Crossref receives hundreds of messages each month. Our dedicated Membership, Support, and Billing teams want to reply to you as quickly and accurately as we can, but we need your help to do this!
First: it never hurts to see if your question has already been asked and answered. Crossref’s website and this community forum have tons of answers to common questions like: how do I join Crossref? How do I pay my fees? And what is this “DOI” thing everyone keeps talking about?
If you don’t see an answer to your question, contact us! You have three main contact options:
- This community forum
- Our contact form
We have three teams who can assist with most issues and it’s important to direct your question to the right one.
- For questions about joining Crossref, the status and details of your account, DOI transfers between members, or ending your relationship with Crossref, you’ll want to connect with our Membership team (that’s my team!). You can message us here or email member@crossref.org.
- For technical support issues such as problems with metadata uploads, you’ll want our Support team. You can reach them here or by emailing support@crossref.org.
- The Support team can also help with any questions you have about the Similarity Check service - for Similarity Check questions specifically, please reach out here.
- For questions about payments, invoices, and payment methods, you’ll want our Billing team. They can be found here or at billing@crossref.org.
Please do not contact more than one address at once with the same question - this will not result in a faster reply. If you aren’t sure who to contact, choose the option you think is best - we can redirect your question to the correct team if we think another team will be better suited to answering. If you have two separate questions you are welcome to send two separate messages to two different teams. For example, I’d contact our Billing team to confirm if my payment was received and I’d send a separate message to the Membership team to update one of my account’s trusted contacts’ email addresses. Our contact form can also help guide your request if you aren’t sure where it should go.
When messaging us, please include as much information as you can. Do you have an existing account? Please include your existing DOI prefix, your billing ID (how to find it), and your account name if known. The more information you can give us, the quicker we’ll be able to identify your account.
Once you email us, you should receive an automated email with an estimate for how long it will take us to reply. Please refrain from sending followup messages - the way our system works means that we look at the oldest unread messages first. Sending multiple followup replies actually makes your ticket appear “newer” to our system, slowing down the speed of the response you’ll receive from us.
Finally, please ensure that your account’s trusted contacts are always up to date. We can only share certain information with trusted account contacts and only trusted contacts can request updates to account details (such as the account name, addresses, and the addition or removal of other trusted contacts). If you know that you will be leaving an organization, please let us know immediately so that we can work to replace your contact details in our system. It’s also important to note that you should be emailing us from the trusted contact email address we have on file for you. If my Crossref membership lists my email address as collinks@theuniversity.edu, we would not be able to accept a request from collinks@yahoo.org unless that address was also a registered trusted account contact. You can always email us at member@crossref.org to check your account’s current contacts and request updates as needed. We send an email to your account’s Primary and Billing contacts near the end of each year (September or October) to confirm your current account information, but you may update these details at any time. Failure to update your contact information can also result in loss of service if, for example, your invoices are being sent to an old Billing email address. Don’t let it happen to you!
We want to be able to help you as efficiently as possible. Thanks for following these tips to help us help you.
—Collin (with a hat-tip to my colleague @sallyjennings for suggesting this month’s topic)