Technical Support

kabe said:
We have several large corporate sites we maintain...they all require 24 x 7 phone support with a hosting company. a physical address of the hosting company and a personal phone contact for themselves within the hosting company.
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neither of which will help them to solve REAL issues like DDOS quicker, as their phone contacts will most likely be managers of said companies, while issues are solved by supporters and tech staff. Nobody ever will give phone number of a tech, as issues can occure while they are off shift, on a sick leave or during vacation and cannot help in any way. Therefore, these contacts should be managers, able to contact tech on shift.

They will spend time calling their contact, explaining the issue with different level of success and demanding immediate solution NOW, while their contact is on the phone with them. The contact will have to call tech stuff and explain the situation (with lower level of success, as repeated story always lacks details), while trying to deal with frustrated client at the same time. If any additional details are needed this long chain will jump another time and another and another, giving nothing but headache to all three participants.

On the opposite, opening a live chat or a ticket allows describing the issue with as many details as possible (code strings, IP addresses, verification details, screenshots in attachments, all kinds of data) and it is dealt with by the person responsible for dealing with such issues. In addition, some issues like DNS propagation after nameservers change cannot be dealt with in any way, as this process is fully automated, not a single phone call of any degree of frustration can help.

As I said before - phone conversation is important in sales, but is nearly of zero use when it comes to domain and hosting industry. Your clients think they have better control of the situation by having the phone contact - let them think so. We all know it is not true, so hopefully they will NEVER have to use it to solve issues (and we all know sh1t happens).

Really BIG companies like Namecheap or Godaddy, Verisign or Network solutions have 24x7 chat/email (and phone) support available. yet almost all Godaddy customers complain about bad quality of their phone support. On the other hand, nearly all Namecheap customers praise the company for their excellent chat/email support - and Namecheap does not have phone support.
 
I see your point about phone conversations being obsolete and, believe me, I am a very strong supporter of those arguments. But at the end of the day the one thing that stands is what Collabora said - "Besides, its usefulness is in the eye of the customer". That is really what it comes down to.

As part of my customer service work for various hosting companies I have been a part of a Phone Department. I have had numerous conversation with clients, explaining that their issue is outside the scope of the expertize of a phone support and WILL require a little more time for investigation/fix. Still, there are ALWAYS those who will deny any means of conversation outside of phone and demanding they use it instead of chat/email. At the end of the day, even those who don't demand it as mandatory will feel a bitter taste, simply because you deny them the freedom to choose. People don't need 10 ways of communicating with you, but they sure as hell will feel more confident if you provide them. They may never call you but absence of a phone number will make them think they want to call you. Its pure psychology really.

Nowadays everyone thinks how they can offer more - more space/traffic specs, more features, more customer service, more of everything. Choosing to opt out any of those methods might lead to falling behind. And you will be deemed lesser than someone that provides the service (doesn't matter if they severely suck at it).

There will always be the clients that want to abuse the phone and remain there "until my issue is resolved". The only thing you can do is explain the nature of the issue and WHY it would require time that cannot be spent over the phone. Most will understand, a few will argue until the end.

The question about quality tho, is a completely separate one. Its up to each and every company to determine objectively the knowledgeability of their staff and how much they can handle. Providing crappy support on phone is not a fault of the policy to offer Phone Support, its the fault of the management that thought they can do it right. Clear responsibilities (for staff) and boundaries (for clients), frequent trainings and polite service - this is what will make the phone support worthwhile.
 
Rado_Ch said:
I see your point about phone conversations being obsolete and, believe me, I am a very strong supporter of those arguments. But at the end of the day the one thing that stands is what Collabora said - "Besides, its usefulness is in the eye of the customer". That is really what it comes down to.

...

The question about quality tho, is a completely separate one. Its up to each and every company to determine objectively the knowledgeability of their staff and how much they can handle. Providing crappy support on phone is not a fault of the policy to offer Phone Support, its the fault of the management that thought they can do it right. Clear responsibilities (for staff) and boundaries (for clients), frequent trainings and polite service - this is what will make the phone support worthwhile.
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you have my respect. pure truth.

I agreed with Collabora already - whatever helps you to sell works well.
 
Expectations of 24/7 support varies and can be complicated getting the balance of providing great customer service in a cost effective manner. With all the different communication mediums available for providing this it is trying to identify the value it is for your support team providing support and the value to the customer as each method will have their cost/reward variances and will depend on the key focus of the service you’re trying to provide, for example for most companies providing support having a phone support can make the difference for some customers, where others can provide the service without it. From experience having the range of phone, email/ticketing system and etc can be beneficial in regards to catering to different customer preferences and is useful if it is supported by a flexible support team with good training foundations as this really helps with managing variations of request demands and utilising the skill assets available in your support team. Also the biggest part of making this all work is good customer management skills within your support team, which I believe has been mentioned several times by the others, as this helps manage customer expectation and escalation requirements and irrational requests as customer view point and company view point can vary considerable on what’s a relevant request and an irrational request in relation to the service provided.
Hope this helps
 
please rewrite your post to make it readable. bricks of text are really hard for understanding, I did not even try to do it.
 
HostZealot said:
Live chat & email correspondence allows sending clear guides on setup, with screenshots and direct links. The chat and ticket system allows stating the domain name in question or service issue at once and describing them with as much details as needed.
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I think this is very accurate, I understand that phone support is important to some people but not every problem is the same. Some require a little more time and phone support just delays the process. Ticket system and chat just seems more efficient, not to mention the fact that you have a written backup that the request was actually made.
 
Expectations of 24/7 support varies and can be complicated getting the balance of providing great customer service in a cost effective manner.

With all the different communication mediums available for providing this it is trying to identify the value it is for your support team providing support and the value to the customer as each method will have their cost/reward variances and will depend on the key focus of the service you’re trying to provide, for example for most companies providing support having a phone support can make the difference for some customers, where others can provide the service without it.

From experience having the range of phone, email/ticketing system and etc can be beneficial in regards to catering to different customer preferences and is useful if it is supported by a flexible support team with good training foundations as this really helps with managing variations of request demands and utilising the skill assets available in your support team.

Also the biggest part of making this all work is good customer management skills within your support team, which I believe has been mentioned several times by the others, as this helps manage customer expectation and escalation requirements and irrational requests as customer view point and company view point can vary considerable on what’s a relevant request and an irrational request in relation to the service provided.

Hope this helps
 
layeronline said:
Sometimes using the ticketing system is better than chat as chat team is not always the tech support team.
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However, techs and support usually can communicate with each other easily. Having techs and supporters separated is not a sign of a company to trust, IMHO.
 
layeronline said:
Sometimes using the ticketing system is better than chat as chat team is not always the tech support team.
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Well, a good host would also have versatile employees able to help with a variety of issues. This is why its called Customer Service/Support - you can use them as a frontline, share your issue, and they can either fix it for you if it is something simple or redirect you to the most appropriate place to receive assistance (ex. ticketing). My point is that a Live Chat is never obsolete, you can never know the level of expertise offered there and the worst case scenario is that you'll lose a few minutes, being told how/where to place a ticket.

Now if you have tried that with no help from Chat, or your issue is obviously quite technical, then you can skip this communication method :rolleyes2
 
a good host will have separate live chat departments Sales/billing and tech support. so if you chose the right department you will get to the right people that can help. not all support issues can be carried out over live chat.
 
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