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Support

Posted 12-07-2011 at 11:51 AM by kbscores

There are so many forms of support these days. It seems as technology grows so does the number of forms and quality of support we receive. I'm always so hesitant to call different companies because you never know if you are going to get a random person reviewing a guide for assistance or an actual person who has technical experience. Even within one organization I work for one group of technical support staff is split into three different levels. Each level works as a filter for each call or email submitted. The more technical a problem is the further it moves through support chain. Usually issues are resolved within minutes but there are times when requests are made that do take a while. I will admit as well not every support staff person has a technical background; however, they do understand their responsibilities and limitations. For the majority of our customers one maybe two calls suffice and our overall rating for customer support is excellent.

Having to call an organization four times to resolve a single technical issue is unacceptable, especially in a business environment. Last week I contacted our ISP, because they randomly changed our static IP bringing down a single subsection of computers. They then proceeded to tell me that there was no static IP set and to set it would take at minimum 24 hours. I obviously complained – First they should have notified us that our IP was changing. Second it is completely ridiculous that we have to wait 24 hours to receive our new IP information. They should be able to look this information up to provide it over the phone right then and there even if it will take 24 hours for it to process. At least from our end we could have set up or equipment with new information.

My complaints were ignored and 24 hours later I was on the phone again with at that point my fifth different “technical support” person. Not only could he not log into his own system, but fifteen minutes later he informs me that everything may not be ok and it may take up to another 24 hours for issue to be resolved. I attempted to verify with him all our information, but he seemed confident that they had everything they needed and refused confirmation. Seeing as this was on a Friday – 24 hours later was Saturday. So yay for weekend work!

Needless to say this went on for another two days, because our new IP information did not work because it wasn’t bound to our equipment. The mere fact that it took four days to resolve an issue that could have been fixed in one call is unacceptable. Is this really an acceptable standard of business? We cannot be the only company suffering from poor support from this ISP. The worst part of this situation is we have no other options for an ISP.

So if you are like me and have had enough of crappy support, don’t go unheard. If we all just accept the status quo, things will never get better. They may even get worse. And if you manage a support team, seriously take into consideration your staff and support provided. Constantly review and verify that your team understands their responsibilities and limitations. And most importantly listen to your customers. Odds are they make more sense than given credit and can provide a better insight into your own product.
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