Flailing Priority Support

[jHz]

I am sorry to have to post this, but as a professional developer for more than 25 years and client of yours for more than 10 years. I am really upset by the last 2-3 support issues we have had. They took way too long due to what is clearly a disorganized staff. I have had 4 admins in 4 days, and every one of them has left us hanging with a different response. This is a growing worry for us as a business as even with paying for priority support, we are left hanging for days now. I am no closer to a resolution than I was on Monday, why? 

This is really not fair and I am not sure what to do anymore as a business that relies on your software AND SUPPORT. I would like to speak to someone in Senior Management so they know you need more help. But you don't take phone calls or respond to tickets, so here I am. I don't mind waiting for a response that is helpful, but it shouldn't take so long and every guy shouldn't start over from zero. I am left with no other choice than to complain in public so you might actually work on the problem because the priority tickets are not helping us since Monday. 

[Lindy]

We appreciate you reaching out and sharing your concerns. I've looked into your issue that was logged 48 hours ago and it appears to be with our senior developers. I can certainly understand your frustration - this is an issue you'd like to see resolved one we'd like to resolve for you. Unfortunately, it is going to take some time to work through and has already involved multiple developers who seemingly can't reproduce the issue in a consistent manner. As the issue relates to formatting, it really shouldn't be holding up your launch, but I understand the desire to have everything perfect. I'm afraid we're doing the best we can within the confines of the situation given to us and you are receiving regular communication as we work through this process. 

Regarding priority support - please think of this like priority boarding with an airline. You board the aircraft first and don't have to wait in line - that is the primary benefit to priority support. When a request reaches the engineers (Tier 3) - prioritization works quite differently. While this issue is undoubtedly important to you (and it's important that we resolve it for you) - it is ultimately a formatting issue (certain pages displaying oddly) - our engineers are also handling complete site outages, broken core functionality, etc. and those do take precedent, with or without priority support. I'm sorry for the misconception there and I'm happy to refund your priority support package, but I cannot get the development team to expedite this any further. They have, however, been in constant communication and I've tracked the ticket to follow up to ensure we further address your concerns as quickly as possible. 

Thank you for your patience and I hope we're able to work through this quickly for you.

[jHz]

Why doesn't someone explain this in the ticket? There are no expectations set in the ticket at all. All I got is different responses and then the admin disappears never to be heard from again. No response to my questions, at all. You have time to look into this but no one can respond to a ticket?  

What's really a pisser is you guys did the upgrade and didn't catch this. I thought we could go in and rebuild everything, but you removed one of the most important aspects of a CMS. 

Sorry, but you are wrong. It can and has been confirmed as a bug, and is in-fact reproduce-able - SEE THE TICKET.

^^^ THIS Is what's quite frustrating. You, the head guy of the company is not reading the tickets either. You guys are very disorganized and terrible at communication. This post would not have been made if someone just responded to the tickets. I understand a fix takes time, but response should always be a priority. Why isn't it?
 

[jHz]

AND, yes I will take the refund as long as I cannot get a response to a ticket. How do I get it?

[jHz]

Quote

As the issue relates to formatting, it really shouldn't be holding up your launch, but I understand the desire to have everything perfect. I'm afraid we're doing the best we can within the confines of the situation given to us and you are receiving regular communication as we work through this process. 

NOT a formatting issue. This is functionality the community expects to work. When you post images you expect them to show up, not see a bunch of code in the page. This is a bug, broken code, plain and simple. Trying to paint this as me getting upset over formatting demonstrates exactly what I am complaining about. I didn't file a ticket for advice, and this is not at TIII because its a formatting issue. Why are you trying to make me look like the bad guy? 

[Lindy]

Jack - there's a lot going on here in this ticket and admittedly different theories from the development team. I don't truthfully know what the underlying issue is (I'm not a programmer and don't play one on TV either) -- I do know it is indeed ultimately a formatting issue and does not impact the actual overall functionality of the site... annoying, yes, for sure. Unusable, no. Ultimately, I'm told those posts will need to be rebuilt using custom code which a developer will need to write when they are able to - I hope this will be tomorrow.

In terms of response times - you've been given quite prompt responses in the 2 days since this issue was raised. It's gone through three levels of support and development and communication is ongoing. I apologize for the confusing theories posted in your ticket, however, this is not an issue that we have ever seen before. It was initially thought to be an upgrade issue as you suggested, but the issue was/is occurring with post-upgrade content as well. 

It's important to note that this extends well beyond support and involves development... custom development at that as it pertains to repairing your Pages database -> Forums integration. I know it's not an answer you wish to hear and based on your promise to post your experience on the forums in ticket if things don't improve, you were likely hoping to get some grease on the squeaky wheel so-to-speak -- which is understandable to an extent, you're frustrated, you consider this a critical issue and you want it resolved -- I do too. Nonetheless, I don't believe this issue could be handled any differently without impact to other clients and I simply cannot break the cycle of development and the process to expedite this any faster for you. I'm assured a developer will be working on this tomorrow and I'll do my best to ensure the lines of communication remain open - you are getting responses in a matter of hours, not days. I know you'd like responses within minutes and I'd love to provide them, but at a development level - that's simply not a realistic expectation, I apologize. 

I'm very sorry you misunderstood the intent of priority support and I have refunded that in full, no questions asked and no hard feelings (I hope.) 

 

[Matt]

Hi Jack, 

I've just replied to your ticket, but as you posted this publicly, I feel it's worth replying here too.

I was just asking for more information so I could make the correct fix. I wasn't trying to be difficult. In either case, you'll have a fix this morning. 

[jHz]

AND, here I am again, waiting since Saturday... and your guys are telling me to do what the ticket says is not working. PLEASE, WHY CAN"T YOU READ THE TICKETS? This is adding a lot of work to your support queue, and leaving people hanging when 2 seconds of reading the WHOLE ticket would resolve things. How many more days will it be before you get back to it, I don't know. I have been using IPB for over 10 years, and I love your app, and I can live with bugs, but the support is driving me away. I cannot take this anymore, I am fed up and looking for better supported platform. 

[Lindy]

I'm sorry for your frustration again, Jack. I'm also very sorry for the miscommunication and seemingly rushed support.

Firstly, standard support is limited on weekends - that's always been the case. Your request was promptly addressed Monday morning.

Admittedly, when I just read your ticket, I too thought you were initially referring to forum thumbnails. "We have to change the size of our thumb images, but running the rebuild images didn't do it." This made no mention of working within Pages and was assumed you were referring to attachment thumbs. I do see you later clarified it was Pages and I'm sorry that was overlooked when the tech was ensuring you were attempting to rebuild from the right area. 

We did somewhat drop the ball here for missing one of your later replies and I apologize. Nonetheless, it's in our mutual best interest to work with as much information as possible (there's no such thing as too much.) The ticket was a very brief, one sentence submission (and I see this was submitted from the AdminCP, so if there's something we can do in that area for improvement, do let us know) -- we really prefer examples, links and as much info as you can throw at us in the initial submission so we're all on the same page and there's an easy reference point if we need to continue working the ticket. Just a helpful suggestion for future support encounters. 

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation. I believe a technician is addressing your request as we speak.

 

 

[jHz]

Again, you're bullying me trying to minimize my complaint. Its not about who's right or wrong. Its about for the SECOND TIME, you didn't read your own tickets. This was on top of a clariication before. So you didn't even read your own staff's responses. This is on top of ZERO DOCUMENTATION. I don't get why you have time to victimize your customers like this, when you should be writing docs so we don't have deal with your support. This is rediculous and I know your cronies will back you up here, but any professional knows this is a very very bad from a company that is supposedly experts at community and social engagement. Think about that for a few. Basically, the CEO of a Forum company is a troll. 

[Lindy]

I think you may be overreacting, just ever so slightly, Jack.

I did read the response - you'll note I apologized for dropping the ball in terms of the tech missing your earlier response. Your entire ticket submission was: "We have to change the size of our thumb images, but running the rebuild images didn't do it. How do we rebuilt them?" Indeed, I was merely pointing out, the information you provided later in the ticket would have undoubtedly been helpful in the initial submission as it turns out you were referring to thumbnails in a Pages database, not the main suite/attachment thumbnails. We process hundreds of requests per day -- certainly it's no excuse for missing a response mid-ticket, but we do try to garner the information we need from the initial response as some tickets. That's what happened here and the technician reiterated the steps needed to rebuild the main thumbnails. That's not what you wanted, he missed your response, it is unfortunate and again, I am sorry for that and the subsequent frustration. 

You are not being victimized nor are your concerns being dismissed. You chose to address your concerns here and that is perfectly fine; I've acknowledged your concerns, accepted responsibility for our part of the breakdown here (and addressed internally) and have appropriately suggested this was simply a mutual breakdown. I've provided a gentle reminder to our team to be more mindful of mid-ticket details and have suggested that you be more detailed in your ticket submissions so we understand your concern without needing to bounce back and forth with just leads to more frustration and greater risk for details being lost. 

In this case, what you were after does not exist (but as noted, it has been brought up as an internal discussion for improvement) so documentation would not help here. Further, we want you to be comfortable with our support. I would ask that you be somewhat reasonable with your expectations and when they are not met, I've told you repeatedly, you are always very welcome to ask for ticket escalation or even reach out to me directly. I would hope and expect that most here would attest to the fact that I'm very responsive and will do my best. When we're wrong, I'll let you know and make it right (as I've done here) and when you're wrong, I'm also going to let you know (as I've done here.)