Good old days... of GOOD support.

[Shyuan]

Not to mention the easter eggs they slip into the software. ;) :tongue:

Really wonder how it was. Missed the interesting moment :rofl:

[Wolfie]

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

Not to mention the easter eggs they slip into the software. ;) :tongue:

I already mentioned Easter Eggs. Even referenced one of them.
:smile:

[Joshua Hina]

I have been with IPS for like 2.5 years now. Honestly some folks seem to expect the world when they pay for a 149 dollar license. IPS does alot for free but you should expect to wait longer; there are those of us who actually pay IPS for the added level of service that comes with a one day ticket turnaround. A week should be fine for you if your not expecting to pay IPS another 200 dollars to ensure they respond to you. THis may seem like a mean reply but after all time IS money. IPS IS giving you their time for free. Consider that.

[jackflash]

I get how it can be frustrating when you fall between the cracks or whatever the case might be.

However, I think that IPB does a pretty stellar job with their customer service.

[Dmacleo]

I had a license/tos question I needed answered (allowing dev access to 3.4 test board to update an app) to make sure I didn't do something wrong. I had answer in 15 minutes.

I am a PITA, Lindy and others will agree, but I also have no problems praising when its due.

and all things considered IPS does a great job for me.

[Powerboat]

As a loyal customer of IPB for 4 or 5 years, I have 5 Licences all of which are up to date through the regular payment of my quarterly annual service / renewal fees.

I would consider that an efficient and helpful support service should be expected for this regular renewal fee as it is included in the terms of the contract.

For the last 5 years, the service from IPB has been above what I could have expected and has been characterised by a friendly, can do approach, The support staff have always had a great understanding of their customers varying degress of technical ability and the support has always been tailored to ensure that the individual needs of the customer have always been met.

All of this seems to have vanished overnight.

I have moderate technical ability. Beacuse of recent illness, my 5 websites were not upgraded in recent months leading to an attack from a malware spammer which caused Google to red list all of my sites last week.

I submitted 5 upgrade requests a week ago to patch my sites and marked all as critical and explained why this was so in the request details. To date only one site has been upgraded. The responses to the other requests have been less than helpful to the point of rudeness. I have been basically told that unless I use the upgrade tool, there will be a coniderable delay in the upgrades.

My only problem in using the upgrade tool as a non techie, is in defining the "path" (Public folder etc) for where my various sites are located on the server. Simple, I know, to many of you, but not to me. That's why I requested the upgrade service and that's why I pay a regular renewal and service fee for all my sites.

I am at acomplete loss to understand why I - and it would seem many other loyal customers are now been treated with such a complete lack of respect. It would appear that the bean counters have taken over at IPB?

What I always loved about IPB was the combination of the great software and the excellent people. As a non techie,I'll go elsewhere for lessser software if it is backed up by friendly helpful service people.That's why I left VB 5 years ago.

I can't tell you how disappointed I feel at my shoddy treatment in the last week by IPB Support.

With regret,

Stuart

[Charles]

As a loyal customer of IPB for 4 or 5 years, I have 5 Licences all of which are up to date through the regular payment of my quarterly annual service / renewal fees.

I would consider that an efficient and helpful support service should be expected for this regular renewal fee as it is included in the terms of the contract.

For the last 5 years, the service from IPB has been above what I could have expected and has been characterised by a friendly, can do approach, The support staff have always had a great understanding of their customers varying degress of technical ability and the support has always been tailored to ensure that the individual needs of the customer have always been met.

All of this seems to have vanished overnight.

I have moderate technical ability. Beacuse of recent illness, my 5 websites were not upgraded in recent months leading to an attack from a malware spammer which caused Google to red list all of my sites last week.

I submitted 5 upgrade requests a week ago to patch my sites and marked all as critical and explained why this was so in the request details. To date only one site has been upgraded. The responses to the other requests have been less than helpful to the point of rudeness. I have been basically told that unless I use the upgrade tool, there will be a coniderable delay in the upgrades.

My only problem in using the upgrade tool as a non techie, is in defining the "path" (Public folder etc) for where my various sites are located on the server. Simple, I know, to many of you, but not to me. That's why I requested the upgrade service and that's why I pay a regular renewal and service fee for all my sites.

I am at acomplete loss to understand why I - and it would seem many other loyal customers are now been treated with such a complete lack of respect. It would appear that the bean counters have taken over at IPB?

What I always loved about IPB was the combination of the great software and the excellent people. As a non techie,I'll go elsewhere for lessser software if it is backed up by friendly helpful service people.That's why I left VB 5 years ago.

I can't tell you how disappointed I feel at my shoddy treatment in the last week by IPB Support.

With regret,

Stuart

I understand that your issues my be critical to you but staff-assisted upgrades have always been quoted as a 5 day turnaround. We provide an auto installer and really upgrading is quite easy: you just upload all the files and run the upgrade script. In situations where up to 5 days is not acceptable you should consider alternatives.

I looked at your account and I feel you may be misrepresenting yourself and treating the hard work our staff does in an unfair and misleading way.

You do indeed have 5 upgrade tickets open but your statement that they were made a week ago is not correct. One was submitted 4 days ago (Wednesday) and is now resolved, one is 3 days ago (Thursday) and is now resolved, the other 3 requests were submitted yesterday morning (Saturday) and are also all resolved. So all are well within our service windows and seeing as today is a Sunday I think we are replying quite well.

Also one of your tickets have been put on hold for a review because there are concerns about your account. Someone will reply to that this week.

We are always looking for way to improve on support (in fact we just hired a new support person a couple days ago) and we are the first to admit when we do something wrong. I just think in this case you may be overreacting a bit :)

[Powerboat]

Charles,

Thank you for the reply which is much appreciated. I note that an hour after posting here, that all of my sites have now been upgraded.

A week to me is a 5 day working week. This is Sunday the first day of this week so it may be a cultural symantics thing between Europe and the US. The earliest issues may be marked as resolved but they are not as Powerboat.ie is still down since the upgrade.

The "service" that I have received in recent days is a million miles away from the service I had come to respect from IPB. I could , for example mention the multiple times that I had to reply to the same question of one of your staff assuring them that I accepted the waiver.

I have a feeling that the delays and poor response may have been down to a single staff member who was dealing with all of my tickets.. I was also unaware of the current difficulties that IPB are experiencing with the ongoing DDOS attack on IPB. Had I been aware of this, I would have understood the pressure that your staff may be under this week and accepted this as a valid reason for a drop in your normal high standards. I have been unable to log into these forums in recent days because of your DDOS issues.

The staff member who addressed my upgrade requests in the last hour completely lived up to your usual high standards with a very friendly and helpful response even going beyond the call of duty to tidy up malware from the old files.

Your staff will know me as one of their more positive and friendlier customers in recent years. That's why I was so gobsmacked when the staff member originally dealing with my upgrades basically suggested that I could either use the upgrade tool or wait for a considerable time. The response suggested that IPB couldn't be bothered with folks like me who were too lazy or incompetent to use the updater. Please have a quick look at the correspondence in my case to confirm this. I did try to use your updater, but I received an error message saying that I had the wrong FTP details. This was incorrect as these are the same details that I submitted to your own staff.

I appreciate that you took the time to reply to me. I am a huge fan of your company. Like yourself, I have an extremely busy professional life outside of all this. I wouldn't be going to this much trouble in my feedback if I didn't care about your company.

3 of my 5 sites are now back online after the upgrade. Powerboat.ie and Powerboat.org are down since upgrade but I'll resubmit tickets.

Thanks again Charles for the personal response which is appreciated.

Hopefully, you will come through your current difficulties in coming days.

Kind regards,

Stuart

[Wolfie]

I have moderate technical ability. Beacuse of recent illness, my 5 websites were not upgraded in recent months leading to an attack from a malware spammer which caused Google to red list all of my sites last week.

A week to me is a 5 day working week. This is Sunday the first day of this week so it may be a cultural symantics thing between Europe and the US. The earliest issues may be marked as resolved but they are not as Powerboat.ie is still down since the upgrade.

I think in the literal sense, the way you said it is accurate, but the way you said it is misleading. Probably would have been better said as, "caused Google to red list all of my sites within the last week" or "caused Google to red list all of my sites this past week" as that would indicate that it was during the last few days vs sounding like it was a week ago or longer.

Are you still having malware related issues? If so, I'd be willing to take a look at it. If it's just stuff being broken and needing regular tech support, then it's time to play the waiting game.

In the future, if you have a concern with how you've been treated by support, I suggest opening a ticket to Accounts/Billing, with the first line being Attn: Management. Then it will get forwarded to management and they can discuss the matter with you. I guarantee that if you are being wronged and not taking cheap shots at anyone, they will try to get things resolved for you in an effort to keep you happy. Showing respect, even while upset, can work wonders.

[Powerboat]

Hi Wolfie,

Fair comment. As I said, it may also be the different nuances in American and Hiberno English!

Thanks for the suggestion on feedback. I would hope (but it is for others to judge) that I have always shown politeness and respect, even when frustrated.

Thanks also for the offer of assistance which is also appreciated.

In any event, there has been a happy ending. Michael B has been like an IPB White Knight. Not only did he re upgrade all 5 sites but he also performed a quick clean up which I had no right to even ask for.

All of my sites are now patched with new FTP etc and my hosting company will do a final clean up scan tomorrow. I'll then get Google to white list us again.

Thanks again to all involved and a special thanks to Charles for his personal involvement and of course to Michael B who restored my faith in the usual very high standard of IPB Customer care.

Kind regards,

Stuart

[Wolfie]

Fair comment. As I said, it may also be the different nuances in American and Hiberno English!

Thanks for the suggestion on feedback. I would hope (but it is for others to judge) that I have always shown politeness and respect, even when frustrated.

Wording can sometimes be tricky. I mentioned a couple of alternative ideas so in the future, you might see how something could be taken in a different way and then reword it to prevent confusion. Isn't guaranteed to work, but it opens the door by introducing a new perspective.

The feedback, while in a reply to you, was also said in a generalized manner, so that it's somewhat aimed at everyone. So wasn't meaning to imply that you have been rude or disrespectful, just pointing it out in hopes it might help someone in the future.