patrick2012

No one asked, implied or demanded 24\7. The attitude from some around here is silly. 48 hours is a very long time for a successful business to go without their paid for, premium support when it comes to billing software issues. Now normally billing software (retail) this isn't an issue as it's not the backbone to your business. WHMCS becomes the backbone as it runs the show and when the backbone to your system becomes inaccessible it's an issue. Too much ignorance around here when others tend to assume it's an upgrade issue and how they are "smart" to wait it out before upgrading". Who cares? If you pride yourself of WHMCS so much, then you should trust their beta testing and their willingness to release a version publicly. Don't go blaming WHMCS customers for this. If it's good enough for WHMCS to release, it's good enough to use. Otherwise don't release it. Theres ZERO excuse to blame a customer for jumping on it too early. We invest in to the software, quiet literally if we purchase an owned license. We put our trust in it's brand. Now lets not get too confused with this argument about 48 hours + WHMCS. This is simply an debate about a 48 hour wait, not a 48 hour wait with WHMCS since i've never waited that long. Now if you want to argue that a larger business should not be using WHMCS if they want to have a support SLA then i also think that is wrong. WHMCS should also be catering to the larger business crowd. Problem i find is when people become too complacent with "acceptable" extended response times then the staff of the software start to feed from that and no reason to improve this. Lets not forget the big picture here people, we are debating here for the best interest of OUR OWN customers, at least that's what's important to me. My customers rely on me ensuring i have my own software running as it should and don't care too much that i cannot login to answer ongoing tickets. It is not and never will be above and beyond the call of duty to support a paid for product. It is above and beyond if they support it after your support renewal expires on an owned license. Still helping is above and beyond and consider yourself lucky for extending a helping hand. This software (leased) for what it does is not cheap. Owned licenses i find very cheap if not too cheap and It could and should be selling owned at double the cost. Yes monthly is on par with the competition but the competition is scarce. In comparison with out well known software, WHMCS has great features. I've said it before, i'll say it again, no one will touch the admin area with WHMCS. They have this so pretty and nice i don't think anyone will compete with this. Unfortunately client area needs to look the same way. (Not like the admin, but designed smart, innovative, nice GUI with nice integration for modules. Now to compare to competition without naming names. WHMCS Admin area - A win hands down. Take awhile for someone to beat it WHMCS Plugins - Lots but they simply don't look great on the client area interface. SolusVM for example. though Solus designed it (i think) it looks like garbage on WHMCS. On 2 others you have to see for yourself to believe it. WHMCS development - Honestly it feels stable and i'm comfortable knowing they take WHMCS seriously. Stability is important. WHMCS client area - Biggest bummer. It may work for some but it's not the greatest by a long shot. I find even the most recent v5 dated. WHMCS order templates - Lacking big time. Though there are a few, two other billing software alternatives have beautiful order pages. WHMCS Live Chat - Though it costs extra they now do 1 month which i was surprised to see. This software and at least from screenshots of the latest update for it is amazingly nice. Well done Matt and Developers. Over all, i browsed the competition yesterday and though one is out of their mind with the pricing they want per month (l actually laughed out loud when he tried selling me) they are all pretty advanced client areas and order pages. Aside from things like phpcoin (no free software comparisons). There is one other who has been around longer than WHMCS i believe but he is a 1 man team. -- Anyhow i wrote this in hopes as another year slowly creeps to a close the development team will look closely in to what, where, how and when things should change for WHMCS. I could care less who things 72 hours is good enough for them. That just means you don't mind having your own customers wait this long and that is an unacceptable way to run your business. You should always be fighting for better, not simply being complacent with what you're provided.

I have to correct you one one major, major flaw in what you said. Support can NEVER be fast enough. Fast support is ALWAYS better. That said, outsourcing support is something a few million dollar company does out of greed. They do this to save a few $$ at the sacrifice of quality. Not WHMCS. It would be a death sentence for them. No matter the case, faster support is always a goal everyone aims for (Client & Business)

Considering the OP, it was intended as a friendly nudge but some members tend to take it personally for some reason and show fanboy tendencies which are unnecessary. I was simply hoping someone like John or Bear may see it and give you a ring. I know people don't live on the support desk 24x7 without looking away from the screen here and there... speaking from personal expirence, it happens. Just a friendly nudge. These forums tend to be pretty hostile when it comes to any feedback, even to the guys who post constructive criticism. Constructive criticism is good for business, helps you build, not everything is negative. remain humble about a great product and that's it.

I believe the general public would disagree with you. A truthful example: I sell VPS, i need to manually provision 15 servers a day i require assistance. You think customers will wait 48 hours for their server happily? Especially when my primary advertisement is "Instant Activation" plastered on my site. (manual provisioning because of fraud checks etc stopping automatic setup) Average $18 per lower end vps. That delay may cost me almost $300. WHMCS is great like i said, but i think where you went wrong with your statement is "It's just a script" Sorry to break it to you, but some of us truly depend on WHMCS as our backend billing/helpdesk. Many people have thousands invested in our business, some in the 10s of thousands. Not to mention existing client base value. WHMCS is our business. I look at it as a very powerful piece of software, not just a script. And just so you know, 24\7 support isn't that hard to achieve. so many web hosts sell for under $7 per month and have 4 hour SLA's. I can list you 3 privately as i don't want to advertise for them. Matt none of the above is a statement against you or your company, just a disagreement to the previous post. Apologies for coming off against WHMCS support. Simple against the idea that 48 hours is acceptable. Let's assume a low end monthly leased client base WHMCS possibly has (remember i'm guessing low end 200 branded 200 unbranded leased licenses) $3,190 for branded and $3,790 unbranded = $6,980. Easily support 1 staff member at night. I believe these are low numbers, i think if many feel how i do about WHMCS it's a dominate competitor. I think Matt may have a full time job and doesn't rely on this to feed his family but no, the point to what i'm saying is, there should be enough income for some dedicated support staff at least 2. Lastly a product can carry the same importance as a service. Sometimes even more importance. As far as i'm concerned WHMCS is far more important to me then my internet connection at home.

Sorry if it came off as rude. That wasn't my intention 48 hours is a deal breaker in some cases. I've been doing some reading and it seems everyone, and i mean everyone loves WHMCS (myself included) but #1 complaint seems to be slow support. Complaints on hostgator forums, WHT new and archived and few other smaller forums. I'm sure answering a lot of tickets takes time, but i worked for a small ISP on a small team of 10 people supporting over 20,000 customers and our SLA was 8 hours. I think a great move on WHMCS part would be to setup an SLA guarantee for their paid customers.

This is acceptable to you? low priority tickets, completely agree. Inability to access admin area with 3 orders waiting my approval right now for working on 8 hours now. Like i said, NOT a complaint, great software, slow support. Simply surprised. 24 hours is far too long, as is 18 hours for high priority tickets. I love the software but my customers aren't as polite. This hurts my image as a business with the long waits. Currently i narrowed it down to to the official WHMCS PayPal addon but i am surprised many find 24 hours acceptable for a system that truly is a businesses backbone. Edit: no it's not me being banned from the admin area, an addon was causing the admin area inaccessible. (PayPal Addon - The WHMCS official one)

Is WHMCS Support active anymore? I submitted a high priority ticket 8:38am EST, it is now 1:23pm EST almost 6 hours and no response. This is not a complaint by any means but i'm hoping a moderator or something can ring up Matt or another support staff to hop on the tickets