Does anyone use this service (bobcares.com) for handling support tickets, and if so, what are the positives and negatives?

The owner, Amar, posts here often; his posts are typically lucid and helpful, qualities that I hope carry over to his service.

Thanks.

LordBob

after speaking with them numerous times I find them extremely knowledgable and helpful. Howwever they will not do windows support, which rules them out for me. I highly reccomend linux hosts looking for a knowledgabvle outsourced support company go with them.

WOW.. if all the hosting companies outsourced their support to Bobcares.com there would be no complaints.. :)

I'm interested in their Per server plan for $175/mo you get unlimited support tickets resolved.. If I have 500 customers on that server I wonder if the price is higher or they have a TOS which makes u pay more....

I'm thinking of using them.. anyone had experience with Bobcares?

Do they support CPANEL WHM resellers?

If I start a hosting company I'll no doubt go with them, atleast until I know all of the common problems myself!

Brian

Wow, this is a very interesting thread... (atleast to me... ;) )
Am I allowed to post here...
I can give a list of positives and neagatives about us.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

P.S. i had written some more then I just deleted it

If its ok with the forum, please post more.

no, please bob.. post your view :)

Originally posted by bobcares
Wow, this is a very interesting thread... (atleast to me... ;) )
Am I allowed to post here...
I can give a list of positives and neagatives about us.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

P.S. i had written some more then I just deleted it

bobcares,

Do you have ICQ or AIM? :cool:

lol... This forum is cool.....:)
OK I'll try to be real to the point with no marketing efforts..
Here are some points in random that I would like to say about us.
+ve points.
1) Quick response and more important resolution time. We always try to solve the issues for the end user. Not just tell him the problems. He's doesn't know how to solve it and hence he's contacting support... :)

2) We belive in customer care. Our aim is always to free a hosting company from the thought of tech... They must concentrate on marketing and we concentrate on support... That's our work... This way we both grow.

3) Other features include - 24 hour monitoring of servers from 2 locations, private forums for all clients where they can interact with their support team, trouble escalation system where if there is any sluggishness in the responses or resolutions quality or time the matter is escalated to the higher authorities... We do not leave much to chance.. We also belive is a very high level of personal attention.

4) We are very honest and would never do against our ethics.... This is a very important factor in the kind of work we do and we really mean it when we say we are very honest... We understand the amount of trust that a hosting company puts in us when they give out all details to us and their customers. We have never messed up till now and would never do that.....

-ve points -
1) We do not support Windows.. This is because we found out that it is impossible to give a 6 hour gurantee here.. Even Microsoft cannot gurantee it... :)

2) Our tech team does not know any foriegn languages.. We support only in english. Major drawback.
We wish we had a good solution here. Any suggestions are welcome here:(

3) Network connectivity. - This was bad some months back even though we have a leased line. We have corrected it now. We are now are with the best leased line providers in India and we have ISDN backups.. But some times it still does go off. We have never have a major problem however we are looking at ways of eliminating it.... We are presently considering multiple ISP's for redundany. But may be very expensive for us... :(

4) Prices is not our best feature.. We focus more on the quality and speed with many value additions which does cost us. We do not like the concept of hidden charges. Our aim is to free you from tech issues but it costs... We are not very high but are not very low....

Now for the answers

1) If you have 500 customers on one server and take the per server plan we would not charge you for it. The various plans were developed on our past experiences. Someone with 500 clients and 2 servers would prefer the per client plan rather than the per server plan. The client is free to choose whichever plan he wants.

2) Yes we do support cpanel/WHM. We do not support the resellers clients directly we do it through the resellers. We also are planning on a low cost plan for resellers as we see that they too need to give a 24hours support to their clients and hosting is mostly a side business for them.

3) I am not the owner of the company. I just have 25% stakes in the company... There are 4 more directors. However, I look after the marketing for bobcares..... :)

I really hope the moderators do not get angry...... :)

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

P.S. I also want to thank for the wonderful responses and PM's I get from many people on this forum... I really like it...

Hrm, the only drawback that I can see is that you don't live in the US and you don't offer phone support.

Brian

Also, does it look like the hosting company itself is providing support? Or your company?

Originally posted by BrianF
Hrm, the only drawback that I can see is that you don't live in the US and you don't offer phone support.

Brian

Also, does it look like the hosting company itself is providing support? Or your company?

Brian, not being in the US also happens to be a strong point.. The basic reason for lower prices is this..

The US is cheap for infrastructure but expensive for engineers... In India it is the other way round....

The support is always transparent the end users never come to know about us.... :)


Have a great day :)

regards
amar


P.S. I won't be answering to any more mails here as I do not want to violate the terms of this forums... I hope you all understand...
I would however, like to hear all your comments... It really inspires and gives scope for more improvement...

Originally posted by BrianF
Hrm, the only drawback that I can see is that you don't live in the US and you don't offer phone support.

Brian

Also, does it look like the hosting company itself is providing support? Or your company?

but amar have another advantage over here, while its night in US here its day in india. so if you guys can not offord night calls you can pass those tickets to bobcare and they will handel them for you and it really help if you consider the no. of night tickets and the amount a host put in salary to night tech. in US.

:cool:

Do you have any free trial offers?

Also, do you use your own helpdesk or can we give you our login names so u login to our help desk to answer support... ?

thanks :)

Very cool stuff guys!!!

Good luck, but I have to say: 1) We do not support Windows.. This is because we found out that it is impossible to give a 6 hour gurantee here.. Even Microsoft cannot gurantee it... Not sure what that means?

Originally posted by bobcares

2) Our tech team does not know any foriegn languages.. We support only in english. Major drawback.
We wish we had a good solution here. Any suggestions are welcome here:(

I can speak italian and english

if u want to hire me =)

Hi all!
Merry X'mas.
I can speak italian and english
if u want to hire me =)

One question. Would anyone from Italy or for that matter from other parts of the world like Spain, Brazil, Portugal etc.. like to come to India and work. It was just a thought. Also what kind of salaries would one be looking at... India is a beautiful country.

Very cool stuff guys!!! Good luck, but I have to say: quote: 1) We do not support Windows.. This is because we found out that it is impossible to give a 6 hour gurantee here.. Even Microsoft cannot gurantee it... Not sure what that means?

Thanks a lot. We really appriciate the kind words... :)
As far as the Win server part goes. This is the just because of bad experiences we have had with Windows.
We have lost so much money trying to keep the 6 hour resolution gurantee... I guess it is impossible to keep up with the way the MS world moves. With things like free trial, server monitoring, private forums etc... it is impossible to keep up with prices on Win based servers.... The MS world is very unpredictable... :)


Have a great new year...

Regards
amar

Amar,

Although I do not currently offer windows hosting, I would love to see you guys offer support for it in the future. I've pretty much decided to go with you guys for tech support (I've talked with you a couple of times in the last month..), and it would be great to know there are no limitations on how my company can grow.

It would be great if you guys could figure out a way to offer windows support. If it costs you guys more, that's ok, just charge your customers more! If you cannot meet your 6 hour guarantee, make it a 12 hour guarantee for windows plans. I'm sure there are many things you could do that would decrease your costs, and would still be acceptable to your clients.

One way to look at it is this - if you offer windows support at "break-even" , you are bound to get many more clients sign up with you. Then, you can make a profit on all of those clients' unix customers.

I am sure you have already thought of everything I suggested, but I just thought I'd post my $.02 just in case you hadn't. :D

Thanks a lot. We really appriciate the kind words... No problem :)
As far as the Win server part goes. This is the just because of bad experiences we have had with Windows.
We have lost so much money trying to keep the 6 hour resolution gurantee... I guess it is impossible to keep up with the way the MS world moves. With things like free trial, server monitoring, private forums etc... it is impossible to keep up with prices on Win based servers.... The MS world is very unpredictable... Windows is not that difficult to support, if you know what you are doing. On average, we solve customer issues on W2K boxes in less than 15 minutes. I think Linux is a little more difficult to troubleshoot and fix :) guess it is impossible to keep up with the way the MS world moves. The MS world is very unpredictableHow's that?

Thanks mpope and RackMy.com for the good advice.
Actually we are working on a solution for the windows world too... But the more we look into it the more it makes us sad. However as you guys have rightly pointed out clients would prefer a turnkey solution where all we can cater to all of their servers rather than just the Unix/Linux servers...

I have a question to all the windows addicts.. What are the benifits of windows servers over Linux/Unix based servers. The only good point I have seen is ASP support which is possilbe with ChillASP on Linux.
Generally from what we have seen is that the Total cost of ownership for Windows servers is much higher that Linux based servers....
On the home front I guess Windows is better (though personally i use Linux) and preferred by the masses....

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Generally from what we have seen is that the Total cost of ownership for Windows servers is much higher that Linux based servers.... Actually, a lot of the studies I have read says that the TCO if higher in the Linux arena due to the lack of support (go figure).

How does that happen. I once used Microsoft for support. They charge at $250 per hour.. The best part of it was they told us that particular feature was not implemented as yet.
I'm not very sure what it is because. It was something related to frontpage extensions and OfficeXP ..... :(

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

P.S. I'm sorry I'm doing a bit of Microsoft bashing. I tried to delete this post but did not work... Just ignore it... Microsoft is good and I have no right to say bad things about them... Just that I do no use MS does not mean that they are not good..... :)

You're not bashing them, you're just saying that they're expensive (which they are!).

Brian

I was wondering how you keep all of your clients specs straight? For instance, a common problem we have is that our users try to FTP with PASV mode enabled - we require that it is disabled. Now, this is not the norm for every host AND we do NOT offer a commercial control panel (we have our own). How would all of your various techs know how to answer our support calls?

I mean, it takes a good month of training for our techs to be ready to answer all calls.....how would your staff be able to remember all of our server specs AND your dozens of other clients, who all have THEIR own sperver specs????

--Tina

Hi Tina,

We used to face that problem in the beginning. But now we have a good solution which works quite well.
We have private forums for our clients as well as the techs assigned to a clients.
In this forum one of the main threads is about client specific details.
So whenever a tech has a doubt he/she can just confirm the clients preferences in the forum and solve the problem without any confusions.

This is a very important aspect because each hosting company is very different from the other. We really have to study each and every one throughly and blend fully into their working methods... otherwise the concept of outsourced fails... Blending into the clients working methods is very important. :)

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

I'm not trying to put your business down - because it seems like a really needed service and I actually SERIOUSLY considered going with you guys. My main concern is still that you have too many different client server specs to be able to manage them all efficiently. It seems as if it might be better to focus on one area of expertise, like one or two commercial control panels.

For instance, our Linux servers are custom configured for our needs - by messing with some of the config files (which would be the way to do it for probably 90% of your customers) would seriously screw up our system.

That's the type of scenerio I worry about. :(

Also, if your clients have to go to the forum to answer your techs questions - would it not be easier for them just to answer their customers' questions directly?
--Tina

Actually Tina we do just that...:)
1) We focus on only Unix/Linux based servers.
2) Also, the guys who look after alabanza server do not look after cpanel/WHM and so on. So such complications do not come.
3) The private forums is just for the hosting companies to talk to us. Here usually there are just one time questions asked such as -
a) whom do we contact or how do we respond for sales queries.
b) Are we allowed to install and apache compile apache modules on the server?
c) name servers info - What are you name server names and IP's

The hosting company need not come always to these forums.. But it is a handy reference for us to see any time. Also, it enables the hosting company to talk to his/her team always that works remotely....:)

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

I don't think you are bashing MS :)

How does that happen. I once used Microsoft for support. They charge at $250 per hour.. The best part of it was they told us that particular feature was not implemented as yet.That's your first problem, never call MS for support. After all the years we have been doing this, we have called MS once.

It think it's smart to focus on one specific area. That way you can be the best at what you do and not just decent at a bunch of things. Your customers will really appreciate it!

But, don't say you don't support MS because it's too expensive, very high TCO, etc. when this is not really the case. Yes, the product is expensive, but not the support if you have the staff.

Just me 3 cents. :)

Man...

I really wanted to sign up for the service... I can't afford the per server or per ticket plans. I saw the per client plan and that was perfect! Then I found out minimum is 500 clients :bawling: :bawling: :bawling: :bawling:

multiply my current # by 50 and I'll be more than happy to cough up that money. :rolleyes: :bawling: :bawling:

anyways, my problems not yours. :D

Hey aragon,
We do have some attactive plans for startups which we not yet put on the site (but we have a few clients on these plans...)

Our aim is to have a you grow.... the faster you grow the better it is for us... ;)
We always consider ourselves successful if our clients are making profits...

I'd be grateful if you send me you email address...

Have a great day :)

regards
amar


P.S. - "We're in the Happy Business. *We Produce Smiles."
I feel sad when I see this .... :bawling: :bawling:


Originally posted by aragon
Man...

I really wanted to sign up for the service... I can't afford the per server or per ticket plans. I saw the per client plan and that was perfect! Then I found out minimum is 500 clients :bawling: :bawling: :bawling: :bawling:

multiply my current # by 50 and I'll be more than happy to cough up that money.

anyways, my problems not yours. :D ;)

I will have to agree with Mike from Rackmy.com here.
It isnt difficult to support windows boxes.

I would say that we have had far less problems on windows then linux servers,

I how i remember we allmost messed up with our linux server getting Java working on it, ( Tomcat)

I would want to exclude FP extensions here, It has happened that client use FTP as well as Fp extensions and delete the FP files on an Ftp session , which screws it up.

And if at all there is a peculiar windows trouble the fastest way to solve it is Post on WHT, Mike will give you a solution :D

Only thing is we need to is reboot windows servers once a week , just slows a bit , so we do it every sunday night,
We reboot Linux once in 25-30 days.

So it just depends how comfortable you are with what, If amars team know linux better then he should definately concentrate on the same.

Regards,

Hi All,

I am sorry I wasn't here to post on this one, (sick for more than a week) but I have used this service for over a year , actually more like 18 months (even before BobCares was their name) and it has been great. No complaints. They are honest, up front, and learned my business and the way I handle customers. If I want them to do something a certain way, they do it and even ask for suggestions on how to do it better.
I was verrrrrry nervous about letting an outside company deal with my clients. I watch all replies to my customer's and they are not only very complete, but polite, not generic.

They support all clients on my 9 Alabanza servers and
also help with Cpanel tickets on 6 other servers if needed. I have even gotten help on projects on the side for myself and clients.

Highly Recommended...

Regards
AH

sounds good.. :)
what is your web hosting url?

care to share :)

For those who havent seen they are offering special plans for resellers from $24

I have been monitoring this thread for some while. I just wanted to say that Windows support isn't easy. I've been working with Windows for many years and I'll have to say that Linux is far easier to support than windows.

Most hackers, especially the new ones go after window boxes because of it lack of management by the owners. Patches are being released everyday but not everyone patches them. Now this brings out another issue. Applications running on these system and the patches. Sometimes you can't apply these patches because of the dll and other components that they affect. In all, it becomes difficult to do certain things to not just protect your box but to keep it running on a daily bases.

We spend more time supporting windows than we do with Linux. For those who haven't really worked with Windows (and I mean worked with it in a larger organization) try it and you'll see my point.

However, having system in place such as load balancing help you with this because it helps with downtime. To make this short, it really depends on how the server is built, what's running on it and how it's maintain which determines if the server will be a problem child or not.

In support Windows you have to have some guidelines in place. Having this will help you greatly in supporting it.

Just my 2cents.

mpope you still vith vdi and if so how do you like it

im like about 85% sure im a go wid them 2 lol

jeremiah23:

No, I am not still with VDI. I left for location reasons, not network troubles or anything like that. I discovered this great high quality datacenter in my hometown which gives me (among other things) 24/7 physical access to my servers. So I decided to move here and it's been great!

I tried to contact them twice last week from their form at
http://www.bobcares.com/pages/contact_us.php

and have never received a reply. Is there a better way to get them or am I doing something wrong?

thanks!
Sean

Hi Sean,
I did write back to you. I had hoped that you had received my mail where I had asked your phone if you want to talk to me and also given my numbers. I'll just resend it...
I'm sorry about the error.
I have been out of my office for personal reasons... I'm also missing WHT a lot. I'll be fully back this week.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

wow, you're right they're quick. not sure why I missed the initial email. Thanks for getting back so quick.


Sean

I also haven't heard back from these folks after trying their contact form (and even trying to PM bobcares).

:(

What's up?

Dan

Hi Amar,

I also sent a question in through your online contact form about your services, but hadn't received a reply.

Richard

Maybe their contact form is having problems :) Just jumped in hehehe.. I'm interested too.... and I've enjoyed the various opinions on Windows hosting.... although what can we say about it.. I mean we are offering it so we have to support it, hard or not.

I saw gitechs.com I guess as an alternative... I'm just thinking out loud here that they also run a hosting company... wouldn't that create a conflict of interest?

An interesting thread indeed, I just caught it. I think my support volume has been very low even for the number of clients I have, but if I did decide to grow it larger it's nice to have this option.

But the reason I posted: heh :D Imagine all the WHT hosts competing against one another and advertising their superior 24/7 tech support, but whatever host a customer chooses they end up with bobcares.com :-P That's funny.

Originally posted by getweb
But the reason I posted: heh :D Imagine all the WHT hosts competing against one another and advertising their superior 24/7 tech support, but whatever host a customer chooses they end up with bobcares.com :-P That's funny.

So in the end what's the difference then? Support is probably one major point to cause people to leave.

Marketing? Customer care? Chargebacks (-nerrr..)? just different name of the owner? :D

So CagedTornado, Noldar,

Have you heard back from Amar?

Ummmm....











Nope.

I just wanted to set the record straight. I just got 2 very polite and VERY thorough messages from Amar -- both apologizing for the delay and answering my questions. Apparently he was away from the office on personal business.

Thanks,
Dan

Same here. I got very complete answers to my questions as well as an apology and explanation for the delay. They are definitely on my short list for support options.

Richard

I hope when he is on leave, someone will still perform the support duties ;)

I have seen nothing but professionalism in all my contact with Amar.

Originally posted by muppie
I hope when he is on leave, someone will still perform the support duties ;)

I thought he didn't do he support himself at all...

Caged, Noldar, thanks for the responses.

I'll admit I am following this thread very closely as my company is very interested in bobcares services.

That's why I asked.

I have been using Amar and his staff for over a year now and couldn't be happier. At first it was difficult since there was a huge time difference and he was not fully staffed and able to furnish 24 hour support. But with the addition of more support techs he now provides 24/7. It is great !!! :D

His staff is extremely friendly and very knowledgable. Overall they answer all my tickets in a very professional manner.

When I first began using his service I was somewhat hesitant on how my customers would accept this. I used to answer each and every request myself and prided myself on furnishing them with an answer to their problem in a very short time. But that is impossible when you have global customers in different time zones and you have a growing business.

The staff at Bobcares usually reply to a customer request in less then 2 hours. My customers love it. I love it even more since I don't have to worry about support and can concentrate on other matters. I can monitor every request sent by the customer and the answers furnished by Bobcares staff.

I do not gain anything by referring others to Bobcares. I am just a very happy customer. :D

I love BobCares.com i have been using them for a lil time now, they have totally adapted to the way I do business, and do a very good job of it.

They are very humble, and try their best to help, and even if amar was not reachable, in fact, when I signed up, i had delayed response, but, as soon as it was all grooved, in everything has been smooth.

All my support tickets can be seen at any time, and all of them are satisfactory to my level, well written, and my clients are happy. I am happy

They will Do anything Your company wants.

And the other support staff is awesome I have not honestly had a chance to talk to amar as much as the other ppl cause i belive he is more sales etc.

But the rest of the staff kicks butt, and tries to help me.

It has become to the point of where I used to monirot my email 24x7 and now, i check up on my support emails very rarely, and if they ever have a aquestion they email me on my main mail asap..

I totally love them

Ok, I've been following this thread for a while and spoke with Amar a few times. I'm convinced now. After all the good responses from everyone I think I will finally give them a try and focus on other stuff.