Is everyone else also having issues with Shopify support?
Okay, so here goes nothing, I'm a little fed up with the support team now so I'm here to hear if everyone else is having similar issues.
Every time I encounter a issue, its the same story. The agents you reach can't help with the issue, they then have to reach out to developers, those developers reply days or weeks later (if they even revert back) to a ticket but you need support immediately. Then in the end, your issue doesn't get resolved. You can never speak to a developer one on one and solve the issue..? It's always uneducated agents that are redirecting you and wasting more of your time?
I been with Shopify for almost 9yrs now (spent over $100k+ I'm sure) and in the beginning the agents where really jacked.. they fixed code on the spot, they knew the platform backward and had answers or solutions to everything without really needing to reach out to other teams first. Things were swift back then. But I feel they have gotten too big of late and can no longer give us the proper support we need.
"Common responses include, "It's your Theme".., "You must change or edit the theme", or "It's your browser", or "Have you tried going incognito" (like customers are going to do that), or "You have to send endless screenshots, tell your life story, and even send video recordings that you also struggle to upload."
What I am saying is, the system sucks now. The platform itself along with the speedy service used to make them the best, but they're slipping a lot these days. I am tired of mentioning the same issue to six different agents and they must all log tickets and those tickets can sometimes take weeks to get a response only to have no real luck in the end. No real resolution to the problems at all. The issues simply begin to drift in the wind or the ticket gets closed..
I have had 3 issues in a row now with my store and its always the same 'going nowhere slowly' outcome. You have to basically become a Shopify techy yourself to solve the problems but they are quick to freeze a store when you haven't paid yet. Am I alone in saying this..?
Here's the issues I had (and still not fixed, they still want to escalate it..):
1.) At Checkout, while filling in your details (if you were a customer on the front end), and you have filled out all the blanks etc, the first province/state on the drop down menu is pre-selected, so then you have to first go click on another province, and then go back to the province/state that was selected and then it allows you to complete and proceed to the payments page. So we asked for this to be fixed and they were completely clueless.. (saying they don't have the issue on their side but there a problem without a doubt), said its part of the checkout.liquid code and you must have Shopify Plus to do so, so basically saying 'Sorry we cant help you fix it, upgrade to a $2000 package with no real certainty that the issue will be fixed and that to me is around R37000 ZAR, which is complete madness, it's a cars price here, or 3 months of somebodies rent in SA. Nobody would pay that here. Therefore can't upgrade to the package. So, I then asked cant we re-order the provinces then so customers don't struggle and was told that cant be done as it selects your location/clients location/store location etc as default. Then we asked, why does the State/Province have to be pre-elected, it should just say State or in our case "Province", and let the customer choose their desired province without an issue. Eventually, in the end nothing was done regarding this problem, we were left to basically deal with it ourselves. So we ended up having to go and try to edit the error message in checkout to tell clients how to overcome the problem or leave a note in a text block on the cart page trying to guide them past the issue before Checkout. Really? That's pretty weak.. This is a FREE theme that we are paying to use and modify, but "Sorry we cant modify it, its a standard"? Shopify isn't 100% open source, but it is supposed to offer dedicated support right? Where are they? Let me know.
2.) So we have another store that is a beauty in another province, we then downloaded the Dawn theme it's using in hopes of uploading it in our current province and then just editing the layout and pics etc, and we should be good to go. Uhm.. Not the case.. After uploading the Theme and setting it up perfectly, we now notice that the Homepage Meta Title is not displaying and the Meta Description is not being updated in Google, and yet again we are told, "Oh, its a theme issue" like we know how to address it.., But for now, please wait till Xmas for our Theme support to respond to the problem, Honestly... This is simple stuff that should work, its your sites Meta Title and Meta description which helps rank through SEO. So it's important.. Getting nowhere with this too now... They don't support uploaded theme's but it is a Dawn theme that was just downloaded and then uploaded to a different store.. So essentially it is their Theme, not a special uploaded theme file.
3.) Collection grid is 100%, No issue there, happy with that, but the Product grid is a problem now too.. If you select you want 4 rows of images and 20 images on that page it may show just 12 and then doesn't display all the products (it leaves blank/open blocks), on the domain/collections/all pages in-between other products which does not look great at all. So what now..? They cant give me a straight answer on this either and must first take a week or three to investigate but other Merchants problems are getting resolved? So I previewed another theme to see if the issue would persist and it looks as if the issue is the same in a different theme too.
I REALLY don't want to start editing a new theme now or have to revert back to the standard theme and literally start all over again wasting even more time but seems that's my only option. These are simple issues that they should be mastering but instead they talk me in circles while trying to seek help. Guess I have no choice but to start over and lose more time and money.. This is madness, give us people to talk to that are well-equipped to deal with these issues, not new guys that send us on a wild goose chase for days or weeks vouching to revert back but don't. Really hope someone reads this soon and reaches out with proper solutions or fixes. You would be a life saver, I am now looking to individuals to try solve my challenges because this big corporate giant is not helping me when I need it most.
I just left Woo commerce and migrated to Shopify only to face these issues. Not sure what I was thinking. But honestly, I did it because I'm a big Shopify fan (love the elegance, ease of navigation and easy to understand systems) but I am truly no coding expert so guys like me expect help for the monthly premium we have to pay. To all you USA folks its just a measly $20 but that to us is a few hundred ZAR so Shopify have to think about us too if you want to be globally aligned. Affordability to the rest of the world should also be a factor. Know the United States are big global consumers online but this is a global offering for many locations, so cater for all countries as we all add to your annual revenue and profit stream. Like many countries have access to Shopify payments or Stripe but not us in South Africa, we have to use a third party payment gateway and then get nailed a % of our monthly turnover whether we like it or not, but we have no other choice but to use a third party payment gateway because Shopify has no payment support in our country. Doesn't make sense to me. A bit unfair that other countries don't have this per sale percentage but we have to just accept it. I think they definitely lose brownie points for this in my book.. (It's poorer countries being forced to use Third party gateways, help us save too, don't add to the charges and rack them up, it affects our financials)
Needed to rant now, its been ages of struggling and I am curious to know how many other people are having similar issues. All I want and hope for, is a beautiful and professional looking store that poses no stupid minor issues to us or our customers. Most of these issues are all theme.liquid code related, which they should be the Pro's at right? Time to pull your socks up a bit more Shopify team.. Please. We beg you! We are rolling out multiple stores, not just one and we get treated like we are noobs or get noobs to deal with. We create more stores every year. Don't just offer 24/7 support and play 'hide and go seek', offer 24/7 support for real merchants that are hungry to make a success of themselves and earn.
Not bad-mouthing Shopify here and don't intent to hurt their business in any way (this is constructive feedback, my 5 cent worth) but us Merchants are the most important part of their business, without us they are just a dormant platform so PLEASE for the life of me... Can someone help!!!!!! I want to sell and be happier than I am now..
I feel some of these points needed to be mentioned and honestly hope senior management come across the post and maybe start addressing the flaws in the support system urgently because if the challenges persist their reputation would be at stake. We expect a out-of-box installation of themes that simply work, so we do not have to play detective all the time. It's becoming a real headache now.
Regards
'From a Frustrated Fan and long-term User/Shopify Believer'
