Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Support at ThePlanet?

[emgvod]

Hi all,

This is my first post here after observing and reading for a few years...

We have had few total control servers with ThePlanet (both P and E series) for almost 2 years now and have been generally very happy with them. Servers' performance has been very good and we have been mostly satisfied with their support. We typically perform all admin work ourselves (Linux servers) and only request support for items of urgent nature and in cases when only ThePlanet engineers/technicians can perform the work (major DNS issues, reboots, routing, etc.)

Typically, in order to expedite resolution of an urgent ticket, we call ThePlanet support immediately after submitting the ticket and ask them to look at it. In 95% of cases it worked out very well and we got resolutions to tickets within reasonable time frames (at times under 10 minutes).

While as I said, support in most cases was adequate, latest stream of events that triggered up to half a dozen open tickets at the same time, makes me doubt the level of service ThePlanet committed to for "Total Control" Gold Plan.

At times, we got very odd-ball replies to the tickets, where it seemed like person replying did not even read our request fully. It took few replies from our side to put the issue back on track and get someone to understand that issue in detail. We the again called ThePlanet Support, which triggered someone to look at the ticket. Then we get another odd-ball reply and we are back to square one. We have repeatedly asked to escalate couple of tickets to Level 2. Instead, we get run-arounds. Instead of having Level 2 engineer spending 5-10 minutes and fixing the issue once and for-all, regular support staff is wasting their and our time in suggesting solutions that are irrelevant.

I would like to solicit some feedback from the folks here who have had experience with ThePlanet Support. Doesn't it seem like ThePlanet support is getting worse? I have read many threads that make me believe that they are over-extending themselves... They DO have some very talented and knowledgeable support people on staff. However, it seems like overall support approach is deteriorating.

We still host some servers at Verio, where we get more attention to detail on plans that on paper should provide 10 times less support than ThePlanet's Gold Plan.

BACK TO MY QUESTION:
Any ideas how to get things done at ThePlanet and get really knowledgeable people (whom they certainly have) to look into the issue and resolve it. I don't want to believe that moving more business to them (in addition to few $K we paying a month already) will solve the issue by making us more relevant. We pay less to Verio and get better support there.

Any ideas/hints will be greatly appreciated.

NOTE: This thread is NOT to bash ThePlanet. As I said, we have been generally happy with them. We just want others who had experienced similar issues to comment on their ways to get around bureaucracy of support personnel.

If someone from ThePlanet (I know their folks monitor these threads) wants to comment please feel free!

Thanks!
EMGVOD

[Fair Dinkum]

What I would do in that situation, is what you have done: Submit the ticket, then phone support as you did (I also request to speak to the tech that will be assigned the work, when needed. We clear up the details/request/expectations together). If I do not think things are going according to my expectations, I follow up via ticket, and phone again. Then post for a clarification on *their* forums. I have found that to solve %100 of any complicated issue I have encountered.

%90 of the time the ticket works great. Maybe %8 percent of the remaining 10 percent I need to follow up by phone. The remainder I get clarified via their forums.

Sorry to hear about your issues... not fun, but I know it can be straightned out. Those guys do a great job IMHO.

[jayzee]

I did notice a recent change in how theplanet staffs deal with total control clients. I am pretty upset as well when they are soft of not providing helpful solution ... same as emgvod, i do most of the linux work myself... only needed a dns, or reboot...that let theplanet staffs handle...
only recently, we find the attitude & response is not the one i am seeing for the past few months...

i was almost going to cancel all the servers at theplanet.... going for another providers or probably back to ev1servers..

on second thought, i just had to bear with it... as theplanet network is solid and company foundation is good...

[emgvod]

My sentiments exactly. The word I was looking for was "SOFT".

Interestingly enough, our main ticket got updated 3 times since my original post few hours ago with promises to fix the issue. I'm yet to see it happen. Just an FYI, the main issue is related to ThePlanet not being able to properly setup their nameservers (ns1.theplanet.com and ns2.theplanet.com) as secondaries for our 87 domains. We moved our DNS out of ThePlanet to DNSMadeEasy after numerious failures of ThePlanet's DNS clusters. We decided to use ThePlanet DNS as secondary only and requested DNS change for all of our domains. This ticket is now going for almost 4 days where those name servers do not respond with our zones (retrn SERVFAIL), which causes every application on our servers fail on DNS lookups for our domains (external DNS works just fine thanks to DNSMadeEasy). To be fair, we had to do some modifications on our end, however, they were made minutes after requested by ThePlanet, whereas it took hours if not days for ThePlanet to take next step(s).

I heard a lot of good things about Rackspace support ("Fanatical"?...). I wonder whether this is where they beat ThePlanet and can justify charging almost double for the same server solutions, given their network is probably an equiavalent to ThePlanet's.

Anyone?

[abdullahrahman]

For us to get a critical ticket to be taken care, we have to call. My partner starts feeling fed up because if you dont call TP support, the ticket will not be replied promptly. We feel sad because it is called TOTAL CONTROL SERVER. I have high hope when TP launched TOTAL CONTROL SERVER. I got one window server and my partner got two servers. From the first few months, we are h appy as the support will login your server to solve your problem. And, we thought TP will take care of security of the server. After a few tickets raised, we now found out that TP will not monitor your server security automatically. You have to do it yourself or raise ticket to ask the support to do it every month.

At times, the first level support did not have enough knowledge in the problem we face. So, most of the time, you need to wait. We got to wait for more than 12 hours for an OS reload, which they know our server has been down for 3 days. Till now, the the NAS back up drive is blank. Before OS reload, we have keep important data there, personally I called TP support two times to confirm that my data kept in NAS back up drive will be safe even after OS reload. Their answer is "yes".

The suggestion now from TP to me is to install a Cisco Firewall, which will end up more than USD300 a month for a Total Control Server + Cisco Firewall. Do you guy think, this will evenfully get it of being hacked by hacker bia trojans or virus or othe exploits?

TP has the greates network, this is a plus point. I dont have to worry about network downtime.

[Karthick]

I have found TP is not bad. Just remember to put each issue in a seperate ticket, otherwise they might get confused and you'll be going around in circles.

They actually go out of their way to help you, and they still call their service unmanaged, whereas a lot of other providors do the same thing and call themselves 'fully managed'.

[shashankw]

Originally posted by Karthick
I have found TP is not bad. Just remember to put each issue in a seperate ticket, otherwise they might get confused and you'll be going around in circles.

They actually go out of their way to help you, and they still call their service unmanaged, whereas a lot of other providors do the same thing and call themselves 'fully managed'.

I totally agree with that.

[Rclark]

I've had to put in a lot of tickets lately...they have been wonderful for me. Very quick to respond and deal with my whining But thats only my story.

[emgvod]

Originally posted by Rclark
I've had to put in a lot of tickets lately...they have been wonderful for me. Very quick to respond and deal with my whining But thats only my story.

Not sure what kind of issues you had to deal with... I looked through few dozen of our previous tickets: most of them were promptly addressed. However, when it came to more complex issues that required Level 2 involvement, it took days of back-and-forth.

I got a confirmation from Level 2 13 hours ago that our issue was resolved. It still is not resolved. I called their techsupport 3 hours ago and they said they were asking Level 2 to look at it right that moment. Still have not heard anything. I guess the next step would be to escalate that ticket to an "OUTAGE" and start requesting refunds! This has been the worst case so far!