Unified ticket system

[megmond]

Lately, we see a number of customers submitting tickets for sales questions, that are told: 'email sales'.

This raises the interesting question why the tech would not be able to simply forward the request.

Now I can think of a number of technical problems that would make it difficult to do this, so perhaps it would be a better idea to get sales on the ticket system as well.

Then you should 'simply' add a dropdown list in which the customer can select the appropriate department and it should also be easier to reroute tickets sent to the wrong department.

(The 'simply' is quoted because I realize this, too, might not be easy, but IMHO it's definately worth trying to achieve.)

I'll also post this message on the Jaguar forum to increase exposure.

[jkeller]

I already posted over in the Jaguar forum -- but posting here shows twice the support, right?!

I'd like to add that I'm also looking forward to a non-flat file system. I've already had one ticket lost, and I'm not the only one. It'd definitely be better to have a more robust system, and one that integrates all support issue types.

[timechange]

Flat file systems are like tires, once you go flat you need to reboot!

[kiwi li]

Yah... I had to copy and paste the response to either billing or sales. Not too much of a hassle, but communication between them would increase have more positive effects maybe?

*signs*

[JPC-Greg]

We dont want sales in teh ticket system since it clutters the system and slows down support requests. If clients will email sales directly there should be no delay.

[EHG]

Today I emailed sales@aletia.com in reference to renewing my site. I asked for certain specific information and amazingly enough

I RECEIVED A PROMPT RESPONSE -- NOW THAT RATTLED MY CAGE ABIT.

After reading the response and realizing that it contained all the requested information that was necessary per my request ... I had to sit down otherwise I might have fallen down.

It's a good thing this Duck was not flying at the time he might have quacked up!

Really I did get a very timely response and it covered all the issues that I expressed concern about.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK GUYS -

The first step in making a company prosper is to GET THE CUSTOMERS MONEY.

The second step is a tad harder - THAT'S TO KEEP THE CUSTOMERS HAPPY SO THAT THEY CONTINUE GIVING YOU THEIR MONEY!!

[jkeller]

Originally posted by Jag
We dont want sales in teh ticket system since it clutters the system and slows down support requests. If clients will email sales directly there should be no delay.

Greg, I agree on principle -- the principle of the back office being run smoothly. But I have to bring up that it's been a very common complaint that clients are responsible for re-routing their own requests -- sometimes more than once (support to sales to billing, for example).

I think these people have a point: they've taken the time to write in, and sometimes explain their request in detail. To be told that they'll have to re-submit the entirety of their request, when it was already submitted to the company, seems an unecessary burden when the process could be automated.

It seems to me that providing a pull-down menu for certain types of requests (domain name maintenance, changing service plan, etc) that would route to the appropriate department would solve the problem for all. Providing this type of option -- not just a "billing" option and certianly not exclusively using an e-mail address for billing -- would avoid human error and any extra work from anyone. The added benefit is that clients wouldn't need to understand why it's billing who takes care of domain names, and not the "official" support desk (or it it sales? even I'm confused).

Just because the support system could handle billing questions doesn't meant that it slows down the support staff. Making it possible to submit a ticket and completely bypass the support staff would in fact represent a savings in their time. Plus, it would be evident as soon as a client arrived how to enter a request for a billing-related business process. It's not their fault that they don't know that technical support doesn't handle some (arguably) technical questions.

Another benefit would be tracking. There have been many people posting with complaints that they're not sure if their e-mail was even reeceived. Certainly, this won't resolve the problem of people unwilling to wait a reasonable amount of time. But tracking whether a ticket has been received -- and being able to rank its urgency -- would at least give some posistive feedback. As a company with an international client base, it's not unusual for you to receive requests when no one is in the office. A tracking system would give the same transparency to the suport process as people receiving technical support are afforded.

Certainly, there are poorly written requests. And there will always need to be a way to select "billing", "sales", or "support" (rather than choosing a type of support resquest, as I mentioned above). But the kind of system that I outline above -- in conjuntion with the presumed ongoing programming a non-flat file based ticket system -- seems to me a solution that would allow everyone to come out a winner.

[megmond]

Hmm.. Without knowing too much about the wonderdesk software, I just feel that it should be possible in (maybe different) helpdesk-software to reroute certain tickets to certain staff (departments).

This way you could use a single ticket system with a 'technical/billing/misc/...' dropdown selection (or similar) for all forms of support requests. The requests will then be forwarded (or made available) to the proper department. This means the support people will not spend *any* additional time to handle the requests and should indeed even lower the work by tech support because they currently have to reply to stray tickets coming in.

Surely the hardware will be able to handle the additional amount of tickets without problem.

Using the ticket system has clear and important benefits jkeller already mentioned, but also it allows some more standard input fields available so there is less chance the user omits important information (like the doman name or account in question). It should also give the customer a single place for all forms of support making it easier, more logical and more efficient.

(And a sales@ address is then only needed for questions by people who are not yet customers).

In any case, I think it should be something to take into account in your search for a replacement for wonderdesk (if wonderdesk really can't do that). I do realize there is still moving going on, so it's not a top-priority right now, but think it would be a great improvement for the support system. Seeing the reactions on this thread I think many of the customers agree.

[lookout]

I already responded briefly in the Jaguar thread on this topic, but thought I'd better weigh in here too, like some of the rest of you.

I don't mind if sales, billing, and support are treated separately, although some kind of unified system would be my preference. My major concern is using email as the primary means of reaching ANY JaguarPC department. Besides the tracking problem others have mentioned, there's a serious security problem. Email is NOT a secure means of communicating personal account information.

If the sales and billing can't be added for some reason to the support ticket system, perhaps they could be given their own ticket systems? At least that would address the tracking and security issues.

[Joshua Clinard]

I agree that different departments should be added to the ticket system. It can only improve sales overall. If the software does not allow the ticket submitter to choose a department that the request is to be sent to, then perhaps a new system should be used. I really like the Aletia Ticket system. It seemed to do everything that we are asking for. Perhaps it can be adapted for Jaguar. I also think that it was more stable that the wonderdesk program. Perhaps that is because the Aletia helpdesk was written in PHP, which is more stable and robust that CGI.

[jkeller]

Originally posted by Joshua Clinard
I really like the Aletia Ticket system. It seemed to [...] more stable that the wonderdesk program. Perhaps that is because the Aletia helpdesk was written in PHP, which is more stable and robust that CGI.

I also liked the Aletia system. But it was a custom job, by Ron, so it was "right-sized" for hosts in general, and Aletia in particular. That's why I think it seemed so much nicer.

Just to clarify, though: an app isn't more stable than another because of the language, but how well it's programmed. I'd say it's a testament to Ron's programming skills and Wonderdesk's use of a text file (instead of a "real" database) as to the difference in stability.

[Neva]

Jaguar's ticket system is definitely not on par with Aletia's, and even if it doesn't get expanded quite so much, I don't see why it can't be improved. Primarily, I see two major things:

1. Priority. This drives me crazy. How on earth are the techs supposed to know the difference between major issues and minor ones? I do, and I think rightly so, expect major issues to be taken care of first.

2. More detail on the categories list. All of the areas seem rather vague, and I can think of more than a few problems I've had in the past that I wouldn't know how to qualify, on that list.

If those two were fixed, I think the system would be far better.

[Joshua Clinard]

Originally posted by jkeller

Just to clarify, though: an app isn't more stable than another because of the language, but how well it's programmed. I'd say it's a testament to Ron's programming skills and Wonderdesk's use of a text file (instead of a "real" database) as to the difference in stability.

It is a well known fact that PHP is better than cgi. It might not be more "stable" but it is far more robust. It's also easier to program, from what I've heard, and that may make a particular script more stable, becuase thier may be less coding errors, due to it's ease of use.

[jason]

"Better" is a loaded word. The best tool for a given job is the tool that the person doing the job is most comfortable using. PHP was designed for the web, and as such a tool, it features lots of shortcuts for web developemnt. This doesn't mean that a perl coder is going to find it better if he or she has never seen the a line of it before. A stable program is a program with no coding errors. You can make a stable program in perl or you can make a stable program in PHP. You can also make an unstable program in perl and an unstable program in PHP. It all comes down to the skill of the programmer in developing and debugging in any language.

A lot of people (myself included) find PHP easier to use for web development. Others perfer Perl becasue they've used perl for so long. Thoise of us old-timers here will remember Tim Greer, a tech who used to work at JPC. He was a perl die-hard and would probably chose Perl over PHP any day. (Actually, its too bad he isn't still here, because he would have a lot of insight for this thread. )

--Jason

[JPC-Greg]

Originally posted by Neva
Jaguar's ticket system is definitely not on par with Aletia's, and even if it doesn't get expanded quite so much, I don't see why it can't be improved. Primarily, I see two major things:

1. Priority. This drives me crazy. How on earth are the techs supposed to know the difference between major issues and minor ones? I do, and I think rightly so, expect major issues to be taken care of first.

2. More detail on the categories list. All of the areas seem rather vague, and I can think of more than a few problems I've had in the past that I wouldn't know how to qualify, on that list.

If those two were fixed, I think the system would be far better.

The categories can be tweaked ...thats simple. The priority listing for tickets was intentionally removed. The priority listing does us no good what so ever, why? Everyone thinks every problem they have is an emergency so instead of having all normal tickets we have all emergency tickets. ... eitehr way we still have to sort out what is trully an emergency and what is not.

Im sure some of you and maybe even everyone that reads this thread may abid by the honor system to mark their issue appropriately but there are 7000 others that wont, sadly enough.