Has support improved?

[aquiss]

As part of my selection process to replace a tired cerberus system i'm trying my best to ensure I cover all points. Cerberus IMHO has lost it's way, with a GUI that needs a major rethink.

I fully accept that every business goes through bad spells, that the nature of running a business, however I want to ensure that support has improve at Kayako? I came across some negative comments, granted that were from the middle of 2006, but I would like to think that these issues have been addressed and at the very least become a proactive part of Kayako's day to day business operations.

So far Jamie on these forums has been pretty darn great in all fairness, which is quite positive indeed, but I'm aware that sales is the easy part

Looking forward to some balanced comments from the community.

[craigbrass]

Support is a lot better now.

I have done a few small changes via the live help and you get somebody within a few minutes (changes like changing the domain licensed) and you can usually get somebody within a minute or two.

Tickets I have found get answered within 2-3 hours which is pretty good.

[bear]

Cerberus IMHO has lost it's way, with a GUI that needs a major rethink.

It was the change from the old GUI and operation of Cerb that made me go with Kayako in the first place. I liked the old system far better than the new, so it was a simple decision and I've been quite happy with my choice.

Is support better now than it had been a year ago? Yes, I'd have to say so. A new Communication manager, responses in shorter time frames, and so on. Much improved.

[craigbrass]

A new Communication manager

Should just be "A Communication manager" actually as we never had one before *winks*

[sureshkumar.mr]

Lets take an example.

I opened a ticket with high priority on 8-May-2007 and ticket id is RKY-843333.

They said there is an issue and they will fix and update me soon.

Its a very small issue, a wrong message in audit trail. When a client update ticket properties from Support Center it shows "Entry Type: System" instead of "Entry Type: Client".

Till date they have not sent any fix. There is no developer assigned separately to take up and fix high priority issues. There is no update in the bug tracker also. This clearly shows they dont update bugs regularly.

They themself don't use their support tool effectively. FAQs or Knowledgebase are not updated regularly.

It is a people-driven company and not process-driven. They never announce tentative dates, the releases or fixes depends on their own will and wish.

There are few testers / supporters who always talk pro of Kayako as if they are not facing any problem. It is better to know who they are if there is an option to display an IP address below each message.

Silly issues are solved quickly, the staff (including Sr. staff) never try to understand the problem completely, they immediately arrive at some conclusion.

There are little improvements on documentation side after Jamie joined.

We always hesitate to raise any support requests and try to find out work around ourself.

We are not comfortable with Kayako support till date.

[craigbrass]

In reply to sureshkumar.mr's issue, this should of been submitted to http://bugs.kayako.com. Tickets and the Forum are not methods for getting bugs resolved to be honest.

If you look at the bugs system, bugs are getting fixed a lot faster these days.

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Suresh,

I with Kayako, and there is no problem with that. Hopefully I can address some of your issues:

1. Your ticket was responded to within an hour of receipt.
2. Three days later, a developer confirmed the issue for you and informed you he began working on the problem.

It is now the 6th working day later and the developer is close to fixing it. I am sorry it was not fix immediately, but there are a number of concurrent cases that each developer is working on so please do have patience. This bug was classed as a medium priority bug.

The developer (Mahesh, who first contacted you and has been assigned the bug) will get back to you soon.

Thanks,

[supportskins]

Besides bugs and tracing related issues do take a longer time than expected. That cannot be considered as poor support

[sureshkumar.mr]

I do agree tracing takes lot of time. But in my case the problem was identified on 11-May and today is 21st. One or two days is acceptable to fix a simple issue, but not 10 days.

There should be some SLA defined. Even I am answerable to some one.

[Jamie Edwards]

Originally Posted by sureshkumar.mr

I do agree tracing takes lot of time. But in my case the problem was identified on 11-May and today is 21st. One or two days is acceptable to fix a simple issue, but not 10 days.

There should be some SLA defined. Even I am answerable to some one.

Hi Suresh,

The developers do not work over the weekends, and as I said it as been around 5-6 days since your bug was confirmed and added to the developer's to-do list; there are a number of other things the developer is working on at the same time so please do have patience. I am sure you will agree that most bugs in the tracker are fixed very quickly.