Support is a joke and considering leaving it's got that bad!

[easyhosting]

 

I was told by the Hostbill sales agent too that they have been receiving a lot of inquiries lately about migrations. Saying much!?!?!

i take it you dont read WHT or reviews then as if you did you would see many more complaints about hostbill support and the fact that hostbill change their minds and policies almost daily.

 

i get support replies from WHMCS within 24 hours and have never waited longer than 48 hours even for complext issues being sorted.

[bullten]

i take it you dont read WHT or reviews then as if you did you would see many more complaints about hostbill support and the fact that hostbill change their minds and policies almost daily.

 

i get support replies from WHMCS within 24 hours and have never waited longer than 48 hours even for complext issues being sorted.

 

Its not just matter of you who get reply in 24 hours. If you even get then they give high priority to you and what they think other are here for fun. opening ticket to increase ticket count. When you will be treated the same way then you will come to know what is exact meaning of "lack of support".

[easyhosting]

Its not just matter of you who get reply in 24 hours. If you even get then they give high priority to you and what they think other are here for fun. opening ticket to increase ticket count. When you will be treated the same way then you will come to know what is exact meaning of "lack of support".

 

i have had low tickets answered within 24 hours and if you look through the forums i am not the only one to get quick ticket replies/resolves.

 

i can guarantee most ticket delays are caused by those who make duplicate tickets or keep updating tickets. so if members just left tickets to get answered then the ticket queue would not be so long, so tickets would get answered quicker. (i am not saying you are one causing these delays)

[LDHosting]

i get support replies from WHMCS within 24 hours and have never waited longer than 48 hours even for complext issues being sorted.

 

That's great for you, but clearly that is not happening for everyone. I can also say that it is not always anything to do with bumping or opening multiple tickets. I personally have had a ticket go a full 7 days waiting for a response, no bumping, no opening more tickets, just waiting patiently. It wasn't even a complex query, just a simple question that would have required a 'yes' or 'no' answer.

[Zyte]

Agreed. I have had simple tickets open for more than 10 days - no bumping or duplicate tickets whatsoever.

[stormy]

It all comes down to this:

 

1. It's extremely difficult to find talented, trustworthy developers that understand WHMCS fully, who can take over the coding tasks that Matt has been handling personally over the years.

 

2. We can't leave WHMCS anyway beacuse there are no suitable alternatives. Thus, customer satisfaction is clearly not a priority.

 

3. Judging by the figures that were published in WHT when WHMCS was hacked, Matt's already got enough money and doesn't really need to work.

 

By the way, I never bump my tickets until at least a month has passed. And yes, months do pass with no replies; and yes, tickets are "accidentally" closed.

 

It's a sad situation, really.

[easyhosting]

I personally have had a ticket go a full 7 days waiting for a response, no bumping, no opening more tickets, just waiting patiently.

 

yes you may not, but many do bump tickets constantly, which adds to the workload, and as Stormy states

 

It's extremely difficult to find talented, trustworthy developers that understand WHMCS fully, who can take over the coding tasks that Matt has been handling personally over the years.

 

so for all Matt asking for support staff, they will only be able to work on general support until they are learned the coding, so they can work on coding tasks.

[invictus]

I am growing really tired of hearing the excuse that users bumping their tickets is somehow responsible for the lack of support from WHMCS. How much workload does bumping a ticket actually make? A few more bits of text to read? This would hardly justify a total lack of support for days, weeks or even months on end.

 

What if the user who has a ticket open actually has something valuable to add, like new information to help troubleshoot the problem? In my case I do have some valuable information to add to my open ticket, but I have not dared to add it because WHMCS claims that bumping the ticket pushes it to the end of the queue. I need my issue solved, so I'm withholding information in order to get a response faster (it's not working though, I am going on more than two weeks and no response).

 

There really is no excuse that can be made for the terrible support here lately, and we need to stop trying to blame the users. We all use WHMCS and know how the ticket system works, there is not some huge workload created by a customer reply being added to a ticket.

[angelcosta]

Yes, Invictus has a point. I am waiting for 17 days now.

 

I am definetely moving. That is just disrespectful.

[LDHosting]

yes you may not, but many do bump tickets constantly, which adds to the workload, and as Stormy states

 

It may increase the workload marginally, as in, when WHMCS finally get to that ticket they have an extra line or two to read. It doesn't really affect how long it would take to answer other (non bumped) tickets. If there are 100 tickets in the queue and 1 person bumps their ticket, there are still 100 tickets in the queue.

 

Granted, if you bump your ticket you are slowing down response time for your own ticket but that shouldn't have any real effect on other tickets that are waiting. If anything, someone bumping their ticket would push everyone else further up the queue by 1 place, not plunge all other tickets into a 7 day black hole.

 

I'm not condoning ticket bumping in any way, there is no point in doing it. However, to say that people bumping their tickets has caused an overall slow down of support to this degree just doesn't make sense.

[easyhosting]

It may increase the workload marginally, as in, when WHMCS finally get to that ticket they have an extra line or two to read. It doesn't really affect how long it would take to answer other (non bumped) tickets. If there are 100 tickets in the queue and 1 person bumps their ticket, there are still 100 tickets in the queue.

 

Granted, if you bump your ticket you are slowing down response time for your own ticket but that shouldn't have any real effect on other tickets that are waiting. If anything, someone bumping their ticket would push everyone else further up the queue by 1 place, not plunge all other tickets into a 7 day black hole.

 

I'm not condoning ticket bumping in any way, there is no point in doing it. However, to say that people bumping their tickets has caused an overall slow down of support to this degree just doesn't make sense.

 

its not just bumping tickets, but also multiple tickets which will add to the workload. since 5.1.2 its not just WHMCS staff that have vanished, even the mods have vanished.

[invictus]

Granted, if you bump your ticket you are slowing down response time for your own ticket but that shouldn't have any real effect on other tickets that are waiting. If anything, someone bumping their ticket would push everyone else further up the queue by 1 place, not plunge all other tickets into a 7 day black hole.

 

^^ This.

 

If there was such a problem as many users bumping their tickets, then it should make the rest of us who have not bumped our tickets jump to the top of the queue. So if this were the case, why are we still waiting weeks and months for support?

 

I don't buy that people bumping tickets is in any way related to the total lack of support here lately.

[Dreamz]

i take it you dont read WHT or reviews then as if you did you would see many more complaints about hostbill support and the fact that hostbill change their minds and policies almost daily.

 

i get support replies from WHMCS within 24 hours and have never waited longer than 48 hours even for complext issues being sorted.

 

Oh yeah? So why are there so many people complaining on here about support time? Why I am going on 11 days now without a response? Do you have some magical "ANSWER THIS TICKET NOW" priority that we don't?

 

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?52922-Why-is-the-WHMCS-support-so-slow

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1154543

http://amplicate.com/hate/whmcs

 

24 - 48 hours is STILL too long for a billing system. No matter the issue. I understand fixes take time, but the least we could get is status updates etc.

 

We had a issue with Hostbill today, submitted a ticket to them and 38 minutes later we had a response and a resolution. Hostbill is also a smaller company with far less usage than WHMCS. With that said though, I would expect that WHMCS is better staffed, and better equipped to handle tickets. I know when we do major server upgrades, or announce new services etc. we are better prepared to handle the increase in tickets, chats, calls etc.

 

It seems like WHMCS is just Matt and maybe 2 others. And they cannot handle WHMCS as it stands now. And Matt cannot do much as I am sure he is tied up in legal crap, running a company (into the ground), and other businiess decisions, which leaves the other (maybe 2 people) to do everything. WHMCS has to be making damn good money, enough to afford decent servers from a good company, and a decent staff with competent agents that dont waste time asking stupid questions or giving stupid answers.

 

^^ This.

 

If there was such a problem as many users bumping their tickets, then it should make the rest of us who have not bumped our tickets jump to the top of the queue. So if this were the case, why are we still waiting weeks and months for support?

 

I don't buy that people bumping tickets is in any way related to the total lack of support here lately.

 

I don't buy it either. I do buy that WHMCS is tiny with little to no staff, and that Matt is cheap and will not spend money to get enough staff members on board and trained to deal with this. Bumping tickets will affect your tickets response time for sure, but jesus. I haven't replied to my ticket since July 30th, and still nothing. So it seems bumping or not bumping, you get the same result. Typical, slow, WHMCS support. We have never received a response from WHMCS in a decent amount of time, ever. I honestly dread having to contact them at all. We deal with cPanel, Microsoft, SmarterTools, Bitsum Technologies, Gene6, WebSuperGoo, MySQL, PHP Group, Persits and many other companies. WHMCS takes the cake on the slowest support.

Edited August 10, 2012 by Dreamz

[easyhosting]

WHMCS has to be making damn good money, enough to afford decent servers from a good company, and a decent staff with competent agents that dont waste time asking stupid questions or giving stupid answers.

 

whats decent servers got to do with the lack of support. LEARN to READ http://blog.whmcs.com/?t=49758 WHMCS has advertised for extra staff, but its like if you are a trained plumber, would you know how to wire a house, i guess not as you would need trained in electrical work. just like if WHMCS hire new support staff, they most likely be able to handle general support, but no coding issues until they are trained and learned about the coding used.

[Dreamz]

To me it seems everything went up a creek without a paddle after http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?51686-WHMCS-amp-cPanel-Combine-Powers&p=236778#post236778 was announced.

[easyhosting]

To me it seems everything went up a creek without a paddle after http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?51686-WHMCS-amp-cPanel-Combine-Powers&p=236778#post236778 was announced.

 

that i have to agree with. they also seem to have rushed out 5.1.2 so they could concentrate on the cpanel partnership. dont know if you have also noticed apart from no WHMCS staff the mods have also vanished.

 

I have noticed that Mark ( whmcs) does appear to deal with spammers

[semoweb]

They initially responded to my ticket, and asked for information required to investigate the bug I've supplied it but just cant get them to finish/respond.. I guess they either lost some staff or extremely busy I'm not 100% sure.

[Dreamz]

whats decent servers got to do with the lack of support. LEARN to READ http://blog.whmcs.com/?t=49758 WHMCS has advertised for extra staff, but its like if you are a trained plumber, would you know how to wire a house, i guess not as you would need trained in electrical work. just like if WHMCS hire new support staff, they most likely be able to handle general support, but no coding issues until they are trained and learned about the coding used.

 

So all staff members must be godly experts? We have different levels of support agents. Level 1 agents know little about servers, however they are good at giving out answers such as server information, configuration questions things like that. Weed out the easily answer questions. Level 2 agents know decent amount about servers and can answer any questions related to how servers are configured and do general server related inquiries. Level 3 agents are extremely versed in our servers, network, and technologies that we use. Level 4 are the system administrators, that are top-notch in what they manage and get issues resolved ASAP. We strive to make sure ALL issues are resolved within 24 hours. Most tickets are answered within 45 minutes with a solution.

 

It takes over a month for WHMCS to get anyone on board? Customers have to suffer because Matt cannot plan ahead properly? They have known for months and months about the WHMCS 5.1 release. He should have had people trained and ready to go. When we roll out new services, or massive upgrades, we make sure everyone is up-to-speed, and that we get as much information about the upgrade as possible to make sure everyone is informed. For instance, when we did the upgrade from Server 2003 to Server 2008 R2, we added 6 extra staff members to assist in this. We did this 3 months before we started the migration to get them trained on our system, control panel etc.

 

There is no excuses here. You do not wait to call the fire department after your house has already burned down.

[Dreamz]

that i have to agree with. they also seem to have rushed out 5.1.2 so they could concentrate on the cpanel partnership. dont know if you have also noticed apart from no WHMCS staff the mods have also vanished.

 

I have noticed that Mark ( whmcs) does appear to deal with spammers

 

Yes I have noticed that Bear seems to be no more. It is sad really. If something is going on behind the scenes (something say WHMCS is closing up, cPanel is merging etc.). The customers should be told about this and support taken care of. No excuses at all here for the poor support.

[easyhosting]

So all staff members must be godly experts?

this must be the way WHMCS work for some reason.

 

i agree with you on support levels, which is how most of us use. it is strange that i personally can submit a low level ticket and get an answer and fix within 24 hours and reading thhe forums i am not the only one that can go this, but it seems a majority are waiting days for support. if you look at the timing of the job blog it was released after 5.1.2 was released and just before the Cpanel partnership was announced.

I wonder if Matt and the team are taking part in the london2012 olympics as they have not shown since these started. if this is the case they will all reappear on Monday.

[Dreamz]

this must be the way WHMCS work for some reason.

 

i agree with you on support levels, which is how most of us use. it is strange that i personally can submit a low level ticket and get an answer and fix within 24 hours and reading thhe forums i am not the only one that can go this, but it seems a majority are waiting days for support. if you look at the timing of the job blog it was released after 5.1.2 was released and just before the Cpanel partnership was announced.

I wonder if Matt and the team are taking part in the london2012 olympics as they have not shown since these started. if this is the case they will all reappear on Monday.

 

If that is the case, I certainty dont want to be part of a company (especially for something like a billing system) that takes off work for the Olympics. If we did that, our customers would destroy us. The Olympics are on, who cares, we still have a business to run, he still has a business to run, and he has many pissed off customers to tend too. I don't care if he is taking part in NASA's Apollo 88, he still has a business to run, and a company to take care of, and customers that have PAID for support.

[easyhosting]

If that is the case, I certainty dont want to be part of a company (especially for something like a billing system) that takes off work for the Olympics. If we did that, our customers would destroy us. /QUOTE]

 

i think our customers would do the same.

[brianr]

Let me preface this with the fact I'm not trying to defend Matt on this... I think the plethora of complaints stand on their own, however...

 

Having been underwater in support organizations in the past, it is easy to look from the outside and yell to hire more staff. However there is a real time-cost to do that. Vetting CVs, doing interviews, and actually making an offer are a distraction to solving tickets and fixing bugs. What isn't commonly considered is once you hire the person, you still need to train them.

 

The rule of thumb we used was for every person you hired it cost you a net loss of 1.25 people in productivity for x amount of time (usually at least a few days to a week), and then quickly moves to break even after about 2 weeks, and slowly improves from there.

 

The $64,000 question is how deep into the ticket hole is Matt, really? Is it "faster" to dig out of the hole with the staff on hand, or is it so deep that the time cost to add people is moot?

 

I have a feeling whatever way Matt went it was likely the wrong way.

 

That said - I think we're all due a status update.

[invictus]

Even if WHMCS only had one support staff, they could at least tell everyone who has had a ticket open for more than a week something. Anything. Just a word to let us know they are alive and still here would be great.

 

How long would that take? I could send some simple message to 400 tickets in one day, two days at most. Have we got anything at all from WHMCS support in TWO WEEKS? No, nothing.

 

There's simply no excuse for this that anyone can make. WHMCS support seems to have just abandoned it's customers. Sad really.

[paperweight]

Over the last 12+ months that I have owned a WHMCS license, I have spent over US$16,000.00 on developers, software, and services to make my WHMCS do what I need it to do. I'm sure many others here have spent even more time and money on WHMCS.

 

Since we have all invested time and money into WHMCS, it is beneficial for all of us to help WHMCS/Matt to either stay afloat or become better. If that means I pay USD250/year on top of my unbranded lifetime license, I would be happy to pay money for quicker, better service.

 

That said, I have not had bad service from WHMCS. I posted a support query 4 days ago and received a response the next morning.