These tips are all based on solid experience. Heeding these tips will vastly improve your likelihood of getting your problem resolved!
1) The object's (or script's) creator is NOT necessarily who actually made it. FIRST, try to find out who the actual merchant was, if possible, and consult them.
2) Before contacting the maker, LOOK AT THEIR PROFILE and see what they say about the best way to get support. Heed what it says! When you don't, you lose two ways. The maker doesn't get the message in the way that works best for them, but more importantly, they get the message that you can't be bothered to help them help you. It sets a bad tone.
3) Identify the product exactly. Don't say "my bed" for goodness' sake! Most makers have a number of products and a number of versions of those products, each with its own idiosyncrasies. If you don't tell them exactly what the subject is, they have to guess. (We HATE guessing.)
4) Put some thought in to your question, and word it as clearly as possible. This REALLY helps. Tell us very clearly what you did and what happened, in order. Use short sentences. Avoid using too many pronouns. We easily get lost trying to figure out which "it" you mean! (This also helps avoid 2nd-language problems.) Remember, YOU want help. Make it as easy as possible for them to help you!
5) Be polite and respectful. Yes, products often seem like they're so goofed up that only an idiot could have released it! But, ask any maker how easy it is to goof up one item when updating a big series of similar products. It's terribly difficult to test them all. Also, how it happens to fail for YOU might not be at all common, and my be due to some special situation you wouldn't be aware of.
6) A little personality or humor can help. Don't strain to do this, but if something funny naturally arises, have a little fun with it. But don't spend a lot of text on it. Sometimes just a smile or a wink can help a lot.
7) Finally, don't be insulted if the response is something you already know (but didn't mention). We can't assume everyone knows a lot about SL, so we have to start with the basics. Yes, it's annoying to get the standard "clear cache" answer to every question for LL support! However, sometimes these standard answers exist because they actually do solve a lot of problems.
These tips are especially true when asking for free help for freebies! Those of us who make freebies get a lot of gratification from the joy of sharing, but we frequently regret it due to all the requests for FREE help with FREE products, and worse, ones we didn't actually make. Be especially thoughtful when asking for freebie help. I wonder whether some makers of popular freebies, like Miffy and Ziggy, have had to practically retire their avs over this.
Thanks!
