We are a small support team of nine, who all work remotely from countries and locations around the world (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Romania and New Zealand) and across different timezones which makes it very hard to provide telephone support.
We only provide online support as this allows us to quickly locate your Format account, website/s, billing information and some operating system details (browser last used and device operating system).
There are times when we may have only one or two support team members available to assist you, so we try to provide the tools and a large range of help articles to resolve your issues quickly, this includes Frankie, our bot who can present you with replies to simple questions as shown here.
We may ask you to send us screenshots or videos and it is easiest to keep all this information in one central, searchable location, it also helps if we need to escalate issues and to reduce the chance of important information being misinterpreted and allows transparency for all our team to see what is happening.
We may not always know the answer, but we will do our best to find out, and to reply back to you, or escalate to another team member for assistance. Again, due to locations and timezones, this may not be possible immediately but we will provide you with realistic expectations of when you can expect to hear back from us.
You can also refer to these conversations in the future, accessing these easily as shown here.
In-app Chat Messaging
Our in-app chat messaging is available when logged in to your Format account (located in the lower-right corner of your Format account when logged in.
Activate in-app chat support by tapping this icon
How our in-app chat support works
When you first use our in-app chat support you will see some options
Start a conversation
Approximate timing on our reponse to you (we try to be quicker!)
Send us a message
See all your conversations (you can re-open and add more information to previous messages and send to us for further follow-up), this also includes information or messaging that we have sent you
Search articles, we do have a large range of help articles, many include video guides that you might find helpful.
Close the messaging window
Searching for help
Add a word to the search area
This generates a list of results to select from below
Help Article display
The help article will be displayed at a larger size
Resize toggle to reduce width
Scroll down to see more information
Enlarge video
1. Tap to view video at Fullscreen size
Screenshots and text instructions
Screenshots and numbered instructions are also included in most help articles
Starting a new conversation
When you tap the 'Send us a message' you can add some words
Frankie, our bot will try and show you some suggested results
First related replies
Option selected
Start of reply by Frankie
Link to a help article
Another help article option
Frankie checking if the answer helped?
Add further words or change search words
Second question asked
Asking Frankie a more detailed question
Frankie's reply
A human replies!
Reply from one of our human team members
Your option to reply and continue the conversation.
If you are not online when we reply, the message will be sent to the email address you wrote to us with, or, if you were logged in to your Format Account, it will be the email address that you use to login.
Reviewing all conversations
1. Most recent messages are at the top, tap to view
2. Messaging sent from Format team
3. Welcome message when starting a new Format site
You can contact us using the email address info@format.com at any time.
Twitter and Facebook
Messaging our team via Facebook is also possible but this does not provide us with immediate information about you or your site, so it may require us asking you for more information so we can locate and help you further.