10 replies to this topic

[Rodney-E2]

After running Eleven2 for over 8 years now and processing well over 100,000 tickets, I have a few wise words to tell you have to get the fastest support with us or really any company you deal with.

Please note while these points are true and valid, allot of the commentary is truthful humor. We hear crazy stuff everyday.

1. Check our self-help resources, they are the fastest method to get help.
Check the Knowledge Base, Forum or our Video Tutorials. Doing a simple search will save you allot of time.

2. Check Google.
Actually I would recommend: http://lmgtfy.com. We did a recent study for 48 hours of tickets at Eleven2, 65% of the tickets were not actually related to anything that we have todo on our end. Most of the issues were about Mail Clients, PHP Code, and other questions that while we love to help you with, we actually did not really need to help you.

3. Use 1 method of support and stick to that method during the whole process.
This is one of the biggest reasons that our support does slow down at times. We have customers that will be on our live chat, on our phones and submit a ticket all at the same time. This does nothing but simply slow your process down. Once you open a ticket, please wait on that response. Our chat and phone reps cannot give you any more updates other than what you see in your ticket.

4. Please be courteous.
I think this stands for itself. No cuss words, no yelling. We will do the same as well.

5. Please don't tell us about your customer who just lost a billion dollars cause they missed a email.
If you are loosing a billion dollars over a email, which you host on a service that starts at $4.95 per month, you really need to just quit at life. People generally don't loose a billion dollars over emails, and yes we hear this one weekly.

I ran out of items tonight, but no problem, they will come to me shortly

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

[CyrusKafaiWu]

I tend to do number three all the time but with live chat and tickets only. I should stop.

And I also dont comprehend number 5 for some reason.

[tomsiodlak]

Rodney-E2, on 12 February 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

5. Please don't tell us about your customer who just lost a billion dollars cause they missed a email.
If you are loosing a billion dollars over a email, which you host on a service that starts at $4.95 per month, you really need to just quit at life. People generally don't loose a billion dollars over emails, and yes we hear this one weekly.

I understand frustration when websites go down or when you are unable to receive emails, this is something that should not happen but will happen and is inevitable with every host at some point. I would suggest to these customers that if their customers are losing billions of dollars and hosted on a shared server, they should probably be on a more dedicated server to ensure optimal uptime. I run one small blog and have not had any downtime yet with Eleven2 but in the past with my old hosts, I was upset when my sites and email went down. If I was hosting important clients, I would probably be on a more expensive server with Eleven2.

[Xstrike]

Very good advice in regards to support. I usually use support tickets or live chat only when it relates to my account. For other issues like cPanel/WHM usage or something similar, I turn to Google for that. I have to say that the support here is top-notch, fast responses and kind supporters. The least anyone can do as a client is be patient.

[CyrusKafaiWu]

tomsiodlak, on 13 February 2011 - 12:50 AM, said:

I understand frustration when websites go down or when you are unable to receive emails, this is something that should not happen but will happen and is inevitable with every host at some point. I would suggest to these customers that if their customers are losing billions of dollars and hosted on a shared server, they should probably be on a more dedicated server to ensure optimal uptime. I run one small blog and have not had any downtime yet with Eleven2 but in the past with my old hosts, I was upset when my sites and email went down. If I was hosting important clients, I would probably be on a more expensive server with Eleven2.

Thanks for clarifying.

[Developer]

Number 3 is a tuffy for me. Especially when I have clients calling me. It does make sense. It is so hard to wait to hear a response that is why in the past (not with E2) have used all three manners. I guess you are teaching patiences heh. Back to school for me.

Rodney-E2, on 12 February 2011 - 10:12 PM, said:

After running Eleven2 for over 8 years now and processing well over 100,000 tickets, I have a few wise words to tell you have to get the fastest support with us or really any company you deal with.

Please note while these points are true and valid, allot of the commentary is truthful humor. We hear crazy stuff everyday.

1. Check our self-help resources, they are the fastest method to get help.
Check the Knowledge Base, Forum or our Video Tutorials. Doing a simple search will save you allot of time.

2. Check Google.
Actually I would recommend: http://lmgtfy.com. We did a recent study for 48 hours of tickets at Eleven2, 65% of the tickets were not actually related to anything that we have todo on our end. Most of the issues were about Mail Clients, PHP Code, and other questions that while we love to help you with, we actually did not really need to help you.

3. Use 1 method of support and stick to that method during the whole process.
This is one of the biggest reasons that our support does slow down at times. We have customers that will be on our live chat, on our phones and submit a ticket all at the same time. This does nothing but simply slow your process down. Once you open a ticket, please wait on that response. Our chat and phone reps cannot give you any more updates other than what you see in your ticket.

4. Please be courteous.
I think this stands for itself. No cuss words, no yelling. We will do the same as well.

5. Please don't tell us about your customer who just lost a billion dollars cause they missed a email.
If you are loosing a billion dollars over a email, which you host on a service that starts at $4.95 per month, you really need to just quit at life. People generally don't loose a billion dollars over emails, and yes we hear this one weekly.

I ran out of items tonight, but no problem, they will come to me shortly

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

[Xstrike]

Another piece of good advice is don't send multiple support tickets of the same problem, it's pointless and a waste of time if the original one hasn't been updated yet, and you're slowing down support more with them. Wait for the first one to be updated, and only reply to it when either support responds to you or you have some additional information to add that will help support help you with your issue.

You should also use a level of support depending on your issue. If you have a minor problem, issue a support ticket. If there's something more serious going on, use live chat or call for a faster response.

It really all comes down to patience though, having patience to wait for a reply from support will greatly help you with your issue instead of overloading support with your problem. Even if your site is down, just wait it out.

[Mike Grace]

How has eleven2's instant chat helped? I'm curious if you get about the same stuff as you do through the tickets.

[tomsiodlak]

Mike Grace, on 14 February 2011 - 08:29 AM, said:

How has eleven2's instant chat helped? I'm curious if you get about the same stuff as you do through the tickets.

I tried using the instant chat twice. The first were sales questions and I was helped and very happy with. The second I tried to ask for support but I didn't get a person. It just turned my question into a ticket which was fine. I'd like to see the instant chat being used for quick tech or server questions as well. The same for twitter if we just need to quickly let the Eleven2 guys know a server went down or something that is probably effecting multiple people.

[earonc]

I generally start with the Knowledge base, then the ticket system and last by phone. I expect an immediate confirmation of ticket receipt and I did receive it with my first inquiry. I anticipate a reply within 24 hours. I'm still waiting for that. Finally, my first phone call (after 24 hours) I was told the tech folks would be in at 9:00am and would respond, I am still waiting. Not really the service I expected (for Cloud VIP - self-managed). I started this process a month before I expected to use it. So far the knowledge base is thin of information, so the ticket system seems to have problems.

Currently we are using a dedicated server that is self-managed. No problem there. We are actually thinking of moving to cloud services to provide us more flexibility. Your Cloud VIP self-managed seemed to be an excellent way to start moving in that direction. So far, I have difficulty in installing whm/cPanel (paid for a license, I get a trial version), updating my name servers with those supplied by Eleven2 have returned a "Nameserver not registered" message from my domain registers account.

Overall, not a real good start, but we expected problems moving to Cloud services. Thank goodness this isn't a production system yet.

[Brains]

Thanks for guideline,