Forcing people to use a forum for support =

[HateForumSupport]

1. Great resentment
So you want me, the customer, to go thru a whole registration process just to communicate with YOU, the seller?
ALL I WANT TO DO is send you a small bit of feedback.
And you make me go thru this whole process to do that.

Well what you need to realise is that:

2. Doing so DEPRIVES YOU of the feedback from your customers that is VITAL to keep your product relevant.

You have ALREADY in this latest version changed the product in such a way that I no longer like it - and have reverted back to the old version.
And you want to make ME sign up to this bloody forum, adding YET ANOTHER bunch of user details to my long list,
just to help YOU make your product fit the market?!

YOU'RE A JERK!

[raf]

I'm sorry you feel like that. I'm a single developer, and I'm doing my best here. Twitter was the only way of contact earlier on, so the forum was a big step forward. You can also (as many have) reply to my blog posts if you don't want to register into the forum or contact me via twitter.
I'm considering other support mechanisms; but what's good about the forums is that when I answer a user's question, all other users get access to that conversation. Also, users can help each other, which is great for cases when I don't have the answer to a particular very specific scenario.
Another reason for the forums is for openness; anybody gets to post here, and everybody gets an answer. I hate companies that only support a form-support system, where you submit the form, and never hear back from the company ever again.

[raf]

You'll be happy to see I have added a new "Support" menu to rafsoftware.com. This page is also now what is displayed when users from within their device select "Help / About" - "Support".

Thanks for your feedback,

Raf.