Just telling the truth about my experience of vB support...

[_Mac]

Just have to share this with you old vB admins and IPB admins, here at IPB since it seem like many of you're share similar experience that we do with vB bad support. And because of them made the switch to IPB (as we're about to do shortly probably).

Yesterday I got a mail from vB to follow up on their previous support;

Dear Valued Customer,

You recently sent us a support ticket. At vBulletin, we strive for the highest level of customer satisfaction. To this end, your feedback on your recent experience with vBulletin support will be helpful and appreciated.

- Yeah right!

"Valued customer and striwing for highest quality of customer satisfaction" - this really ticked me off after the last really really bad contact with their support. It was just one time to much! And since we're not going to use vB anymore, I can now tell the truth about their support, without having to suffer from even worse support in the future (this has happened earlier, when we questioned them!).

In their support survey I really told them the truth and entered this comment in the end of their survey;

If you're sincere about this customer feedback, read the below. Else just ignore this, because it's not very fun reading for you.

We've many times got unhelpful support, as in not solving the question at hand (though we're vB4 customers), to almost rude responses from several people of your support staff.

Last incident was last week,

when we did some enquiries about the new vB5 and we was almost on our way to upgrading to the vB5, when we got very bad response from your support / pre-sales. We're was enquiring about what's entailed in the new version, what exactly the "mobile" of it was and what we actually had bought before etc.

We're always trying to be polite, correct and very patient when asking for support or when giving support to our own clients. Since, everyone including us can have a bad day... But this last incident, wen't so far that we actually asked if he could turn this issue over to someone else, because of how poorly we're answered and treated as a vB customer.

Because of this, we started to look around for competitive solutions. And found that there are other, and for us, better suited software and that also got better (& friendlier) support.

We're switching BACK o IPS!

Before vB we used IPS for many years and it worked fine. Now it seems like they have surpassed vB's software in many ways, and that works well for us to. Since we've always been missing some things in vB.

And I seriously doubt that we'll ever come back after this. This was it - one bad vB support issue to much! You need to learn your support staff how to handle customers and that without customers you got nothing... An exception from this is your support's Trevor, who always been very helpful and kind in your staff, but the rest...

FYI:

And when we went back to IPS and looking / posting in there forums again, we can clearly see that we're not alone having these kind of issues with the vB support. Many forum admins have left vB for IPS due to your bad support.

If you're smart, you should consider this your wake-up call...

Prev. vB4 customer

Got similar experiences?

Please answer my poll and then clear your vB support frustrations here (post answers) OR you could just post all the good experiences you have from IPB instead. And then move on with IPB and never look back... ;-)

Wanna follow my "switch or not" to IPB?

- IPB Blog: To switch back to IPB or not...

- IPB post: Old vB Admins - why did you switch to IPB?

- IPB post: IPB "must have's" add ons / mods?

- IPB post: Trying out the demo - "all Apps in"?

P.s. Testing the Pull function here. Really nice with direct feedback on results. Another "check" for switching to IPB...

[_Mac]

Seems like I missed some common reason in the poll? Many already answered to question 2 with "Other, not listed here...".

Please post them here below. Thank's :-)

[Hatsu]

I switched in 2009 after the vB4 release and their interpretation of 'Gold'. I didn't see any perspective for a better ending and unfortunately (competition is always a good thing for customers, but they aren't anymore) I was right. vB5 is a disaster and won't be a competitive product in near time. It only has a chance if every other vendor will stop working on their own product.

I've never had a bad experience with their support, though. I bought my license on the Germany sister site and they have been always helpful. Even after they had been kicked for vB5.

[_Mac]

@Hatsu

Thank's for clarifying, guess you voted "Other, not listed" in Q2?

[Hatsu]

Yub :)

[Dylan Riggs]

I don't really have an issue with vBulletin outside of how their templating system works. If you're one for mods and adding functionality to your board outside the standard and what it has, I will always recommend vBulletin over any of the other softwares.

Also, out of pocket - vB is more, but through the course till it's next release, it ends up cheaper than IPB due to the renewal fees you incur from the software and marketplace items.

I've haven't really had to talk to either support much, the communities generally help you out more, and I have to say -- It's way better over on the vBulletin side as well. Documentation here is poor, but so is vBulletins, just not as poor and people tend to be more helpful/responsive there.

Here, you can make more money if you're a devv than vBulletin. There are just a few select people here that I find are very very helpful, and I don't think any of them are actual dev's (just members). At vBulletin.org, y ou will get the administrator (who is an actual vB developer) help you with nearly any issue from "how do you export the skin" to "how do I make this array work with this"

Pro's and con's is what it comes down to, just look into the future the best you can and gauge what will benefit you more.

Me, I constantly want to improve my forums with featuresets, vB was better -- But it broke from skins often, and vBulletin 4.x just looked dated compared to IPB or Xenforo.

I really really cant' stand the documentation here, trying to delve into IP.Content for a streaming page and I'm doing well, only thanks to marcher's help. It'd take days, weeks to get a reply from nearly everyone else here I bet... I already see that for others.

[Wolfie]

I really really cant' stand the documentation here, trying to delve into IP.Content for a streaming page and I'm doing well, only thanks to marcher's help. It'd take days, weeks to get a reply from nearly everyone else here I bet... I already see that for others.

When it comes to IP.Content, Marcher is the one to go to. He's really delved into it and I think has somewhat 'cornered the market' when it comes to knowing what can be done with it.. Anytime I have a question in regards to IPC, I actually try to reach him first because I know if anyone has the answer, he will.

The pro and con of IPC is that it's so powerful. The thing is though, if you want to know what you can do with IPC, then study PHP and also study the API's for the various apps. Aside from having to make some adjustments for the environment you've got at your fingertips, knowing those two things is really all you need to know to get started.

[Jessica Sideways]

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

If I were to go back to vBulletin (totally could, if I wanted to... I just don't want to), it'd have to be a pretty compelling product, meaning several changes to the software and the way it works. Significant changes.

Realistically though, if I were to leave IPB, it'd be for bbPress. ;-P

Love is the Law, Love under Will.