VPS support issue.

[dansgalaxy]

Ok, I am getting rather frustrated now with the LiveChat for the VPS department.

During the day it seems ok and I can get my chat request answers in a reasonable time.

However, outside of UK office hours, when the Indian Office takes over there is only one person in the VPS dept.

I just spent 2 and half hours with a chat window open and god knows how many pages of "All operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly."

Eventually I managed to persuade someone in the Technical Support department NOT to redirect me to the VPS department and to have a go helping me himself...

This is another huge pet peeve i have with webhosting uk Live Chat - the operators cant wait to palm you off!!!!!

While yes I understand the VPS dept is there for a reason to help with VPS issues, BUT when you have a general problem which has NOTHING to do with the server being a VPS server or dedicated server or hell even shared hosting from Web Hosting UK directly the moment they find I have a VPS its "I'll transfer you" no wait huh o great im back waiting for Russell to get to me.

Regards,
A rather irritated Dan.

[John]

Hello Dan,

On an evening there are usually 3-4 staff members in the VPS Department.

Usually different departments won't deal with each others chats/tickets unless their expertise is needed.

If you can let me know the approximate time you were on chat, I will see if I can find out why you were waiting so long. I'd be very surprised if you had spent two and a half hours waiting though..

[dansgalaxy]

If you can let me know the approximate time you were on chat, I will see if I can find out why you were waiting so long. I'd be very surprised if you had spent two and a half hours waiting though..

Unfortunately the chat closed before i closed before i selected the chat log option so cant see times, however i know at one point the chat to VPS was open same time as the chat to tech dept

Chat start time Aug 11, 2009 6:55:44 PM EST
Chat end time Aug 11, 2009 8:46:28 PM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 01:50:43
Operator Brent


so the VPS dept chat would have overlapped the above times.

On an evening there are usually 3-4 staff members in the VPS Department.

Usually different departments won't deal with each others chats/tickets unless their expertise is needed.

I understand that to a degree however, if a problem is generic and the operator can deal with it, or at least would do exactly the same as VPS then why is there a need to transfer to VPS? .. where you then have to re-explain everything and at best get the same thing you could have got from techsupport or linux dedi etc

Recently it has become undeniable that VPS dept takes MUCH longer to respond to chat requests and are obviously more busy than usual, possibly because you have staff off as suggested by one person i chatted to in past couple of days, which in my mind gives more reason for issue, where they can, to be shared across all depts which can help instead of the knee jerk reaction of dumping you off to someone else.

I have had it a couple of times where I have had to persuade ops NOT to transfer me to VPS because i know they arnt answering and the few that have listened and had a go at helping 9/10 could help.

[dansgalaxy]

So... why was i waiting?

[MrTWS]

Dan

I cannot answer your question but I have to say that when I've had to contact live support they have been there very quick, and have been on the ball with their answers too
I cannot comment on VPS but I would reasonably allow some leeway when the likes of other hosts (I won't mention names) are appalling and completely useless at support even if through the daytime

It's only an opinion though

[dansgalaxy]

I think part of the reason I can be quite harsh on WHUK support is because I expect the consistent good service.

I have had it before where i open live chat have someone where here's the problem, take a look tell me how I can do it, walk me through what's going on and its great I'm very happy with it. (this isn't just simple problems either I had the same sort of thing with some complex little problems)

BUT the other 70% (now more like 95% recently) I don't get that. I get an operator who seems totally clueless, and some of whom frankly I don't like the idea of handing over my root password to! Usually they end up either spending hours "investigating" or "checking" the problem, come back with a totally irrelevant answer at which point I usually end up extremely frustrated and don't get an answer.

This is my problem really, i know it sound silly but when you deal with someone like Number 2 Number whos support is impossibly bad, end of and then you have a company like whuk which has some VERY VERY good support people and the problem is they are often surrounded by a ton of not very good support people.

I know I am ranting a bit here, but I feel it needs to be done, one of the biggest reasons I went with WHUK is because when i signed up i was able to talk to some people who were very helpful, but understandably and as has been said before on here, their user base is growing fast and they are getting more and more operators on board to cope with the extra requests. but in my view it is obvious not all these operators are good ones, some are plain rude some you have to explain things to 40 times and often feel your teaching them something instead of them being the superior knowledge, which frankly I expect. I am a young guy running a small webhosting company, so when i have a problem i turn to the (MUCH) bigger web hosting company, and when their operators seem to know less about servers and webhosting than I do it makes me wonder a) why are they employed b) where's the application form to get a job as i can do it better in most cases.

I also get frustrated waiting around for people to do basic operations which can be done very quickly (because i know exactly what to do its just because I dont have access to main nodes for obvs reasons) and have someone telling me that it takes time, in the time it takes for the operators to BS me they could have done it!

Ok apologies, i really did rant on this lol.

[Dan]

I cannot comment as an official answer, but if you're waiting a long time on Livesupport I'd recommend submitting a support ticket. Although two hours isn't a feasible time to wait on Livesupport - there may have been some issues at the time, or other reasons.

[MrTWS]

May I just first say Dan (that is dansgalaxy) that I think your website looks pretty damn impressive and obviously you are a knowledgeable person when it comes to layout, etc

You obviously have a right to voice your opinions and as such I agree with the other Dan, that perhaps you should raise these points as a matter of Support, rather than on the forums, and hopefully you may get the answers you are really looking for

I cannot comment on your own case as such, but again, I just want to say, that it is my experience that the operators I have dealt with have been okay, and as with everything technically structured, I am guessing that some operators are better equipped than others when it comes to different areas of expertise. I only say this because I am a moderator on another hosting forum, and as such, there are questions I can comfortably answer, questions I need to check on, and questions I have no clue about whatsoever. It happens - and it is unlikely that you will ever find any one person who has ALL the answers to ALL the questions that we may have from time to time

I hope this helps because I enjoyed reading your rant () but sometimes some things are better dealt with by going straight to the top, and I believe that WHUK can still give you the backup and support that you expect, and are hoping for

[khulet22]

IMHO, Dan patient is virtue right? Try to think that there are lots of client that they serve for that time. And your worries will gone..only suggestion!