New support statement.

[netFusion]

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

If you do want your ticket following up, please post in the General Discussion & Feedback forum with your ticket ID.

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

If you are finding you have to wait a long time for a reply, ensure that you are not replying to your same ticket in sequence - doing so puts you to "the back" of the queue.

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

The support forum is not a guaranteed support medium. There are no guaranteed responses to your postings or a guarantee that your posts will be responded to by a Kayako staff members. Whilst we strive to stay on top of things here, the main support medium is the support desk.

Hi Jamie!

I have some comments and then questions regarding the support statement you posted.

I've had the question of how Kayako wants us to reliably communicate with support, open with Varun for a long time now.

Your items on what to do if you need help do not give an adequate method of receiving help when you need it.

1. We should not have to post in the forum to get support to answer our questions. And since the majority of Kayako staff do not monitor the forum, this does not create a reliable avenue for getting help "from" Kayako support. This leads into #3...

2. If asking for a status update on a business critical issue moves it to the bottom of the queue, ensuring that no Kayako staff will respond to it, how do we get help?

3. You understand that the forums are not a guaranteed medium for support, and that the support desk is not a guaranteed medium for support as well, since you suggest that we should post in the forum to get our support ticket responded to.

How exactly does Kayako want us to get help in a reliable and consistant manner? After all, we do pay for this support, that we have so much difficulty accessing

These specific items of not being able to ask for help in the ticket and not being able to count on help from the forum are not acceptable to those of us who count on using Kayako's products in our business.

And why has Varun's promise that Kayako will offer phone support when they got moved into the new call center, never materialized? They have been in the new space for quite some time now.

Regards,

Eddie

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Eddie,

This support statement has been available on the forum for a long time, just not as an announcement. I have also updated it to reflect bug posting requirements etc.

The most reliable way of getting support is still through the help desk. My comments about posting here with a tickrt ID simply acknowledges the fact that sometimes tickets do slip and that by posting here you can prompt me and the staff towards your ticket.

The forum community should be seen as a supplement to your support.

I will add to the post making it more explicit that you do not need to post your ticket ID for a response every time.

With regsrds to being pushed to the back of the queue, for critical issues this does not tend to happen as described. In fact the statement in this respect may very well be outdated. The statement will be updated in due course.

Please do excusse any typing errors in my post, I am on a mobile.

Thanks,

[netFusion]

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

This support statement has been available on the forum for a long time, just not as an announcement. I have also updated it to reflect bug posting requirements etc.

Here's a link to a list of about 21 different support statements that have been posted:

http://forums.kayako.com/showthread.php?t=9170

Thus the frustration, over time, in not being able to know how we can reliably and consistantly count on being able to communication with support. Varun said he would be posting a clear, concise, and concrete support policy about six months ago, but it has not yet been made available to the customers.

Seeing your post stuck at the top of each forum creates the impression that this is the formal statement of support. But it does not appear to be as clear, concise, and concrete as Varun said it would be. Thus the confusion and concern.

I look forward to seeing the formal statement of support when it is made public.

Thanks,

Eddie

[PeteV]

netFusion:
http://forums.kayako.com/showthread.php?t=9170
Invalid Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator

In the meantime, does anyone know what type of SLA/Escalation (in Kayako's own terms) Kayako is using (i.e., roughly what to typically expect when submitting a Ticket to Kayako)? Days, weeks, months?
I certainly do not expect Support Tickets to be resolved quickly all the time, but a polite status update every now and then would be nice (e.g., "My name is Pete, and I will be working on your Ticket later this week." or "We are still working on your Ticket. We did this and that. You can expect a status update next week.").
I am a light Support user. My two resolved Tickets were addressed promptly, while my third Ticket has been idle for a week now, after I submitted it. So now I just wait patiently!?
Frankly, we would not be able to use eSupport for a mission-critical or core-function application in most serious organizations/businesses. The entire eSupport/Kayako operation is still to "unstable/unpredictable" for that (we could loose our jobs because of this). For example, most serious software support departments respond to inquiries within 24 or 48 hours.

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Pete,

What was your idle ticket ID?

Our reply target times for Sales is less than 3 hours and Support less than 6 hours. Tickets that require developer attention (and are subsequently moved to our bugs department) can take any amount of time and you should not expect frequent updates (non-updates) like those you mentioned - the developers simply cannot spare the time in that respect.

[PeteV]

That sounds fair enough.

However, how would a casual user know that their Ticket needs developer attention and was moved to the bugs department, and should expect potentially very long delays?

Perhaps when Support moves a Ticket to Bugs, they should send a pre-defined reply to the user, to let them know that this happened?

I am glad to hear that the developers are so busy, hopefully making lots of improvents to the code. But perhaps (someone at) Support could have access to Bugs tickets too, and periodically scan for "open" tickets with Last Replied dates of, e.g., two weeks or a even month ago, and "ping" the user with a pre-defined (non-)update?

Otherwise, how can the user find out whether a ticket fell right through the cracks, or whether a developer already looked at it, but has not figured out a solution yet?

Generally, it seems that organizations that operate transparently towards their clients are perceived as much more professional and efficient. Except for your contributions (and Ryan perhaps) in the forums, Kayako seems mostly opaque from the outside.

[craigbrass]

I agree that some kind of update at least every 2 weeks if not every week should be done just to update the client that it is still in progress.

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Pete,

Can I have your ticket ID?

[PeteV]

... and (for me at least) it would be acceptable to receive a Ticket that tells me that someone looked at my Ticket, but that it will be difficult for Kayako to resolve, and that it can take X weeks before it will (hopefully) be resolved -- I should not expect periodic updated until then. As I mentioned earlier, a support person can send this message, so as not to waste the developers' time.

You can argue that having to wait X weeks for a developer to resolve a Ticket is unacceptable, but at least from a communication perspective, this would be a great improvement (in contrast to the current state of eerie extended silence, as reported by many upset users on this forum).

[PeteV]

Perhaps I am missing something, but Kayako is using eSupport for customer support Tickets, right?

Then, why is it not possible for Kayako (i.e., Jamie) to hunt down Tickets that have not been responded to for a week or more (and that are not in the Bugs department)?!

I will gladly give my Ticket ID to you, but why can't you (or someone for you) find it?!

That is, you should not be looking up stale/idle Tickets only when an upset user bothers to complain in the forum, but you should be doing this yourself all the time!

We do exactly this all the time, to make sure that no Tickets fall through the cracks. Why isn't Kayako doing this too? Well, unless Kayako does not care enough about their Tickets perhaps!? (really not trying to flame here -- trying to see things optimistically -- it's getting a little bit hard for us right now).

[craigbrass]

Then, why is it not possible for Kayako (i.e., Jamie) to hunt down Tickets that have not been responded to for a week or more (and that are not in the Bugs department)?!

Jamie is a tad busy to be doing that but somebody doing it would be cool.

[Jamie Edwards]

Then, why is it not possible for Kayako (i.e., Jamie) to hunt down Tickets that have not been responded to for a week or more (and that are not in the Bugs department)?!

It is possible, and I do this already. (@Craig - once again I am not too busy to do something, this is one of the things that keeps me busy). As well as me, the department leaders also do this.

Tickets that require developer attention simply have to wait - there is no other way for me to dress-up the situation because otherwise I would be lying to you. Developers do not have the time to continually bump tickets notifying that it is "still being worked on" or "still waiting attention" - in fact, too many of these non-update-updates simply anger customers who are waiting.

If you really want this kind of update to your ticket from a support technician (who may not know what the situation is, so will not be able to tell you anything useful) then I am sure we can arrange that for you.

I will gladly give my Ticket ID to you, but why can't you (or someone for you) find it?!

I tried a search on your forum e-mail address, but nothing came up. I suppose that you have raised the ticket from another address. I am still waiting for your ticket ID; if you want me to follow this up promptly then please let me know which ticket you need chasing up.

We deal with tickets in the 100s each day, very few tickets are lost track of; and when they are it is usually the mistake of a staff member which is why such a ticket will not show up in our searches.

[PeteV]

Jamie,

thank you very much for your explanations.

I understand the limitations of developers' time, and the fact that non-updates cost time too.

However, if you look at it from our perspective, submitting that "idle" Ticket was not very satisfying at all (even when considering the abovementioned limitations).'

To submit the Ticket, we had to first login to the Members Area, then select a hyperlink, and then login to the Support Center. One of our managers was looking over my shoulder, and he had a deep frown on his forehead...

After we submitted the Ticket, we received an AutoReply, as expected. When our managers ask about the Ticket, we have to tell them that we have heard nothing at from Kayako since then. Now we have a number of managers with deep frowns on their foreheads.

A typical conversation between us and our managers these days: "Isn't Customer Support included in the price of hosted eSupport?" "Yes, it is." "Then why is Kayako not responding at all?" "We have no idea." That is not good." "No, it is not." "What can we do about this?" "Not sure, we can ask in the user forum perhaps?" "Oh." "By the way, here is the invoice for next month's hosted eSupport." "Oh."

If we would have received a response from Kayako that our Ticket needed developers' attention, was moved to the "Bugs" department, and might need an extended period of time to be resolved, that would have helped a lot.

How are we supposed to tell whether a Ticket was lost or was placed on the snail-track?

[Jamie Edwards]

Hi Pete,

Usually a ticket is received by a technician OR support staff. The problem is investigated. If the support staff cannot figure out the problem, it is escalated to a technician or a developer. The technician (possibly with assistance of the developer) or the developer will then work on the issue. If a ticket needs to wait for a developer's update, the technician will tell the customer that this is the case.

It appears as though you were not notified of this in this case, and I apologise for that. I cannot tell for sure, however; I still do not have your ticket ID. Is there a reason you are reluctant to give it to me?

[craigbrass]

I can see this is frustrating for somebody like yourself who has higher managers on your case waiting for an answer. If you could show them replies that said "we are still working on the issue" this would satisfy so would be handy if this was always done for tickets older than x number of days.