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  1. #1
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    Phone Support. Again, Why Have it if doesn't go to a person

    I had this debate some months ago, but I again ran into a situation where advertising a number didn't make sense.

    I had a situation that needed correcting for a client. Had to deal with a well known company...went to their site...saw the number and thought "cool". Call them up, get the situation resolved.

    I call...get voice prompts...press 2 for support....the voice then says to reach support, email support at support@#######....thank you.

    Thank You for what?!?!?!?!!?

    I know the in's and out's of the usual phone support debate..but why advertise the number.

    My Friday night rant. Thoughts

  2. #2
    I guess it's because it makes them more trustworthy to potential customers' eyes?

    People tend to think that a company is "more legit" when they see a phone number somewhere on the site. Most don't bother calling though. They feel safe just knowing they'd have an option to speak with someone over the phone should they have an issue... until they realize that the phone number's just for show.

  3. #3
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    It's mainly for show in my ways of seeing it . Not all hosts have it but those that do it don't always work out for them to have it.

    It can be biased off many other factors but I do know a main one could be maybe either they can't afford it or they either went with a small plan and run out of mins for the phone so at the end if the day either they don't use the number or can't receive any calls because it's down but doesn't let you know that the number is actually down.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
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    Melbourne
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    I agree, if you have phone service & support 24/7 then it should be 24/7 service & support. If phone support is one of the reasons a client signed up to then it should offer genuine phone support. It would be misleading to offer phone support 24/7 when It doesn't really exist. Say, phone support is really 9-5.

    Given that web hosting can operate in different times and countries. If you have clients from many parts of the world then you would need to offer genuine 24/7 phone service. Its probably why most these days (especially smaller hosts offer email support 24/7).
    Last edited by skybridgedomains; 09-19-2014 at 10:52 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    48
    they figure it out, if you can do it for phone sex why not with IT support?

  6. #6
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    May 2011
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    Phone support is a gimmick or a goody at times. Most professional and top providers would give you 24x7 phone support. However, service from these providers is not cheap. For others, its something they want to offer but not spend much on which is when this operational hours stuff comes into the picture. However, allied to phone support I think all of them should have atleast 24x7 live chat available for customers for live interaction.
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  7. #7
    I can understand some of the reasoning behind having a phone number for customers, but not all do it right.

    Now, without knowing the company I cannot be sure if they advertised 24/7 phone support, maybe its just in the business hours. Still, in such a case it should not be that difficult to leave a custom message when someone calls outside those hours, explaining that the lines are open only during business hours and THEN giving you the advice on how to submit a ticket. So that's on the company.

    I think that most of the confusion which brings up such arguments in the first place is what the company and what their clients mean when they say "support". Being on both sides of the line I've noticed that many companies simply mean that they have some operators which are mostly/solely handling sales calls and some very simple support requests. Which is kinda understandable as we all know that some support just can't/shouldn't be dealt over the phone, they just require more time and investigation. That being said have you tried connecting through the Sales options of their phone number?

    But yeah, at the end of the day your points are completely valid but knowing the low level of expertise you can get with chat/tickets from far too many companies, I can only imagine the situation with their phone "support".

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  8. #8
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    Most phones are only staff by a secretary (even if they're so-called "techs"), and are only answered M-F 95, if even that. Hosting is one of those industries where paying for phone lines is a waste of resources more than anything else.

    Many more are altogether fake.

    It takes a hefty budget to get true phone support.
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  9. #9
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    Aug 2012
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    Having 9-5 phone line is good for sales and person to person communication. It's better then not having a phone line at all. Really for us it's been for for B2B sales. Any serious issue is always dealt with via ticket anyway.

    Look, the more channels of communication you provide the more customers you will get. Most of our 50 and over customers are signups via phone.
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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by 48-14 View Post
    I call...get voice prompts...press 2 for support....the voice then says to reach support, email support at support@#######....thank you.
    I'm not sure about what might have actually happened, but there may be a possibility that you may have called when the phone support operators would've left for the day OR may be there'd be some issues with the system hence inoder to offer assistance they'd have used a voice recording giving you an alternative to post your concerns to an email.

    There may be many number of possibilities, but we usually happen to get agitated because we expect something in someway and if it doesn't go that way then ....BOOM...anger, frustration strikes, that's normal though But we must try and check if there was a problem. Just my opinion though.
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  11. #11
    I'm with the idea that phone numbers on ecommerce websites are for show more than being a real operating phone number. It happened when i was calling the company complaining about the delay of deploying my server, and they answered me on the phone saying that i should open a ticket to the technical support department which is the one responsible for activating new accounts and can help me with this issue

    I think the live chat thing is the same trick, Some companies just operate there live chat support for sales only, however if you have a technical issue or something like that, they would say open up a ticket and we will get bck to you shortly since this live chat is dedicated to sign up new customers who still have money in their pockets
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  12. #12
    @WebdevFish-Karim

    Id agree with most of that - the only situation in question that really comes to mind is when the issue really is complex - and having a ticket record for a customer ID - to prove that 'x' tech did 'solve' this issue at x time would be nice from my end. We're a much smaller company then the rest of you giants tho - and I agree with what a lot of people have said. Having true 24x7 real phone support is a big item for a budget.

  13. #13
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    Thanks for all the feedback. I agree with all the points.

    When I did call, it was within support hours. I did a quick look up, and the company is said to be worth 3 Billion dollars. It's a very very well known company....so known that all of us have made fun of it at some point and it's had it's own catch phrase for 20 years. I'm not going to name them since even shaming them would be pointless...but such actions would have been expected from a smaller company. Heck...even as much as I used to dog Go Daddy when I used them or for clients, out of 20 phone support calls, if even that many, 19 of them were friendly and resolved the issue. 1....that's a story for another day.

  14. #14
    I have seen that before..Not many hosts do offer phone support, even the big ones. Sometimes you will catch one that does...but who knows.

  15. #15
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    Interesting topic of discussion. We just started offering phone sales / support during certain hours M-F It was questionable to add this but some people have called. Today was a funny one, Got a call from a car dealership said my SUV was ready for pickup. I don't own a SUV..I should have just went and picked it up..

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
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    On the phone, you have a support ratio of one technician to one client. No more, no less.

    On live chat, you'll hit a ratio of one technician per every 5 to 10 clients.

    On tickets, you can typically support 20 to 50 clients per every technician.

    (Clients refers to people actively seeking support. Technicians is referring to actively working staff members.)
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  17. #17
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    Let's be real you're not going to have the guy you pay 90k a year to talking on the phone for hours to customers who pay you a few bucks a month. No matter what your scale is. You are going to hire a less skilled person and pay them 18-20 dollars and hour. Refer the advanced issues to the SysAdmins. Otherwise you'd put yourself out of business.
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by WebdevFish-Karim View Post
    I'm with the idea that phone numbers on ecommerce websites are for show more than being a real operating phone number. It happened when i was calling the company complaining about the delay of deploying my server, and they answered me on the phone saying that i should open a ticket to the technical support department which is the one responsible for activating new accounts and can help me with this issue

    I think the live chat thing is the same trick, Some companies just operate there live chat support for sales only, however if you have a technical issue or something like that, they would say open up a ticket and we will get bck to you shortly since this live chat is dedicated to sign up new customers who still have money in their pockets
    I agree with you, we've only started doing Sales live chat, but only because some visitors leave and come back, leave and come back and it's like are they confused about something, or do they have a certain question? so it helps there. But with my experience offering Phone support in the past I'm hesitant offering that until we're bigger.

    Phone support is good but if they don't pick up then there's no point offering it. Why offer something which could get you customers or keep customers if you don't use it.

  19. #19
    Phone support is an adequite way of being able to get in touch with the support agents without having to open a ticket. Although some tend to still open support tickets for you there are millions of companies that offer this kind of service. I think that it's also a great move for a company to offer phone support. Especially if they have been in the business for a while. All you need is a tech support center and a couple of people willing to dedicate their time to supporting a clients needs. I would rather be on the phone to a real human than a robot.

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