"Your server XXX is down at this time. We are already working on it." message. BS?

[heavyharmonies]

BEGIN VENT

I don't remember at what point this "feature" was implemented. It was after I first came here, but it may have been a few years ago.

Any time my server is down and I go to open a support ticket, I see a message that says

Your server XXXXXXX is down at this time. We are already working on it.

The implication being that the issue is already being taken care of.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Without exception, NOTHING ever happens until I actually file a ticket and say "Yo! Server's Down. What's going on?"

Even if I don't file the ticket until the server has been down an hour or more.

If support staff don't do anything until the customer files a ticket, why the heck is that message there to discourage people from filing support tickets?

In my opinion it's B.S. trying to imply that support is more effective than it actually is.

I've now gotten to the point that I'm just going to ignore the damned thing. It doesn't actually mean anything. It's just annoying.

END VENT

[JPC-Sabrina]

I will point this out to management. When you receive this type of message you can be assured that our technicians are working as effectively as they can to restore your service even if a support ticket has not been started. We do appreciate and value your opinion. It will be passed along so that we can explore better systems to restore services more quickly. Your satisfaction is our goal.

[Ron]

HeavyHarmonies, I agree completely, but my experience with this is on the old side.

There used to be many, MANY times when the reporting system was saying a service on my server was down, and nothing was EVER done about it until a ticket was opened for it. So after learning the hard way, the ticket gets opened regardless of the monitoring system's status. But like I said, it's been a long while since that's happened to me/my server.

I'm sure that Katrina will figure this all out if she's given the resources.

[heavyharmonies]

It's just frustrating as hell that years later, support has not improved at all (in my opinion), and has in fact gotten worse.

At just under the 3-hour downtime mark today, I said "the hell with this" and called the toll-free support number to find out what was actually going on.

The guy on the phone told me that level 1 support had to escalate it to level 2, then level 2 couldn't solve the problem so it then had to be escalated to level 3.

Meanwhile I'm completely in the dark as to what is transpiring, or what the problem is, any ETC, or anything else.

Newsflash: that's a position that THIS customer hates being in. It's one of my pet peeves when it comes to any kind of customer support. Nothing gets me riled up faster than the complete and utter lack of proactive communication.

The tech at each step along the way can't take a lousy 30 seconds to jot a status update note in the ticket with the nature of the problem once they escalate it to the next tier? An automated email telling me only that it was escalated tells me NOTHING.

They don't have to write the Great American Novel, but a simple update like "Server will not boot up, so am escalating this to a higher tier" or "Remote diagnostics can't find anything so we need to have someone at the Datacenter look in person. This may take an hour or so." would suffice. At least that is telling the customer something.

C'mon now. This isn't rocket science. If you bother to actually tell the customer what is going on rather than their having to drag it out of support, maybe the customer might actually have confidence that something is actually happening, and happening correctly.

It's basic Customer Service 101.

I've been doing customer service of one form or another for over 25 years now, first doing service bureau film output for commercial printing, then as a preflighting tech in the digital prepress department of a commercial offset printer. I now handle technical customer support for a continuing education department at a Big 10 university.

I know what proactive support communication is, and JaguarPC does not have it.

[Ron]

I agree, especially when it comes to there being insufficient improvement in process and procedure over the last decade. Communication is an area where they've become a lot better, but there's still quite a bit of room for improvement. There always is.

[heavyharmonies]

I will point this out to management. When you receive this type of message you can be assured that our technicians are working as effectively as they can to restore your service even if a support ticket has not been started. We do appreciate and value your opinion. It will be passed along so that we can explore better systems to restore services more quickly. Your satisfaction is our goal.

I'm reopening this issue to call out the above statement as a flat out lie. It is completely and utterly FALSE.

I woke up this morning to find out that my server has been down for 10 hours. I go to create a support ticket, and there that inane message is, telling me not to worry about it, that someone is already working on it.

BULLCRAP!

10 hours? No one was working on anything.

Get rid of that message in the ticketing system. It's obviously automated and bears ZERO connection to anything or anyone in the support department.

[JPC-Sabrina]

We apologize that this has been your experience. We will investigate this matter and forward the issue to our quality assurance team.

[the_ancient]

forward the issue to our quality assurance team.

My last employer's "quality Assurance Team" was Round File 13..........

[JPC-Les]

My last employer's "quality Assurance Team" was Round File 13..........

Wow, I havn't heard of the round file 13 since my military days. That takes me back.

We actually do have a QA team for support however and this will be looked at.

[PALSYS]

I've wasted much of my day ranting about Jag's awful support and communication process also - if someone in management is seeing this thread, please also visit mine.

Technical problems are understandable but the awful support and misleading or useless information with no details and no ETA is difficult to swallow.

[JPC-Les]

I've wasted much of my day ranting about Jag's awful support and communication process also - if someone in management is seeing this thread, please also visit mine.

Technical problems are understandable but the awful support and misleading or useless information with no details and no ETA is difficult to swallow.

Katrina is part of management but I have been watching the thread as well. I'm sorry you are so frustrated and we are working to get the issues resolved.

[PALSYS]

Hi Les - excuse me for clinging to the first person to talk to me besides Katrina but can you have another look? I've waited 4 hours for a response only to have the tech post results from the wrong VPS. I really am wanting to be patient but this comedy of errors is driving me nuts - I've lost nearly an entire day of work while I wait for this server to be fixed and write novella after novella to support staff, both in tickets and on the forum, only to have more unrelated, unhelpful replies sent my way.

Help me Les!

[JPC-Les]

Hi Les - excuse me for clinging to the first person to talk to me besides Katrina but can you have another look? I've waited 4 hours for a response only to have the tech post results from the wrong VPS. I really am wanting to be patient but this comedy of errors is driving me nuts - I've lost nearly an entire day of work while I wait for this server to be fixed and write novella after novella to support staff, both in tickets and on the forum, only to have more unrelated, unhelpful replies sent my way.

Help me Les!

I understand, we want to get this fixed for you asap as well. I've already replied to the thread a couple of times and Katrina is working with her techs to get it sorted out. Tracking your issues in a couple of threads and a ticket makes it tough to keep all avenues of communication harder to keep updated.

[PALSYS]

Hi Les - cheers, I appreciate your assistance.

If reasonably quick and on-point response were offered via the ticket system, I would never resort to posting openly on the forum, hijacking other's threads or creating more than one ticket. If your support team finds it difficult to follow along then I would suggest that the easiest and most appropriate fix would be to be sure that the staff monitoring tickets are quick, concise and informative in order to keep customers in the know, and therefore placated, while you guys take care of the technical stuff.

[JPC-Les]

I agree 100%. Support is a non-stop war with ourselves to remain sharp and fast with quality answers. Failures in doing so lead to issues like these. Thanks again for allowing us to work on resolving this.