Have you ever dealt with WordPress’ happiness engineers? Well if you did I hope your experience was a lot better than mine, and I would love to hear from you regarding. I have always worked on SEO projects for self hosted blogs and since I started this blog on WordPress.com I’ve had the privilege of meeting many great bloggers via the WP reader. Unfortunately I eventually came to the conclusion that it’s not just me who is unsatisfied with the customer support department.
What happened you may ask
Well, each time I moved self-hosted blog in the past, transferring subscribers never used to be an issue, but I found out the hard way that when hosting with WordPress.com it often is. They may switch around your accounts, stop email notifications to old subscribers, and each time you reply to a ticket it’s assigned to a different person so nobody knows exactly what is going on.
How is this possible
If I remember right WordPress claims that 36% of the web is build on the WordPress platform. I mean, the internet is BIG, so they must be making a lot of money, right? WordPress is owned by Automattic which last year was valued at no less than US$3 billion dollars. Since many of us are paying $25/mo just for the privilege of being able to install plugins, I would really like to know: why don’t they provide decent customer service?
Is it really that bad?
You be the judge. Yesterday I received a ticket from Jetpack Support which was submitted 15 days ago. The “happiness engineer” told me that they are working through “a bit” of backlog and she on top of that she failed to answer my questions heads-on. Instead she almost transferred subscribers from different blogs on my account that have nothing to do with the issue. I can only pray that I don’t have to wait another 15 days for the next reply…
The solution
The best solution is to take control over your own WordPress blog and data before something happens that needs urgent care. Or even better, if you start a new blog set it up directly on WordPress.org. Once there is an issue that requires hands-on work from WordPress.com and you have to wait 15 days for a ticket to be answered a quick solution will be far from reality.
How do you take control? You can migrate your blog to a self-hosted solution, and while you may need help from WordPress in order to export your data, you will be able to move to a managed hosting solution that responds to your questions and needs, at the time that this is indeed required.
Migrating your blog from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress.org solution and hosting it with an independent web hosting company is additionally less expensive. In case you have a small site and basic technical knowledge you can host your WordPress blog for as little as $3/mo.
If you don’t posses any technical skills than you can choose a fully managed WordPress hosting solution which costs on average $18/mo. This compares to or even exceeds the WordPress $25/mo business package in that you get free backups, the ability to install SEO plugins, staging and unlimited bandwidth and storage space.
As always I would love to hear your opinions and experiences with happiness engineers and WordPress in general. If you would like to migrate your website I am always available for help. I am currently offering fully managed WordPress hosting services with unmetered traffic, unlimited databases, staging and free migration of your blog for just $15/mo. Use code: LOYALTY20 for 20% off. Keep me in mind 😉
With love,
Debby
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SEO San Francisco 
I never had any dealings with them and if it is this bad, I hope i never have to
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I’ve always had excellent service from the Happiness Engineers. There was a point last month where nobody was available, and a message came up that said my question would be responded to via email. I did get an answer, although it did take 5 days for them to respond.
Other than that, I’ve always had a positive experience with them. If they can’t answer my query or fix an issue, they say they will get back to me via email, and they always do. I’ve found that nothing is a problem for them. They’ve even written some CSS code for me. However, I do agree that you seldom get the same WordPress person coming back to you.
Do you get the ‘How did we do?’ emails from them after you’ve contacted them? I always do and always give them positive feedback. There is also a section on the feedback form to let them know how they could have improved the service they provided.
Sorry to hear you’ve had a bad experience with them, Debby.
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Thanks for taking the time to to comment. It seems they are backed logged because their latest WordPress update has broken a lot of blogs so they are experiencing a considerable increase in tickets. I hope this is indeed the reason. Thanks for taking the time to comment 😉
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Hi Hugh, hope you are well, thanks for taking the time to post your feedback regarding WordPress happiness engineers. I must admit I have not used them frequently as I normally post to the WordPress.org forums where I’m always able to get professional replies from WP developers. What got me upset this time was that after all this time it took for them to respond, they didn’t address the question. I am not sure if there is a difference between WordPress engineers and Jetpack engineers when it comes to timely replies, but I certainly do hope that this experience does not repeat itself. About the feedback form, I haven’t received it yet, probably because I’m still waiting to hear back from them. I will look out for it, thanks for the heads up! ~ Debby
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I think another factor of the kind of service you get from them could be to do with which plan you’re on, Debby. They’re probably more likely to priorities looking after customers on premium plans than those who are on free plans. I could be wrong, although I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot if they do this because if they offered excellent customer service to those on free plans, then it could persuade those customers to take out a paying plan.
For me, customer or aftersales service is so important.
I hope they get back to you soon.
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I do think you are very good with what you do. And as someone who is as tech savvy as you, it is natural to feel frustrated when you could have done something but your hands are tied.
I’m on the free WordPress.com but I know who I am going to look for if one day I decided to listen to my guts and migrate over to .org! 🙂
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Thanks Kally for your comment and for keeping me in mind. Wishing you a great day!
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Hi Hugh, I understand what you are saying and you are right that this is a free blog, however, the help was requested for a blog with a premium plan. There are additionally other blogs for which I am admin that are on a business plan so I really feel there is no valid argument for them to provide slow service. Each time I try the chat I am told they are dealing with increased volume and that someone will get back to me via email. Not impressed, but nothing I can do. Let’s hope the experience will not repeat itself.. Have a good one, thanks for your comment!
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I’ve dealt for around 3-4 weeks in a row with happiness engineer or must I say crappiness engineer, without being too harsh. Only a couple were good in explaining things….but the rest, I don’t even think they read the whole history or the mail / query from my side. Their reply were of no use….I was getting quite frustrated with them….WP.com is the biggest platform but it’s time for them to overhaul their support strategy….way of handling the query. Luckily, I used your amazing services, Debby….coz I couldn’t have had the energy or patience to migrate my blog/site to self hosted, where I could try the different plugins & themes. WP.com is quite expensive if one wish to install both. My experience with happiness engineer has reached to that level, where I really don’t want to contact them. I would rather start from scratch….that’s what I’m kinda doing as none of my followers were receiving any notification. So I had to try workarounds with the help of you (Debby)….with combination pop-up messages to current followers to rejoin & by removing them from my follower list & invite them to re-follow my blog. I’ve lost around 90% of my followers but I’m not worried coz I’m quite sure, I’ll build up my network slow & steady. One thing is for sure, I’m done contacting happiness engineers. Thx for your sharing & all the help, dearest Debby 🙏
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I have had dealings with the WordPress Happiness Engineers several times over the last several months. I have had nothing but positive experiences, I’ve talked to them on the online chat and they have always been very helpful and solved my problems, although probably not as complicated as yours. They’ve always replied within minutes and usually sorted out my problem within an hour, have kept me informed and generally been a great help. Can’t fault them.
Sorry to hear you haven’t had a good experience, it’s so frustrating when you need help and can’t get it. Hope you manage to get your issues sorted.
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Hi Debby, I hope you are well? I’m concerned that I haven’t heard from you with regards to the work you were going to be doing for my blog.
I know you’ve been having WP problems but you haven’t even emailed me. Please let me know you are safe and well.
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