Another Dissatisfied Customer

[auctioninc]

I feel compelled to share with the forum our recent - well, ongoing - miserable experience with Kayako support. This is certainly not my style, and Im sure I am burning any rickety bridges that might theoretically exist, but at this point I am more concerned with warning others than protecting my own interests. We have been a customer for years. Recently we decided to move from the leased version- we were hacked thru it a few months ago - to the hosted version. We were assured that it would be no problem to import our existing database into it in short order.

Working with Hiren, we provided our database to them in a variety of ways, none of which seemed to suit them. They really dont seem to understand the concept of a database dump! After a slow, incredibly frustrating exchange of emails over a period of many days, Hiren has simply stopped responding.

Exerpts from my last two exchanges from him:

Posted On: 03 Aug 2006 02:25 PM
Hiren,

You there?

I know Im just one customer to you, and Im sure you have many high priority tasks, but on my side my life is **** because of the time this is taking. And having NO IDEA how long this is going to take you, or even if you are working on it, is by far the worst part. I dont know if we should be waiting or starting the laborious effort of re-creating our data!!

I do know that our new customer registration, the primary users of our support system, has essentially stopped for almost a week now. My company, rightly, blames me. Before we decided to go with the hosted solution we confirmed with your Sales Dept that the DB import from our version would be a simple matter. I have email from Raghav Arora to this effect.

Our company has certainly become an extremely dissatisfied customer of your services. I am under tremendous pressure to dump your product and start from scratch with something else-- something I have no wish to do. How hard is it to send me an email and let me know what your status is? Good customer support is usually just a simple matter of keeping your customers informed!


Posted On: 04 Aug 2006 02:25 PM

I dont expect that you care one bit, but this has certainly been one of the most negative and frustrating experiences I have ever had with technical support of any company. Is this really the way you want to do business with your customers? I know from reading the forum how many other customers have had the same experience with you. What a shame; you have a decent product but it makes no difference if you treat customers this way, especially long term ones such as ourselves that have been with you for years. How ironic that you sell customer support software!

[phalseid]

Originally Posted by auctioninc

I feel compelled to share with the forum our recent - well, ongoing - miserable experience with Kayako support.

-snip-

by your previous posts (http://forums.kayako.com/search.php?searchid=585290), looks like you are running leased instead of hosted. not a lot they can do to control your config when something breaks as in your case and you upgrade/break stuff.

personally, i have hosted and wouldn't do it any other way.

next question: most helpdesks out there cost a small fortune, or, if they are open source, charge for support. (look at what sugarcrm will run you). You might want to go that way anyway.

last question: i see you posted your question here, but that the problem related to your OS/config? i know you have a frustrating experience, and that you have people breathing down your neck. but don't fault the product and the support when the product and support is not at fault.

you have had the product for a while, you said. but you didnt register on the forums until recently. your karma for a freely supported product is not looking that hot.

just my two cents/opinion. no flames please.

[auctioninc]

That issue was in regard to our leased version, not our new hosted version. We are currently subscribing to both! The pending issue- ie database import - has entirely to do with our hosted version. And of course, we pay for support!

[Digital Mayhem]

auctioninc I see that you posted that you replied on Aug 3rd and then again Aug 4th... You aware they respond to tickets in order received and every time you reply to a ticket you go to the end of the line.... So thats probably why you dont get a reply is cause you keep going to end of line cause you keep on replying to ticket... When I send a ticket I just leave it alone and I get a reply within 2 days which is great.

[jamesM]

XeSolutions lets see how many emails you send when a key part of your site is down that effects your business and you have clients and managers calling you to get updates you will have to do every thing in your power to try and get it fixed. I also hate people hiding behind the cost of a product if a product states that it offers support than you expect to get it. But saying that I do feel that Kayako are addressing the support issues at hand and are listen to its users base and that has been shown by moving to a new office and to train more staff and get a larger trained support staff and not always having to call in the big guns (Hiren) to fix big issues but lets see how things change over the coming months and lets hope that it is not vaper ware.

[Digital Mayhem]

jamesM a key part of my site has been down in the past and I opened 1 Ticket and didn't keep adding to it several times a day.. I just waited and harassed Varun on IM

[MACscr]

To me it doesnt matter if he went to the end of the line or not. Every trouble ticket should be touched every day if its open! Also, the rest of us dont have the luxury of talking to Varun whenever we want on IM.

If you look around the forums, there are many many unsatisified customers.

[Mikie]

Well with all the grand offices and all the staff they supposedly have you would think they had the people to respond to their clients.