LFM Support & Services Guidelines

LFM provides a wide range of services including technical support, training and implementation, data migration and database services, and custom web template implementation. To view our full User Manual, you must be logged into your Zendesk account.

Technical Support

LFM includes technical support (for LFM technology) with all of its packages.  We provide support via web (using Zendesk and web meeting technology), email, and phone. 

Support hours

Standard hours: Monday through Friday, 6 am-4 pm PT, except for the following holidays:

• New Years Day
• Martin Luther King Jr Day
• Memorial Day
• Fourth of July
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving
• Christmas

Support resources

Online help materials (log on to your site to access):  https://localfoodmarketplace.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

https://localfoodmarketplace.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/115001150586-GROW-Interface-Guide

• Zendesk: https://localfoodmarketplace.zendesk.com
• Email:  [e-mail]
• Phone:  [phone]
• Emergency: For emergency support outside of regular hours, please submit a ticket via email or Zendesk AND call our support phone number.  

Information needed for support

• Question:
• Details:  Please try to be as specific as possible.
• Name:
• Email address:
• User Type:
• Platform:
• Priority: High or Normal
• Producer or Customer Name, Order Number (if applicable):
• Device Type / Browser (if applicable):

Guidelines for using support services

• Please search our comprehensive online resources prior to contacting our support team. 
• Time to resolution varies considerably based on scope, complexity, specificity, importance, and urgency and also our ability to understand and/or reproduce an issue.  Please use the ticket outline (above) when submitting tickets as it will help us find resolution more quickly.
• If possible, submit a ticket via email or Zendesk prior to calling.  This allows us to research your question prior to providing a response. 
• Please use our support email address to submit questions.  Emailing support staff directly to their personal accounts may result in a delayed response.
• For emergency support, please call us at [phone] and submit a support ticket via Zendesk or email at [e-mail].   We don’t review every question in detail outside of our normal hours.
• We provide emergency support outside our standard support hours at our emergency rate of $100/hr with a minimum of 1 hour.  Of course, we won’t charge for emergency support if the emergency is caused by us.  

Onboarding and Implementation

All new LFM customers receive access to four training sessions with every package, one Kick Off Session, and up to four One-on-One Onboarding sessions. In addition, we offer training services for new modules and new staff members.

• Training 1 Seminar: Site Setup
  • Covering Site Setup of Customers, Periods and Producers.  Concludes with a brief overview of Product Setup, which is covered extensively in Training 2
• Training 2 Seminar: Products
  • Covering product category setup, producer pricing methods, global product setup, adding products to producers, listing products for sale and creating orders in the system.
• Training 3 Seminar: Order Management and Distribution
  • Covering the week in LFM - from period start, to listing and managing availability, managing customer orders, generating distribution paperwork, processing payment and basic reporting and accounting.
• Accounting Integration Seminar
  • Seminar on linking LFM with Quickbooks and a more in-depth examination of accounting and reporting with LFM.
• Subscription Module Training
  • Training and setup of the subscription module for your site with our Services Team.
• Inventory Module Training
  • Training and setup of the inventory module for your site with our Services Team.
• Grow Your Market with LFM
  • Ongoing educational support session for existing LFM customers with live Q&A, featuring expert guest speakers and panelists.
• One on One Support Session
  • Limited One on one support sessions with our Support Team.

Guidelines for New Customers

• Prior to your first onboarding session, please complete the Onboarding Questionnaire, review all training videos, and scan the user guide. 
• We have found that the full training sessions plus the “homework” are required to ensure full understanding of the system.  These training sessions are intended to help prepare you to successfully launch your market.  These sessions will not cover every feature available in the system; we encourage customers to use our online resources including the User Manual, Training Videos, and our FAQ Database to explore other features available in the site that may not be entirely covered in training.
• We suggest budgeting for additional training sessions for startup markets as our training sessions often end up including some ad hoc business consulting.  We love providing this type of help, but find that it often extends the training sessions by 1-2 sessions.
• Continuity is important.  If you have staff changes or time gaps greater than 2-3 weeks in the training process, it may be necessary to schedule additional training sessions.
• Please plan on training more than one person, but not too many.  We have found a good number is 2-4 people.
• Prior to scheduling your sessions, please align your schedules within your team. 

Other information about LFM training resources

• LFM requires all new market managers or new staff members using LFM to receive training prior to receiving in depth or one-on-one support for our products.  We recommend that new staff members review our Training Videos and Help System prior to scheduling sessions.
• Some modules and features also require onboarding session(s) to take full advantage of the benefits and for a full understanding.  We will let you know if a module or feature you request requires more sessions.

Data migration and database services

When a customer is transitioning from a different database technology to LFM, we often provide data migration services so the market’s customers, producers, and products are imported into LFM’s database and ready to use.  Occasionally, we also provide database services upon request to update a product database or customer database en masse.  We typically provide an estimate of the number of hours to complete these services.  We invoice for these services upon completion (or for longer projects, by month) at our standard hourly rate.

Web template implementation

Some LFM packages include custom web template implementation.  Occasionally LFM customers will rebrand or redo their website and request updates to their LFM template.  Custom templates can take from 5-20+ hours of implementation time, depending on the design, while Standard templates take between 2-6 hours of implementation time.  We provide these services at our standard hourly rate.  We encourage you to carefully review the Template Information article prior to engaging with a designer.