I've come to learn that "24/7 email/forum/online/chat/instant message support" is the same as "We'll help you at OUR convenience, and on OUR timeframe".

I prefer talking with someone so they know exactly what it is I am saying. It's too easy to pop back a reply telling the user to place their mouse on the left side of the desk instead of the right side.

Can anyone prove me wrong here (with their experiences), or is this analysis basically right.

This is a difficult issue. Some of us may be old enough to remember when a call for help was always answered by a human voice. We all moved at a comparatively slower pace back then, and besides, answering machines were big, bulky, expensive and for the very well-to-do. The machines did get cheaper, and at least for a little while we all found it somewhat comforting that someone would at least return our call. The romance with "the machine" didn't last however, and I believe the reason is the same one that frustrates many of us today. When receiving help of the non-human variety, people stopped caring enough to follow up and/or call back.

With today's businesses running at light speed Customer Relations Management technology is an absolute necessity. And, when used properly, can result in just the right balance between productivity and customer service. The problem has never been with the technology. It has, and always will be, a people problem. Voice mail and e-mail are convenient tools, but both require timely and thoughtful responses. By timely, I'm thinking same day, not next day, certainly not next week. Help Desks and Ticket Systems, no matter what the cost, have to be helpful. A holistic approach to CRM delivery, viewed from the client expectation side, may go along way toward lessening the frustrations of not always getting a human being to speak with. One has to be understanding, there are only so many human beings to go around, and someone has to build, operate or maintain the systems that you are probably calling about.

I agree with rjbutler. Another good reason to use a trouble ticket system is that it leaves a paper trail. Believe it or not there are people out there that will make up stories inorder to get free hosting. I paper trail helps a lot.

Just my ideas,

I had to call NetworkSolutions the other day. I was on hold for an hour before I actually talked to someone. I'm amazed at how much all the fancy million$$ technology has sped up their support. It now only takes 59 minutes to talk to a live person instead of 60.

My luck it was someone who could barely speak english and who I could barely understand.....and whom couldnt seem to understand what I said...not much got accomplished other than me being told to use email...sheesh.

Originally posted by Webdude
I had to call NetworkSolutions the other day. I was on hold for an hour before I actually talked to someone. I'm amazed at how much all the fancy million$$ technology has sped up their support. It now only takes 59 minutes to talk to a live person instead of 60.

My luck it was someone who could barely speak english and who I could barely understand.....and whom couldnt seem to understand what I said...not much got accomplished other than me being told to use email...sheesh.

Now I absolutely hate Network Solutions, but of all the times I've called them (and I've called them many times, 15 or more at least), they've always gotten a real person on the phone to me relatively quickly, maybe you just had bad luck that day.

And believe me it'd be hard to find anyone who hates NetSol as much as I do :angry:

First off: Why on earth would you use netsol for absolutely anything?!


As for the phone support issue, it's not really worth the hassle to find IMO, what if it is a complicated problem, or something they need to look into deeper for some reason, regardless of know they are there or not they can't give a good answer right away.

I have found that 95% of all problems for hosts can not be resolved effeciently on the phone. A support tech can work much faster when they have the problem and just go to work on it as opposed to keeping the person sitting in silence while they hear the sound of keys from a keyboard being hit in the background. And neither the tech nor the customer wants to be on hold or have to just sit there in silence while the tech does his job. Plus many times you need a url not to mention its nice to be able to go back and open a ticket to see what the problem was and how to fix it in case it happens again. Phones are nice but in my opinion they are not an effective tool for support in the hosting industry. The only use they may have is if you need a server rebooted and want the comfort of knowing someone is there to go reboot it right now.

Back on topic. :stickout

I think we have struck a good balance. We offer chat/forums/email but we also offer toll-free support during business hours.

However we find that necessary to handle billing problems more than support. I think I and my staff can do better support via chat and e-mail, that way they can cut and paste what they are seeing and doing on their computers.

Having a non-computer person trying to verbally explain to you what they are doing or trying to do and NOT knowing how to verbalize it is quite frusting on both ends, and that is bad. :eek:
Well and it just costs too much money in LD bills. :)

Phone support is about 70% more expensive than online methods, not to mention more efficient.

The thing that hurts the company that chooses to use online methods is not having the resources to handle the load, and the client that can not have the patience to submit a ticket. The clients want to talk to somebody and *know* that they are being helped and the personal feel.

Now, you just gotta figure your method out...

;-)

ICQ OR AIM 24hours support is what i call support!

stuff email and phone

There is NO difference with AIM/ICQ if they answer your messages. If they let you sit there, then consider it getting he answering machine on the phone. The only difference is ou get logs of what was said, and done to fix the problem.

I rather not use phone support for a simple reason.

English is not my first language. :blush:
I may not be able to explain what I want to say via phone but I can explain clearly and faster than phone via online (E-mail, ICQ and so on).
And having used online support only for long time, I got used to online support now and I feel comforter when using online support rather than having to call phone as I can check various things as the tech stuff ask from online and answer back.

But I am not saying that phone support is bad,either. There are those who want to call. (and use curse language perhaps? :rolleyes: )

I think it depends entirely on the company you are dealing with.

For web hosting customer care, IMHO email and trouble tickets are generally better suited. But only if requests are answered FAST (don't you just hate it when your host takes over 12 hours to reply?), and are resolved just as quickly wherever possible.

As my subject says, I really think this comes down to response time. How much is it and how long of a wait will it take before your customers get frustrated? It should *never* get to the point where a customer has to contact you a second time after the first. Never. Not if ANYTHING can be done to prevent it. This means response times for email needs to be same day - and preferably less than a couple of *hours* from the moment the question is sent in.

That's when email and online support is effective. If it's not being used effectively - with job tickets as mentioned previously ("paper" trails are Good Things (tm) :) ), then even phone support is just going to be a way for clients to vent. ;) You have to decide what you can handle, and offer it in such a way as to make your clients happy (obviously).

I don't think it's a bad thing to NOT have phone support. I just think email needs to be answered quickly and help offered within a certain time period so that the client doesn't MISS that phone contact. And if a phone call is needed, then a call can be arranged via email for a specific time. Nothing wrong with that either.

Again, it really depends on how much a customer is paying for their web hosting. If you're paying $20 or more per month for your web hosting, I'd say it's reasonable to expect phone support. If you're paying $2.50 / month... well. You get what you pay for. And that may or may not include any sort of customer service.

Just my opinions though... Thought I'd share. :)

All the best,

--Jodi

If you don't offer phone support you darn well better respond to your trouble ticket system.

We just left a host that let our trouble tickets go unanswered and unresolved for weeks. We'd get an autoresponder, and a quick message asking for further clarification. Then nothing. This was not a one time occurance. After a couple weeks I'd modify the post to request the status and hear nothing. In one case, they told me they'd solved a problem, I modified the ticket to say it was not fixed and they closed it anyway. This was too frustrating. Had they offered phone support as a last resort option they might have kept our business. It is harder to ignore a customer's problem when that customer is on the phone with you.


We don't mind paying more for a host with phone support. Our new host has phone support as an option and their response time on support e-mails is much faster.

Originally posted by KG
If you don't offer phone support you darn well better respond to your trouble ticket system.

And if you do offer phone support, you darn well better have knowledgeable techs at the other end. The bottom line is that there is both good and bad trouble ticket and phone support.

I would suggest you need knowledgeable techs at the other end regardless of whether you offer e-mail, trouble ticket, or phone support.

I have to say that I agree with KG wholeheartedly.

It doesn't matter what support your offer. That support needs to be as effective as it can be. And not having a large budget is no excuse for shoddy customer service. Even if it's just one guy, that one guy needs to know his stuff. There's certainly a market for one-person operations out there. But if that one person is simply a reseller with no hosting knowledge and no way to help his/her customers if something goes wrong, then there's a problem. A HUGE problem. :eek: And in fact, it's operations like this that try to pass themselves *off* as professional, that give us all a bad name.

--Jodi

Originally posted by mstembri00
I've come to learn that "24/7 email/forum/online/chat/instant message support" is the same as "We'll help you at OUR convenience, and on OUR timeframe".

I prefer talking with someone so they know exactly what it is I am saying. It's too easy to pop back a reply telling the user to place their mouse on the left side of the desk instead of the right side.

Can anyone prove me wrong here (with their experiences), or is this analysis basically right.

I get really irritated when I read things like this. Many companies (ours included) do a pretty decent job of taking care of our customers through online support. Far more information can be conveyed via an email than can be done over a phone call - and usually quicker. You just have to ask the right questions. Sending an email to support saying:

"My web site won't come up. Help."

Is not going to help anyone. (Yes, we've gotten emails like this before.)

Especially considering the costs of most hosting services. How can you really complain about not getting free phone support when you pay just a few dollars per month for service? If we were talking 100's of dollars per month, then I could see it.

I just don't think you understand just how expensive it is to have 24/7 phone tech support. Your looking at around 30-40K/year minimumfor technicians salaries, tax liabilities, and benefits for each technician. To cover the 168 hours per week, you need at the very minimum 4 techs. Realistically, you would probably need double that many, for two reasons:

1) Techs cannot work 40 hours a week every week (sick leave, vacation, maternity, etc)
2) During busy call periods, you would want to have more than 1 tech available.

So, assuming 8 technicians, you are already looking at minimum a quarter of a million dollars a year in employee expenses.

Lets not forget other things like office space, phones, phone lines, computer equipment, training, etc.

So, I would estimate at least 1/2 million per year to do a basic 24/7 call center right. Now for hosts (most of them) who have less than 1000 customers, do you think each customer would be willing to fork over the $500+ more per year to get phone support?

Do you even pay that much now for your hosting in a year??

You get what you pay for. If you want hosting on the cheap, then you've got to accept what that means. Even if you don't want it on the cheap, and your willing to pay more, you probably still won't get what you pay for.

In this industry where there are so many players and pricing is so tight, you won't find any host where you will be able to pick up the phone anytime any day and get someone to help. If you do, ask them how much VC they have left before you sign up... :)

Take care,

Brian