex customer support team reduces the response time and provides the clients with the response to the submitted tickets within 12-24 hours on the average. Making every client leave satisfied is the rule that grows the number of coming-back customers.

And what’s your key to the customer satisfaction?

author bio
Brian Jackson

I craft actionable content and develop performance-driven WordPress plugins. Connect on X, subscribe to my newsletter (once a month), or buy me coffee.

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