WHMCS Ticket System or Kayako?

[IH-Rameen]

You want me to go to a website that is trying to sell a $19 thousand dollar product to do the job of a much much cheaper product that does everything I need it to do?

You're the one asking questions, I'm not here to tutor you and try and sell you a product. If you want a comparison between WHMCS and Kayako then go ask them the both of them on the merits of each application.

I asked YOU what the benefits are. You are the one making the claims.
Compared to WHMCS, which I assume you have used extensively to justify your expenditure on Kayako, what does Kayako do that WHMCS cannot?

Go read my post. I already pointed out several significant features that I find helpful in Kayako.

Specifically. And what advantage is there to the average host who already has a good support system in place to spend extra thousands of dollars?

If you have a support system meeting your needs then good for you.

I have tried both systems in a production environment for a decent length of time. Have you? How can you say WHMCS does the job when you haven't tried Kayako properly to see what additional benefits it can provide to your business? You might try Kayako and then realise, actually, we 'thought' WHMCS was meeting our needs but it isn't. I have tried both of them which is why I'm in the position to provide a good opinion on one versus the other. If you haven't tried them both, which by your posts implies quite clearly that you haven't, then your argument is one sided.

This seems like a really absurd discussion. There are plenty of big companies out there that will tell you that their proprietary system is far far better than Kayako and it cost $50 thousand to develop.
Are they right or wrong?

How on earth is it an absurd discussion. The title of the thread is WHMCS or Kayako. I have tried both, and am giving my opinion to the OP on which one is better. The best person that can provide a decent opinion is that person which has tried both and tried them both of a good period of time (at least 1 year) in a production environment.

 

[IH-Rameen]

true, but if you look at other comments in other posts by IH-Rameen, he does not want discussions he wants to preach to every host to run their businesses the same way he runs his

Why do you get so offended if someone doesn't agree with you? Have you seen the title of the thread? Do you expect me to run with the crowd like a sheep or provide some truthful honest answers and feedback to help the OP? I haven't preached anything.

If a discussion about a product offends you, then perhaps you should not be involved in a discussion forum.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Why do you get so offended if someone doesn't agree with you? Have you seen the title of the thread? Do you expect me to run with the crowd like a sheep or provide some truthful honest answers and feedback to help the OP? I haven't preached anything.

If a discussion about a product offends you, then perhaps you should not be involved in a discussion forum.

you are the one that is offended that no one agrees with you, you even refuse to answer the question that Blue (HD Mod) has asked you.

 

[IH-Rameen]

you are the one that is offended that no one agrees with you, you even refuse to answer the question that Blue (HD Mod) has asked you.

Eh? That doesn't even make sense. I think you should have a read up mate, but I have to say you're being a bit immature now. You've just taken what I said and repeated it back to me :rolleyes2. What have I got to be offended about? Do you honestly think I care if someone agrees with me or not? I'm not some sheep that's going to follow the crowd. If I don't agree with something, I'll say it. You're the one that seems to have a problem with people not agreeing with you.

Why do you keep changing the topic? Why not let it be about the issue being discussed? Why are you making it about me? As I said, this is a discussion forum, if you don't agree with me, fine, go on to the next topic but no need to try and silence me and tell me not to speak about something just because you don't understand or agree with it.

I'm sorry that you're offended by what I say, but there isn't anything I can help with you with on that. Like I said, this is a discussion forum and if you're so easily offended then I question what you're doing here.

I'm going to discuss the topics brought up and there are going to be times where I don't agree with you and there are going to be times that others don't agree with you but that doesn't mean people should keep their mouths shut because it goes against what your opinion is.

Are you going to keep to the issue at hand or are you going to keep taking this off topic and make this a discussion about what I say and continue to dodge all the difficult questions I've asked you?

 

[Blue]

You're the one asking questions, I'm not here to tutor you and try and sell you a product. If you want a comparison between WHMCS and Kayako then go ask them the both of them on the merits of each application.



Go read my post. I already pointed out several significant features that I find helpful in Kayako.



If you have a support system meeting your needs then good for you.

I have tried both systems in a production environment for a decent length of time. Have you? How can you say WHMCS does the job when you haven't tried Kayako properly to see what additional benefits it can provide to your business? You might try Kayako and then realise, actually, we 'thought' WHMCS was meeting our needs but it isn't. I have tried both of them which is why I'm in the position to provide a good opinion on one versus the other. If you haven't tried them both, which by your posts implies quite clearly that you haven't, then your argument is one sided.




How on earth is it an absurd discussion. The title of the thread is WHMCS or Kayako. I have tried both, and am giving my opinion to the OP on which one is better. The best person that can provide a decent opinion is that person which has tried both and tried them both of a good period of time (at least 1 year) in a production environment.

It's clear you choose not to answer my questions. That is fine.
You can justify to yourself and perhaps any partners that the extra thousands of dollars are necessary to perform a human based task. The is fine.

But do not point me to the website and tell me the information is there. That is intellectually weak. That is a cop out.

I asked you direct questions based on your own comments. You failed to answer any of them, instead you direct me to the website.

Gee, I wonder if they would have some unbiased opinions on their website comparing their product to a competitor? You think so?

At the end of the day I don't care what system you use and you don't care what system I use. That's fine.
From a business standpoint, if I can get the same results and spend thousands of dollars less who do you think has the better plan?

 

[IH-Rameen]

It's clear you choose not to answer my questions. That is fine.

Not quite, did you even take the time to read my posts?
You asked me for a few features in Kayako that we use regularly that WHMCS cannot do. I said:

The workflows and intelligent routing, custom SLA's and escalations and their comprehensive REST API is just a few we use regularly and has enabled us to provide the excellent support we are known for.

So how did I choose not to answer your question? But have you answered any of my questions? Nope.

But do not point me to the website and tell me the information is there. That is intellectually weak. That is a cop out.

What is intellectually weak and a cop out is when someone stops discussing the issue and resorts to making personal remarks instead. That's when its obvious someone has ran out of anything intelligent to say.

I asked you direct questions based on your own comments. You failed to answer any of them, instead you direct me to the website.

And I provided you a direct answer. I quoted my answer again for you above.

But then on the other hand, I asked you several questions and you haven't answered a single one of them.

Actually, your argument for why WHMCS is better is "it just is". That's supposed to be a strong argument? Is that 'intellectually strong'?

Gee, I wonder if they would have some unbiased opinions on their website comparing their product to a competitor? You think so?

Do I look like their sales rep to you? If you have questions about Kayako, go and ask Kayako. I told you some of the things we like in Kayako that WHMCS can't do. An OP asks what others like. I said what I like. But rather than respect someones opinion, you just keep telling me that I'm wrong and Kayako isn't good because of the price.

WHMCS is a billing system first and a support system second. Kayako is nothing but a support system.

At the end of the day I don't care what system you use and you don't care what system I use. That's fine.
From a business standpoint, if I can get the same results and spend thousands of dollars less who do you think has the better plan?

I'm going to pose the same questions you keep avoiding:
Have you used both systems for at least 1 year in a production environment to say why one is better than the other?

 

[Blue]

I'm going to pose the same questions you keep avoiding:
Have you used both systems for at least 1 year in a production environment to say why one is better than the other?

I don't think I avoided it but I will answer this as it seems to sum things up pretty well.
Have I tried both systems in production for at least one year?
No. I haven't.
Here is why. As aggressively as we have tested WHMCS it has always done exactly what we need it to do.
I would be an idiot to spend thousands and thousands of dollars more on a software package that was serving the same purpose as the one I already use.

That is why I asked the questions I did. The questions you seem to have a problem addressing, as in what is it about your operation that makes that extra expenditure necessary.

I'm not saying it isn't, I just thought that since you chose to bring it up you would have good reasons for the expense.

 

[IH-Rameen]

I don't think I avoided it but I will answer this as it seems to sum things up pretty well.
Have I tried both systems in production for at least one year?
No. I haven't.
Here is why. As aggressively as we have tested WHMCS it has always done exactly what we need it to do.
I would be an idiot to spend thousands and thousands of dollars more on a software package that was serving the same purpose as the one I already use.

The expression "Don't knock it till you tried it" holds true here. You wouldn't know if Kayako does a better job or not unless you have actually tried it in a production environment. Whereas you have only tried one software and claim it's better 'because it is'. You might try Kayako and find that it's actually meeting your needs much better than WHMCS. You may find that the features enable you to provide a better support experience, you may find that in the long run, you're actually saving money with faster ticket resolutions. Or you may find that it doesn't do any of those. You haven't tried both so you can't really say. We have tried both, we have experience with both in live production environments. We had a choice to settle with one or the other.

I don't put a price when it comes to customer support. Which is why we don't have just 1 of these licenses, we actually have 3 unlimited staff Kayako licenses because we want to deliver the same support across all our brands.

That is why I asked the questions I did. The questions you seem to have a problem addressing, as in what is it about your operation that makes that extra expenditure necessary.

You asked me what in Kayako I use that I find beneficial. I explained that to you above. Not only did I explain it, I told you exact and precise features that we find valuable. But fine, I'll go into even more detail

SLA escalations ensure all customers receive a prompt response. The rules and workflows ensure tickets are automatically routed to the correct department at different stages. Custom alerts ensure the right people are notified at correct stages of a ticket lifecycle, built in remote assistance into the live chat ensures customers not familiar with certain aspects receive the help they need with a live demonstration from a technician directly from the live chat. 'Instant Response' style macros ensures common and repetitive queries are handled quickly and efficiently by a technician. Even things such as custom views, ensure each technician can customise how they see tickets, but also execute a set procedure when answering a ticket (i.e. set ticket status 'xyz', set issue type 'abc', go to the next ticket upon answering in department 'xyz'). REST API ensures full integration into various systems and completely customised support experience, it also means we can generate custom reports to gauge individual performance levels of staff and department performance levels. It also assists greatly with quality assurance in ensuring staff are actually satisfying customers.

Those are just things I use personally on a day in day out basis and by no means is that even an exhaustive list or the full potential of what the software provides.

Detailed enough?

 

[Blue]

Detailed enough? No. Not really.
SLA escalations. How does that improve your response time over WHMCS? What is the average decrease in response time per ticket request?
The departments I have set up in WHMCS ensure that tickets are routed correctly. How do the rules and work flows of Kayako improve on that? What issues did you encounter with WHMCS that prompted you to decide on a solution thousands and thousands of dollars more expensive?
Custom alerts and notifications? I would need and example of that being useful because I've never seen a demand for that with our system.
Instant response modules? Really. Are you serious.
You can do that with WHMCS but if you are going to have a serious discussion about customer service why would you? Canned answers? Doesn't sound like top quality service to me. Sounds like a way of kicking the can down the road while a tech is busy.
Not sure how any of these things based on a software environment " assists greatly with quality assurance in ensuring staff are actually satisfying customers"

I guess I will go to the website for the more exhaustive list.

Meanwhile you seem to have spent $60 thousand on software that most companies can get by without. Each to his own I guess.

 

[IH-Rameen]

Detailed enough? No. Not really.
SLA escalations. How does that improve your response time over WHMCS? What is the average decrease in response time per ticket request?
The departments I have set up in WHMCS ensure that tickets are routed correctly. How do the rules and work flows of Kayako improve on that? What issues did you encounter with WHMCS that prompted you to decide on a solution thousands and thousands of dollars more expensive?
Custom alerts and notifications? I would need and example of that being useful because I've never seen a demand for that with our system.
Instant response modules? Really. Are you serious.
You can do that with WHMCS but if you are going to have a serious discussion about customer service why would you? Canned answers? Doesn't sound like top quality service to me. Sounds like a way of kicking the can down the road while a tech is busy.
Not sure how any of these things based on a software environment " assists greatly with quality assurance in ensuring staff are actually satisfying customers"

I guess I will go to the website for the more exhaustive list.

Meanwhile you seem to have spent $60 thousand on software that most companies can get by without. Each to his own I guess.

This is going to go on and on. You continue to dodge my questions while carrying on asking 101 questions about the Kayako software. Yet you become offended that I told you to visit their website.

Do you honestly expect me to sit here and keep answering you one by one? To justify my business expenses to you? Who are you? Apart from being rude, resort to personal remarks, have you even provided anything decent to this explanation? "It's better because it is" - That's your argument? That's your reasoning? Do you honestly think ticket routing is just a customer selecting a particular department? Is that all you've managed to grasp?

Why did you only take parts of what I said and not comment on it as a whole? Why take only parts convenient for your reply and totally ignore all the other points? I'll tell you, because you don't have an argument for them, because you don't have anything to say to water it down and make something intelligent seem simple. Let's forget what I mentioned about the REST API, let's forget the advanced reporting, let's forget about the remote assistance?

Essentially, you have missed the point completely. You have taken everything I said and twisted it to somehow sound like they're all useless. Are you the one running my business? Are you the one sitting here seeing how things work? Perhaps it was unintentional, perhaps it's just that type of thinking which means you are only willing to spend no more than $6 for a buggy live chat application? Or it could be you fail to grasp anything complex. You asked me to name a few things so I did. For some reason (due to politeness I won't mention) you didn't understand. So I watered it down a bit for you, but even still, you don't grasp anything at all. Maybe that explains why you feel comfortable basing your entire support infrastructure on $6.

I guess Peugot, ICANN, HP, DHL, MTV, FedEx, acer, Vodafone, Sega, ESET, Comodo, WarnerBros, Sony, Virgin, Skype are all stupid by your definition? They're all successful, they became successful for a reason. Why don't you go to tell them they're wasting their money. Go tell them to base their entire business on a $6 piece of software? Go explain to them you can save them thousands of dollars if they just switch to WHMCS? Go tell them how you know better. If they ask you why, use your trademark argument - "because it is"?

Or perhaps this goes a bit deeper? Maybe it's envy.

Put it this way, it really says something when someone discourages others from investing in their customer support infrastructure. Essentially, you're telling me I've wasted my money because I have invested in my customers. That it was absurd for me to spend money on my customers, that it's ridiculous that I would dream of improving the support experience my customers receive, that it's a bad thing for me to give them nothing but the best. Well, if that's the way you run your business, you go right ahead. However me personally, we'd rather focus on what it's important and we'd rather invest in our support. We're not just going to find the cheapest thing we find and say "that'll do". :rolleyes2

And what's still very concerning is that without visiting their website, without having a look at what they offer and without even understanding the features, you claim WHMCS is better. You haven't used the other support system, yet you already claim it's better. You make all these claims yet unlike me that provides actual examples and takes the time to prove my point, you run around in circles, ask the same questions I've already answered time and time again, focus on the cost, ignore the features and say "it's better because it is".

If you feel comfortable with having a $6 piece of software as your support infrastructure, then good for you. If you want to run your company with the attitude "That'll do" instead of "That's perfect", then you go ahead. If your business is basic and requires only something basic, then you carry on with your basic software. But when another company invests heavily in their customer support, invests heavily in quality of support and spends considerable time in ensuring their customers receive the best of what's out there, it's really sad that you try and discourage that behaviour. :agree:

I'm going to leave it at that, if you want to carry on twisting what I've said, dumbing down on what I've said and continue with your arguments that have no substance, no backing and quite frankly no real point at all, be my guest. I'd rather participate in a discussion where the opposing argument is a little better "because it is".

 

[Blue]

Sorry. I tried to get through your whole diatribe but I grew bored.
I find it funny that you accuse me of a personal attack and at the same time claim my motive is envy.
That is funny. Me envy you. That is a fun concept.

I feel comfortable having a piece of software that serves my purposes. The is plain and simple the bottom line.

You seem to deride that it is a $6 dollar piece of software, although Im not sure where you got that number from, but at the end of the day if it was costing me that I would proudly claim to my customers that they received that level of support they needed without my having to piss away thousands of dollars on unnecessary software.

Like I said. If you need to rely on grotesquely expensive software to make your support seem effective that is fine. Each to their own.
I cant imagine how much I would have to raise my prices and pass that on to my clients if I were to throw away thousands and thousands of dollars on unnecessary software.

I guess your clients are just more sophisticated.

 

[Artashes]

you can still give superior support using the WHMCS support tickets and their Live chat addon. all without spending $19,000

Superior to what? Kayako inherently is a superior system to the inbuilt support for WHMCS.

If your needs and ticket volumes mean the WHMCS support system works for you, then great.

How is your support superior? As far as I'm concerned the level of support is staff related and has little to do with how much is spent on the ticket system.

There are a lot of features we use day and day out with Kayako that we find invaluable.

The workflows and intelligent routing, custom SLA's and escalations and their comprehensive REST API is just a few we use regularly and has enabled us to provide the excellent support.

I took the time to read every response and here is my take on the discussion that is taking place.

It seems there is a bit of a misunderstanding and a loop that you guys are circling around. It is a bit silly actually because you are all essentially have a common agreement on the fact that software (in general) does not depend on the level of customer service provided, with exceptions that I'll touch on later. All of you understand that exceptional customer service depends on people - it is evident in your posts.

However, there is a bit of a disagreement on products. Obviously, everyone is going to find different products better suited for their requirements. You cannot argue about what software is better because it is like arguing about which cell phone is better. The best cell phone is the one that is best for you and your needs.

Clearly, both Kayako and WHMCS are successful companies. Both are great at what they do. Both are widely used in the hosting industry.

In defense of IH-Rameen, he did name the specific features he finds in Kayako that he uses and that he considers useful and productive enough to pay extra for. Now, I am not an expert on either software (I have my own problems of finding an appropriate helpdesk system to use for HostingDiscussion), so I cannot verify whether the specific features he mentioned are found in WHMCS, but I believe that he knows the software good enough to make the statement.

In defense of Blue and easyhostmedia, who are happy with WHMCS, along with 1000s of other providers, they are correct in stating that for their cases, the extra spending is not warranted not only because it costs a lot more, but simply because their support requirements are fully met and addressed with the existing product they are using.

Nobody is incorrect here.

However, it is wrong, in my opinion, to state that a hosting company values its clients any less if they are using an inexpensive solution:

Like I said, it's your company, you spend your money how you want. If your customers are worth a $6 live chat system to you, then great!

For us, WHMCS support system and that poor live chat addon doesn't quite cut it. We'd rather spend a little bit more and ensure our customers have a decent support infrastructure to work within.

In my view, both solutions provide decent infrastructure. The rest lies on what you WANT from the product and what your customers expect from you. If certain metrics or specific features for further integration without your organization is necessary for you, and if the benefits of these tools/infrastructure outweight the cost, then go for it. It is most basic accounting principle.

I do believe that mentioned companies like Peugot, ICANN, HP, DHL, MTV, FedEx, acer, Vodafone, Sega, ESET, Comodo, WarnerBros, Sony, Virgin, Skype make enough millions and billions of dollars and probably require something very special or highly customizable for their needs. For them, a $20,000/year decision is the kind of decision they would probably assign their IT interns to figure out, figuratively speaking.

They do not, however, make the best examples for the hosting industry, because most companies in the web hosting industry apply different billing practices, are not operating in same volumes, do not have thousands of employees and do not trade on NASDAQ.

if you look at other comments in other posts by IH-Rameen, he does not want discussions he wants to preach to every host to run their businesses the same way he runs his

And that is just factually incorrect.


In closing, I would like to ask all members who are involved in this rather interesting discussion to not get emotional. We are talking about support systems and usually these kind of discussion bring a lot of insight and details that would not get usually mentioned. Keep in mind that nobody here has inside information into each other's business operations. Any unnecessary and irrelevant comments will be cleaned, but so far it was relatively alright.

 

[easyhostmedia]

no ones disputing a good support system and if possible a live chat facility is needed in the hosting industry, if you spend $6 or $19,000 if you have the right staff you can give the same level of support.

but if i had a spare $19,000 i would rather spend this on a decent server infrastructure and security system for the servers, so making sure that the servers are secure along with paying clients sites. if you can do this and provide a large extensive knowledgebase then this will lead to less support requests.
lets say you have a server with 300 clients on, if that server crashes and all sites are down, no matter if you have a support system that cost you $6 or one that cost $19,000 you will have 300 angry clients contacting you, so i believe more money should be spent on the server infrastructure rather than what support software you use as when it comes down to it all support/livechat software does the same primary job of allowing clients and prospective clients contact you.

 

[Artashes]

no ones disputing a good support system and if possible a live chat facility is needed in the hosting industry, if you spend $6 or $19,000 if you have the right staff you can give the same level of support.

but if i had a spare $19,000 i would rather spend this on a decent server infrastructure and security system for the servers, so making sure that the servers are secure along with paying clients sites. if you can do this and provide a large extensive knowledgebase then this will lead to less support requests.
lets say you have a server with 300 clients on, if that server crashes and all sites are down, no matter if you have a support system that cost you $6 or one that cost $19,000 you will have 300 angry clients contacting you, so i believe more money should be spent on the server infrastructure rather than what support software you use as when it comes down to it all support/livechat software does the same primary job of allowing clients and prospective clients contact you.

All very fair points.

But for the sake of conversation, let me rotate the question a bit. Which route would you pick if your company was starting to generate $2-5 million annually? Would you stay with WHCMS, go to another solution (be it Kayako or something else) or develop a custom solution like some companies choose to do with their billing/control panels?

 

[easyhostmedia]

All very fair points.

But for the sake of conversation, let me rotate the question a bit. Which route would you pick if your company was starting to generate $2-5 million annually? Would you stay with WHCMS, go to another solution (be it Kayako or something else) or develop a custom solution like some companies choose to do with their billing/control panels?

for the billing/management side i think i would stick with WHMCS and their support tickets as it saves the hassle of integrating another support solution into WHMCS.
Live chat if i was making $2-5 million annually i think i would go back to a unlimited version of livezilla.

 

[Blue]

All very fair points.

But for the sake of conversation, let me rotate the question a bit. Which route would you pick if your company was starting to generate $2-5 million annually? Would you stay with WHCMS, go to another solution (be it Kayako or something else) or develop a custom solution like some companies choose to do with their billing/control panels?

If it were me I would continue to use WHMCS until I saw reason not to. I don't see how revenue is even an issue.
That is why I've been asking the questions I have. That is why I keep pursuing this when someone makes claims about a certain software capabilities.

Giving answers about the software that I can readily find on the website is worthless in any discussion about the software. That is why I asked for real world comparisons and examples of how one software made things better than another.
That is why I ask if the cost/benefit ratio is significant enough to make the change in software.

I'm not here to sell WHMCS or crap on Kayako. I am simply calling things as I see them. If someone comes here and makes certain claims as to the superiority of a product I see no reason not to challenge them on that. The answers could be beneficial to anyone who is reading the thread and considering a change in software.

 

[easyhostmedia]

i was happily using Livezilla as a livechat until they decided that their new version 4 would be chargeable at a huge cost, but version 3 would remain free, and would for the time being receive security updates but no support. i originally decided to say with version 3 until their was an issue which our techs informed us it was an issue with the script itself, so i contact livezilla and was told in a very abrupt email that if i wanted support i needed to upgrasde to version 4 so dont contact them again. so i tested several alternatives even the Kayako free trail, but this was not for me or my business, so the one i decided to go with was the Live chat addon for WHMCS.

 

[Artashes]

If it were me I would continue to use WHMCS until I saw reason not to.
[...]
I'm not here to sell WHMCS or crap on Kayako. I am simply calling things as I see them. If someone comes here and makes certain claims as to the superiority of a product I see no reason not to challenge them on that. The answers could be beneficial to anyone who is reading the thread and considering a change in software.

That's cool.

While a claim of Kayako being a superior product was indeed made, I think in all fairness it was probably meant from the perspective of a software being more elaborate and feature-rich, which personally I cannot comment on since I'm not using either product.

However, a claim that a more expensive product equals better support, in my view, is fundamentally wrong. It is like saying everyone who is driving an expensive luxury car is a better driver.

As you said, you'd "continue to use WHMCS until I saw reason not to". I assume that the reason you are talking about has to do with the software's inability to meet certain needs/objectives required by your business.

 

[Blue]

However, a claim that a more expensive product equals better support, in my view, is fundamentally wrong. It is like saying everyone who is driving an expensive luxury car is a better driver.

A good analogy.

I assume that the reason you are talking about has to do with the software's inability to meet certain needs/objectives required by your business.

Correct. If the software for some reason wasn't able to handle the extra volume then it would be wise to look at alternatives. Otherwise it wouldn't make a lot of sense to change without a cost benefit analysis.

 

[livetecshosting]

We are using WHMCS for both billing and ticket system. And it is working great so far. Integrated with other application always creates some problems.