Support suffering

[danwednesday]

Hi,

Has anyone noticed that the quality of support (chat support) has gone down dramatically recently?

It seems to be common now to connect to an operator and be told that they're immediately "working on" your problem when in actual fact it just seems like they're dealing with other enquiries, as the dialogue doesn't kick in until 30-40 mins later.

Over the weekend, I was held for over half an hour, with the operator "working on it" before I even gave full details to the operator to look into the problem. Then, it took almost 2 hours to answer a simple question.

It just seems like the quality of the operators has deteriorated, and also the availability too. When I pay £2000+ per year for hosting services at EUKHost, and I select 'Windows dedicated support' from the chat drop-down, I expect better really.

My assumption for the reason for the apparent decline (purely my assumption and observations) is that EUKHost have opened up and promoted support services to end-users. I always thought that this was risky as it pretty much opens up EUKHost's support department to an unlimited volume of support requests. If you're selling cheap 'unlimited' reseller packages, then it's bound to create issues when you have to support these 'unlimited' end users for no extra margin. Very concerning indeed.

I don't like to post such negative comments, so I'll try to suggest something constructive... Perhaps the support department could be structured by knowledge, such that the 'better' operators are available for the more complex issues (such as those arising on dedicated servers) and the slightly less knowledgeable operators support the general "how do I set up a POP3 account" type enquiries from the shared hosting platforms. I don't think it's great for the £30 per year client of a cheap unlimited shared hosting EUKHost customer can take resources from those paying thousands of pounds per year for dedicated servers and support.

All in all, still happy with EUKHost, but thought it best to share my issues so that you guys know and can take this on board. Also welcoming discussion from others, as I may well just be alone in my experiences recently and they could all have been pure coincidence.

[Rock]

Hi Dan,

Please accept our sincere apologies for the sour experience you had recently with our Windows Support Team. I've strictly instructed the team members involved in this to tackle such support instances properly in the future & have demanded an explanation on the delay in resolution. I also forwarded this exceptional case over to our Quality Analysis Department & have asked them to go through such chats & tickets thoroughly & action accordingly to improve our customer services.

We've formed a separate & special dedicated server management department for handling issues related to dedicated server clients, not because they pay more for the services, but for quality support & on top priority basis. This special team will consist of senior system administrators possessing extreme skills in all fields & will be available 24x7 for providing top notch assistance. No more such delays would be noticed henceforth.

Please let know if you have any concerns regarding our web hosting services & all of your suggestions would be welcomed positively, for sure...

[Chris123]

Down here at the nickel and dime end of things, I can appreciate danwednesday's concern.
The first thing I looked for in the forums was a FAQ section.
Second was a beginners' section.
Didn't find either.
My experience from other forums, is that they divert a large number of queries and lots of time, from people who get fed up with answering the same questions forever.

Lots of good stuff is out there on the net somewhere of course, in which case a link is fine.

[Smithy]

I have to agree with Dan.

Support isn't as quick as it used to be.

I upgraded server and it has been a complete nightmare so far. Loads of software is still missing. Over 24hours later and FFmpeg still hasn't been installed. Maybe offering End User Support isn't such a good idea. Dedicated Server customers have to wait ages for responses.

Also I keep receiving emails with "Dedicated server alert: IP Address : server.hostname.com

No one is even checking the problem. The ticket gets automatically closed or someone is closing them and more keep being created. How is that monitoring the server.

Sort it out eUKhost. I have had great support for many months but lately support really is suffering.

Regards,
Chris.

[Cristiano]

Hi Chris,

The alerts you receive were due to the SNMP and mysql ports not enabled in the server firewall. We did closed the tickets as I opened the required ports in the server firewall. If you access the monitoring URL, you will see the status of all services to be online.

Yes, strength of support members is not the same as that on weekdays & that is the reason delay in reply.

Your understanding and cooperation is much appreciated.

[Smithy]

Hi Cristiano,

Ok, well since I joined eUKhost I have had great support from Alex P, Cristanio, Angelo S and Victor. Also had good support from Rick and Peter M to name a few.

These guys really know their stuff. I have learned a lot of stuff about Linux thanks to them which will help me manage my servers better.

I hope support times can be improved a little though. Soon as new server is setup like my old server I should be be all set then.

On another note: I have had much better server uptime with eUKhost compared to other providers I've used.

Regards,
Chris

[Cristiano]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for appreciating the efforts & additional inputs.

As posted by Rock in his previous post, we have formed a Dedicated Server Management Team. This special team will consist of senior system administrators possessing extreme skills in all fields & will be available 24x7 for providing top notch assistance. No more such delays would be noticed henceforth.

This team will be in action by end of this month. I am sure, the delays will be minimized by that time.

[eUKhost.com]

Hi Dan and Chris,

We are making few major changes which will take effect from 1st September 2010. We have formed 2 new teams to improve quality of our support. We have few hours training session for both the teams every day, which has added extra work load on the other teams, but things should be perfect from 1st September 2010.

Starting from 1st September, you will have a dedicated account manager from the CRM team and separate team of experts to handle only Dedicated Server tickets and chats. Nothing will change for the Shared Hosting customers, but support will improve a lot for the Dedicated Server hosting customers.

I will contact you once the teams start working on the responsibilities assigned to them. You are most welcome to email your concerns to mark[at]eukhost.com if you face any problems in next few days.

[daledavies]

Im glad you are making changes, I have to agree with Dan here. The support via your ticketing system it terrible. SOmetimes it feels as if the support people don't read things properly and do not communicate with eachother.

When a customer is sitting there waiting because they cannot access their web account or email I'd say it would it feel more reasuring to know that someone has taken ownership of the problem. Instead it feels as if you are being passed around from one person to the next.

I think every time I have needed support I have had to turn to the forums, because I have been aunable to get to the bottom of a problem via the ticketing system. Either I have felt ignored or just that my problem has not been understood.