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Good old days... of GOOD support.


X-ologist

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Seems like the good old days of good support are gone.

I have asked for my website to be upgraded to 3.4... I did this 2 days ago.

I got the usual "please agree" ... I agreed, now it's been 2 days with absolutely no reply.

- So I went ahead and made another support thread asking for my forum to be upgraded..

Once more I got the "please agree" and a "Please reply to this ticket to let me know once you have filled those details in."

- I replied... it's been a whole day over again.. and no reply.

No reply in either of my 2 tickets.

This doesn't just go for this ticket.. The support IPB has been offering lately is very bad.

If I had the money, I would probably move to Vbulletin or something else.

I'm very sad how IPB is managing things.

I would rate it 5 start in software, and if possible 0 and a 1/2 stars in customer support.

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Hello,

Naturally, having just released a major new version of IP.Board, we're dealing with a much higher volume of upgrade requests than normal (volume this week is 3 times what it was last week!)

We're working really hard to deal with these as quickly as possible. At times like this we must mention that the guaranteed turnaround for upgrade requests is 5 days for standard support (though outside of release week, our average is the same day).

I would like to point out that submitting multiple requests will not improve the response time as all this does is add another request into the queue, slowing things down for everyone. Your original request has not been forgotten and will be responded to as quickly as possible.

I'd also like to point out that we provide the upgrade service free of charge - since you specifically mentioned vBulletin, it's worth mentioning that they charge $149 for their upgrade service :)

You may also be interested to know that we do have an auto-upgrader available, which can upload the files for you automatically and then you only need to step thorough the upgrader interface. You can access this tool from the "Purchases" section of the client area (if you do use it, please reply to your upgrade request advising us you no longer need it).

With regards to your comments about support in general... I've reviewed the last few support requests that you submitted, going back to July, and I'm seeing very good response times (almost all were under 2 hours, in one case as low as 7 minutes - the highest I saw was only a few hours) - perhaps I'm missing what you're referring to - if there's a particular case you'd like me to look into, please let me know.


Thanks for your continued patience - please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns :)

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Hello,

I'm sorry that you feel this way. As I'm sure you're aware we pride ourselves on our Support.

Additionally, we have just released IP.Board 3.4, and so our upgrades queue is severely backed up. There's only so many techs and hours in the day, and we're receiving new tickets for the upgrade all the time.

It's worth mentioning that although our Upgrades department is officially closed on the weekend, since release technicians have been working on Upgrades during the weekend anyway in an attempt to clear the backlog. Additionally there is a 5 day SLA response time for the Upgrades queue, to accomodate for release times such as this.

If you submitted two tickets. that would only cause to add confusion, so please could you possibly mark one of those resolved and a technician will get to your upgrade as soon as the ticket comes up in the queue.

Thank you for your patience! :smile:

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once they choose support type: installation / upgrade, display info that due to recent major release and large amount of similar requests the support response may take longer than usually and you are safe against such complaints ;) also the info about weekends would be useful there, so all new IPS Customers will be informed better.. this would avoid such topics.

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I'd also like to point out that we provide the upgrade service free of charge - since you specifically mentioned vBulletin, it's worth mentioning that they charge $149 for their upgrade service :smile:

This is something IPB should charge for and offer as premium service.

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  • Management


Consider it done!

I kid. :smile: In all seriousness though, we've never hinted that we'd do anything more than MAJOR upgrades, but a decade later, we still perform point releases as well as a courtesy (and this is often the cause for upgrade backlogs.) I don't foresee us ever charging $149 for an upgrade, but as of 4.0 with a new unified upgrade routine, we will likely phase out doing point release upgrades and only do major upgrades. It's pretty unheard of for a company to include installation and upgrade service to begin with, but we're pleased it's a service we've been able to offer. 4.0 will bring more automated upgrade features and we will be encouraging the use of that more, though again we still plan on performing major upgrades for customers. :smile:

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Seems like the good old days of good support are gone.

I have asked for my website to be upgraded to 3.4... I did this 2 days ago.

I got the usual "please agree" ... I agreed, now it's been 2 days with absolutely no reply.

- So I went ahead and made another support thread asking for my forum to be upgraded..

Once more I got the "please agree" and a "Please reply to this ticket to let me know once you have filled those details in."

- I replied... it's been a whole day over again.. and no reply.

No reply in either of my 2 tickets.

This doesn't just go for this ticket.. The support IPB has been offering lately is very bad.

If I had the money, I would probably move to Vbulletin or something else.

I'm very sad how IPB is managing things.

I would rate it 5 start in software, and if possible 0 and a 1/2 stars in customer support.

Not sure why you expect support at the weekend...

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Some people!

If I have a serious problem I know ips will do their best to get it resolved and are normally really quick.

Minor problem I expect to wait a bit

Upgrades when a major release is out I don't even put in a request as i know the guys will be busy and some boards can take an age to upgrade so I wait until things slow down a bit

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In all seriousness though, we've never hinted that we'd do anything more than MAJOR upgrades, but a decade later, we still perform point releases as well as a courtesy (and this is often the cause for upgrade backlogs.) I don't foresee us ever charging $149 for an upgrade, but as of 4.0 with a new unified upgrade routine, we will likely phase out doing point release upgrades and only do major upgrades.

Don't suppose clients could choose an option to do a point release upgrade at an additional fee? Would it only be to x.y.0 or would be be so long as they aren't on x.y.* yet?

Doesn't really make a difference to me since I do my own upgrades, just like to know what cooks up in the minds of the IPS staff.
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Speaking of IPB support, and as a new member, I do think IPB has a good support compared to vB. Well, at least the support staffs here are friendly! as for vB........ I am also a new member there (only a week or something), I just got frustrated with their attitudes i.e. i dislike the way they reply their customers in support forum. They sounded like they don't value their customers. I know putting smilies in replies doesn't mean anything, but at least the support here is willing to click on the smilies or type ":-)" in their replies. Support team is not just to support us technically, but friendly too.

Thank you.

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Speaking of IPB support, and as a new member, I do think IPB has a good support compared to vB. Well, at least the support staffs here are friendly! as for vB........ I am also a new member there (only a week or something), I just got frustrated with their attitudes i.e. i dislike the way they reply their customers in support forum. They sounded like they don't value their customers. I know putting smilies in replies doesn't mean anything, but at least the support here is willing to click on the smilies or type ":-)" in their replies. Support team is not just to support us technically, but friendly too.

They have a good sense of humor and will tend to kid around some here and there. As an April Fools joke on time (2010 I think), they had a 'staff only' area that was publicly viewable but of course none of the topics could be read. One of the topics had my name in it and the idea of hiring me. Big joke since I was known as rubbing people the wrong way. One time, bfarber (Brandon) mentioned that when Charles submits a bug report, he'll mark it as not a bug, but then go back and actually fix the bug. One time, Matt fixed a bug and said, "I feeeeeeexed it" or something like that.

They keep it fun around here and if you look through the code, you'll find quite a number of Easter Eggs.

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  • Management


I will admit to being critical at times, I can be a PITA,

Say it isn't so! I've not noticed that in the least. ;)

I kid. See, we're a fun bunch. <insert smiley here to reinforce our whimsically fun environment>

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Support team is not just to support us technically, but friendly too.

Forgot to mention this in my previous reply. Aside from their trying to be personable, which they tend to succeed at, the products tend to be professional grade, which is a good deal for the money spent. Just from the front end, to me vB feels unstable and like it's ready to fall apart with problems. I prefer professional grade quality, anything less isn't good enough for me.
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They have a good sense of humor and will tend to kid around some here and there. As an April Fools joke on time (2010 I think), they had a 'staff only' area that was publicly viewable but of course none of the topics could be read. One of the topics had my name in it and the idea of hiring me. Big joke since I was known as rubbing people the wrong way. One time, bfarber (Brandon) mentioned that when Charles submits a bug report, he'll mark it as not a bug, but then go back and actually fix the bug. One time, Matt fixed a bug and said, "I feeeeeeexed it" or something like that.

They keep it fun around here and if you look through the code, you'll find quite a number of Easter Eggs.

Forgot to mention this in my previous reply. Aside from their trying to be personable, which they tend to succeed at, the products tend to be professional grade, which is a good deal for the money spent. Just from the front end, to me vB feels unstable and like it's ready to fall apart with problems. I prefer professional grade quality, anything less isn't good enough for me.

:D good to know that :) I would also like to compliment IPB for the free installation support. I was quite surprised when I know they offer that.

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