If your web hosting biz currently uses BobCares.com for support, please comment on their service. Was the advice adequate to solve customer problems? Was the response time within the advertised 6 hr max?

If your comments are second hand, thanks for posting them too, (only if they come from a source you consider reliable) but please note that they are heresay in your post.

Well I've been on the receiving end of BobCares support and I can honestly say I was less than satisfied :(

Originally posted by milkbar
Well I've been on the receiving end of BobCares support and I can honestly say I've been less than satisfied :(

Can you elaborate a bit more? At least give us a good clear view of why you feel so...

slow response times, general cluelessness, etc.

they are growing too big to handle I think,

most of the techs are just whimming by all of the responses, I use to use them but changed to my own set team.

More personlized etc..

Any recommended companies providing support for hosting companies other than BobCares?

I'm getting both positive and negative comments about BobCares. They may be the best available company offering support - I know in other fields you will ALWAYS fine unhappy customers even with the very best available service.

But let's consider the competion, shall we?

Originally posted by milkbar
slow response times, general cluelessness, etc.

We hired Bobcares a while back and I would have to agree with milkbar.

They seem to be the best available, they have a very good reputation, but their support skills are lacking.

In our SLA with them, they guaranteed 1 hour response, 6 hour solution, and we had to request a refund 2 out of the 3 months they were hired for.

Since we terminated their contract, we hired a tech guy and he does a fantastic job, plus it's cheaper.

Originally posted by vox-fred
Since we terminated their contract, we hired a tech guy and he does a fantastic job, plus it's cheaper.

How comes that? Bobcares are cheap and you need more than one tech to handle 24/7 support? :confused:

Here is one thing I never understood. When you farm out, the majority of things are easy fixes. But quite a few require root access. I can't believe people give out root to these guys or any other. If takes just one bad apple to take all these and sell them or screw up servers themselves. What can you do about it once all your servers have been hacked by a guy in a cyber cafe in India (or any where for that matter)?

its a trust factor,

I don't think bobcares would do anything with the root password.

and if your so paranoid, backup all your files.

if they did anything which is high unlikely, you can quickley format the system and put back the backups and flame them for life :)

I'm using Bobcares, and I'm happy with the service,
sometimes some support request it's not answered well but if you email bobcares pointing the ticket just answer the tickets again better.
My customers are happy with the support from bobcares and I don't lost any customers for support problems.

We dont use them but I have seen their service before, and the answers were not all that great. "Its fixed", "We have fixed the problem" etc.

They also pulled some clueless stunts like changing customers email passwords, and then sending them their new password to the same address.

Makes you wonder. :rolleyes:

the only thing bad about bobcares is that its not personalized,

1 tech answering 10 different hosting companies support email is not going to give you personalized answers.

+ they will be confused.

Originally posted by GlideTech
We dont use them but I have seen their service before, and the answers were not all that great. "Its fixed", "We have fixed the problem" etc.

They also pulled some clueless stunts like changing customers email passwords, and then sending them their new password to the same address.

Makes you wonder. :rolleyes:

Based on this post alone, I wouldn't use them.

What are the alternatives to bobcares?

I have used Bob Cares from a client point of view, not as a provider and probably never will due to my experience. I wouldn't recommend Bob Cares to anyone. As said by GlideTech, there reponses are often incomplete, wrong or they just do something completely stupid to attempt to rectify the problem, which in turn creates a greater problem. They also need to brush up on their English and Grammar in general, as there are often a lot of spelling mistakes etc. in the responses.

In a word: NO !!

They have made some of the most awful support screwups I've known. Such as emailing resellers' clients and making reference to their provider, taking a site DOWN by making an invalid entry in a .htaccess file (they obviously didn't test it worked else they'd have seen the site was down - it was left to me to correct it after I was informed the site was down), and one incident which left me flabbergasted and won't describe in detail cos it's a long story, but suffice it to say they were effectively sending out 'prank' emails whilst testing something, the contents of which were just 'hello from happy me'. :angry: And that's not even mentioning the many instances where they had no idea what they were talking about or how to fix the problem.

Some BobCares staff may be better than others, but I'm keeping well clear of them in future. I'm currently looking into working with a company I do a lot of freelance work for into providing a similar (and much much better!) solution but its very early days at the moment.

Here is one thing I never understood. When you farm out, the majority of things are easy fixes. But quite a few require root access.

If your customers get these kinds of problems EDUCATE THEM to use your Control Panel. You don't need Bobcares indeed.


I can't believe people give out root to these guys or any other. If takes just one bad apple to take all these and sell them or screw up servers themselves. What can you do about it once all your servers have been hacked by a guy in a cyber cafe in India (or any where for that matter)?

Do you know you can change your password ? You can do it everyday. And it's better if you dont keep the same password one full year ...

Do you know you can change your password ? You can do it everyday. And it's better if you dont keep the same password one full year ...

Did you know some of us have more then one server? Did you know changing 100s of passwords really isn't that easy? Did you know that soem places have numerous sysadmins that need to know when passwords are changed?

If your customers get these kinds of problems EDUCATE THEM to use your Control Panel. You don't need Bobcares indeed.

Did you know that some people do not read and will always ask for support no matter what? Did you know that with thousands of customers it sometimes is not so easy to "educate" each customer?

:cartman:

Originally posted by rochen
They also need to brush up on their English and Grammar in general, as there are often a lot of spelling mistakes etc. in the responses.

Originally posted by rochen
there reponses are often incomplete

Don't you mean "their" responses?

My point -- language slip-ups happen, nobody's perfect.

But you do make a valid point about their response times.

FDrive - Point taken :) What I meant though and maybe I didn't word my post quite right, but there is more of a language break down. Which I can understand as English probably isn't their primary language. But it's not great when dealing with English speaking customers. It's more than just the odd grammar or spelling mistake that everyone makes, which I have just proven in my last post, it's more a spelling mistake in every sentence. Which I am sure annoys and irritates a lot of customers, which is the last thing you want.

Originally posted by rochen
It's more than just the odd grammar or spelling mistake that everyone makes, which I have just proven in my last post, it's more a spelling mistake in every sentence.

Eep. Didn't realize it was in almost every sentance...

Originally posted by FDrive


Eep. Didn't realize it was in almost every sentance...

Couldn't help myself :D

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


Did you know some of us have more then one server? Did you know changing 100s of passwords really isn't that easy? Did you know that soem places have numerous sysadmins that need to know when passwords are changed?


Sounds like a bad setup where people don't understand automation or how to apply it's principles securely.


Did you know that some people do not read and will always ask for support no matter what? Did you know that with thousands of customers it sometimes is not so easy to "educate" each customer?

:cartman:

I miss the part where someone said it would be easy. I think I missed that memo.

Sounds like a bad setup where people don't understand automation or how to apply it's principles securely.

How many servers do you have? Maybe you could help RS automate password changes. Management of passwords is not to be taken lightly. And customers tend to not like constant password changes.

I miss the part where someone said it would be easy. I think I missed that memo.

Fools do miss things. Epecially a newbie looking for trouble.

Eduate people? 1000s. Do you suggest that all your customers are invited to a big camp fire and given a slide show.

Point is simple my little frined. When you blurt out crap making it seem like things are odvious, be prepared to state more. The whole point about farming out is to off load the simple, redundant things that are answered everyday and prolong your support hours. The detailed/advanced support is usually always handled inhouse. I know you just came around to post your ignorance for fun, but someday you will grow up and understand that things are not as easy as "educate them". I am sure any host with a lot of customers will tell you so. We estamate 90% of all support issues could have answered from our resource center or knowledgebase.

Now run along for school, I see the little yellow school bus out front of your house.

UmBillyCord, very well put. Dead on, actually. :)