Best practices for contacting Designer Support

DesignCrowd staff receives hundreds of email interactions on a daily basis, unfortunately, a lot of the emails we receive are either not formatted in a good way or are just lacking information altogether.

In order to streamline the process and make things quicker for both designers and DesignCrowd, here are a few guidelines to take into account:

1. Use a clear, legible format for the email itself

Subject - Use something concise. Do not place the entire body of the email on the Subject line.

Examples:
Handover not approved - Project XXXXXX
Pending / Failed payment - Project XXXXXX
Client unresponsive - Project XXXXXX

Body - Use this space to provide all the necessary basic details and then elaborate what the concern is. Always be descriptive and provide as much information as you can.

2. Provide all the necessary basic details

Providing all the details that are relevant to your inquiry will speed up the process and eliminate any unnecessary back and forth. Here are some of the details you usually want to include in the email, depending on the context of your inquiry.

Brief ID / Project ID / Project Number / Link to the project / Job ID

All of these refer to the same thing. You can easily find this by visiting the brief page and looking at the page URL. The numbers at the end of the URL represent the Project ID.



Designer ID

Your unique designer account number. This number does not change even if you change your profile name. This number also can not be changed. You can find this ID by visiting your public portfolio page. The numbers at the end of the URL represent your Designer ID.



Design ID

All design submissions will have their own Design ID. You can easily find this by visiting the design page and looking at the page URL. The numbers at the end of the URL represent the Design ID.

You should include this only if your inquiry revolves around a specific design, like with copyright issues for example.



Link to the handover

You will only have access to this once your design has been selected as the winner of the project. The project ID is usually more useful to provide than the link to the handover, but you can include this as well if you think it is appropriate.



Indicate what type of payment was awarded to you

For concerns regarding payments, it is worth nothing that there are a few types of payments that can be awarded to you. It would be useful for you to indicate which one of these apply to your inquiry:

• 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place payment (etc)
• 1on1 project payment
• Participation payment or paid invite
• Designer tip or bonus payment

Provide screenshots whenever necessary

From time to time, it might be more efficient to send a screenshot of what you are experiencing rather than describing it. For instances like those, attaching a screenshot immediately when sending the email would be a great idea (note that you can’t send screenshots if you use the contact form).

3. Elaborate on what the concern is / Be descriptive

Aside from the items above, it would also help to provide as much detail as you can about whatever issue or whatever inquiry you need help with. Here are some examples:

“I can’t login.”
VS
“I’m receiving an error message whenever I try to login - here’s a screenshot of that error message.”

“The handover is not approved.”
VS
“The client selected my design 7 days ago, I’ve provided the files, and I’ve followed-up numerous times but the handover is still not approved and I’m not receiving a response.”

“I have not received payment.”
VS
“My design was awarded a participation payment a while ago, but I have not received the payment yet. Here are the details.”

4. One project per email thread

Your inquiries are tracked on a one project per email thread basis, so it’s important to not group projects that are unrelated to each other in a single email thread.

If you have 3 projects that need attention, then send 3 emails - one for each project.

If you keep sending an email that concerns more than one project, then chances are you’ll be told to write separate emails for those.

This is important not only for us to easily keep track of all your inquiries, but also to gauge how efficiently we are addressing the community’s individual concerns.

5. Keep the discussion about the same project on the same email thread

If you receive a response for an inquiry you send and want to reply, then just hit Reply! If you want to follow-up about an inquiry you’ve previously sent, then just reply to the same email again.

Do not create a brand new email thread or send another contact form inquiry as this just slows things down even further. If it takes longer for your inquiry to be resolved, don’t think you are being ignored. It is more likely that we are simply tending to the hundreds of other emails we have received. Be patient.

6. Check to make sure that you’ve done your part prior to asking for assistance

This part requires more nuance and usually separates experienced designers from newbies or those who simply are not paying attention. The responsible designer would know to ensure that they’ve done all they can before asking for help.

What you would need to do would depend on what your concern is - here are a few questions that you should always ask yourself prior to asking for support to help you out; hopefully this gives you an idea for other types of queries too.

The handover has been approved but the payment has not been received

• Have you uploaded the files?
• Did you check the handover to make sure the files are there?
• How long has it been since the handover was approved?

The customer is not responding during the contest / 1on1 handover

• Did you try and contact them yourself by leaving messages in the handover?
• Did you address all of their change requests, questions, and concerns?

The handover has not been approved by the client

• Has the handover passed the 7-day period?
• Did you try asking the client to approve the handover?
• Did you address all of their change requests, questions, and concerns?
• Have you uploaded the files?
• Did you check the handover to make sure the files are there?

A payment for my winnings has been marked as ‘FAILED’

• Is your payment account verified according to the processes of your chosen payment method?
• Is your payment account correctly spelled in your payment settings?
• Did you change your payment method / account recently?

The submit button is not appearing on my end for this project

• Are you logged into your designer account and not a customer account?
• Is the project a minicontest? If it is, do you have the required rating in order to be eligible to submit?

DesignCrowd reserves the right to ignore tickets that provide incomplete, incorrect, or misleading information.