Remkus de Vries

Pippin Shares Insights on How To Use bbPress As a Support Forum

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Ever since bbPress rebooted as a plugin people have started to use it more and more again in live situations again. One of those examples is Pippin Williamson‘s support forum where it’s being used to provide support for the very popular Easy Digital Downloads plugin. Pippin explains in great detail how you can use bbPress by adding a few extra plugins to provide for a perfect support forum.

One thing that stood out for me in his post was his introduction to the Private Replies function:

If your customers ever need to provide sensitive information, such as site URLs or account credentials, it is absolutely paramount that you give your customers a way to contact you privately. There are a variety of ways to do this, from personal emails to actual ticketing systems, such as Zendesk or Ticksy, but none of them are optimal if you are also using bbPress as your main support platform. Why? Simply because having multiple support areas to manage does nothing but convolute the process.

With seeing companies like WooThemes and StudioPress moving to those types of ticketing systems, I’m not sure they would agree with his statement. Regardless, I think he’s got a great setup going on and I’m happy he shared his insights.

So what do you think? Will you be using bbPress as a support forum or would you rather use a third party solution?

WordPress veteran. I’ll help you grow your WordPress + WooCommerce sites & scale your business at Truer than North. Co-founder #WCEU, I am the leftness in the right

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10 responses to “Pippin Shares Insights on How To Use bbPress As a Support Forum”

  1. David Decker Avatar
    David Decker

    I will also use bbPress for my new support site starting soon. I agree with Pippin here: good ticket systems are really awesome but in my opinion better for big companies like StudioPress or WooThemes who also have lots of (paid) staff members. For freelancers/ single-person businesses or smaller companies there are a lot of benefits of using bbPress and its ecosystem: you can have all in your WP install – the users, the data etc. You don’t have to pay a third-party service and use bridge plugins etc. for integration.

    Reply
    1. Remkus de Vries Avatar
      Remkus de Vries

      Yeah, that’s pretty much my thinking as well. Unless you’re really big and indeed have lots of paid staff, bbPress in this setting would be the way.

      Reply
      1. Pippin Avatar
        Pippin

        I’ve used ticketing systems, both of the ones I mentioned, extensively, but I still prefer just bbPress. I’m actually getting ready to shut one of my ticketing systems down.

        Even with two paid staff members, I find bbPress a better solution, partly because I can customize it to function exactly as I need, which is something you can’t do with any ticketing systems.

        Reply
        1. Remkus de Vries Avatar
          Remkus de Vries

          Thanks for chipping in Pippin 😉 Are there any advantages to using third party software at all, you think?

          Reply
      2. Pippin Avatar
        Pippin

        Definitely. Zendesk, for example, is a phenomenal piece of software that works wonderfully for support teams. Ticksy is also great and works really, really well for small teams or individuals. A lot of my preference comes from wanting to make it work how I want. bbPress gives me the flexibility to modify the behavior of the support system in any way I want, but if that kind of flexibility isn’t needed for you, then Zendesk, Ticksy, or any one of the others should work perfectly fine as well.

        Reply
  2. David Decker Avatar
    David Decker

    I will also use bbPress for my new support site starting soon. I agree with Pippin here: good ticket systems are really awesome but in my opinion better for big companies like StudioPress or WooThemes who also have lots of (paid) staff members. For freelancers/ single-person businesses or smaller companies there are a lot of benefits of using bbPress and its ecosystem: you can have all in your WP install – the users, the data etc. You don’t have to pay a third-party service and use bridge plugins etc. for integration.

    Reply
    1. Remkus de Vries Avatar
      Remkus de Vries

      Yeah, that’s pretty much my thinking as well. Unless you’re really big and indeed have lots of paid staff, bbPress in this setting would be the way.

      Reply
      1. Pippin Avatar
        Pippin

        I’ve used ticketing systems, both of the ones I mentioned, extensively, but I still prefer just bbPress. I’m actually getting ready to shut one of my ticketing systems down.

        Even with two paid staff members, I find bbPress a better solution, partly because I can customize it to function exactly as I need, which is something you can’t do with any ticketing systems.

        Reply
        1. Remkus de Vries Avatar
          Remkus de Vries

          Thanks for chipping in Pippin 😉 Are there any advantages to using third party software at all, you think?

          Reply
      2. Pippin Avatar
        Pippin

        Definitely. Zendesk, for example, is a phenomenal piece of software that works wonderfully for support teams. Ticksy is also great and works really, really well for small teams or individuals. A lot of my preference comes from wanting to make it work how I want. bbPress gives me the flexibility to modify the behavior of the support system in any way I want, but if that kind of flexibility isn’t needed for you, then Zendesk, Ticksy, or any one of the others should work perfectly fine as well.

        Reply

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