Free End User Support for Resellers !!!

[Ryan]

We've never had any issues providing end user support with that particular email address until now. However as mentioned in the original post, resellers can request for another email address on different domain name if they are not willing to go ahead with the supportdepartment address.

[andy_brit]

Apols if this has been asked previously.

The supportdepartment email is a great idea.

What I'm interested in is knowing what my clients are asking. I can easily put a cc address in the email form that gets sent to support department so that I can track the questions that get asked.

What I would be interested in is being able to track the answers that get sent by 'supportdepartment' back to the clients.

This is so that I can track issues and fixes and also keep an eye on my clients so that when I talk directly to them I would like to be knowledgable about their issues (in an ideal world)

The question is, if I CC myself on the webform, will supportdepartment cc me in on any reply?

Thanks for your thoughts
Andrew

[swexpert]

Originally Posted by andy_brit

Apols if this has been asked previously.

The supportdepartment email is a great idea.

What I'm interested in is knowing what my clients are asking. I can easily put a cc address in the email form that gets sent to support department so that I can track the questions that get asked.

What I would be interested in is being able to track the answers that get sent by 'supportdepartment' back to the clients.

This is so that I can track issues and fixes and also keep an eye on my clients so that when I talk directly to them I would like to be knowledgable about their issues (in an ideal world)

The question is, if I CC myself on the webform, will supportdepartment cc me in on any reply?

Thanks for your thoughts
Andrew

Hello Andrew,
It most probably would be difficult for supportdepartment people to send a CC to you everytime (and for every reseller if yheu ask for it). However you can do it simply at your end, you could simply add a reply-to header in your form which will send the reply back to the address mentioned. I have not tried multiple addresses in reply-to but it should work using a comma. Example: mail1@somewhere.com,mail2@somewhere.com

If your volume of tickets is not very high then you may use eTicket (http://eticket.sourceforge.net/) wherein you'd be able to maintain all support tickets.

Regds
IJ

[eUKhost.com]

Originally Posted by andy_brit

Apols if this has been asked previously.

The supportdepartment email is a great idea.

What I'm interested in is knowing what my clients are asking. I can easily put a cc address in the email form that gets sent to support department so that I can track the questions that get asked.

What I would be interested in is being able to track the answers that get sent by 'supportdepartment' back to the clients.

This is so that I can track issues and fixes and also keep an eye on my clients so that when I talk directly to them I would like to be knowledgable about their issues (in an ideal world)

The question is, if I CC myself on the webform, will supportdepartment cc me in on any reply?

Thanks for your thoughts
Andrew

Hello Andrew,

Our helpdesk automatically includes CC email address in list of Requesters so you will get a copy of our reply. Your customers will also see that a CC was sent to your email address so they may have some questions for which you need to keep your answer prepared.

[andy_brit]

Thanks guys I really appreciate the prompt answer!
Andrew

[danwednesday]

API. That's what's needed here. It seems to be a bit of a disorganised idea at the moment - the user just fills in any old form from the reseller's website, and it's sent to an 'anonymous' support email address. How about doing something really simple, but structured, such as making the form have to contain certain standard details. e.g.

Text field: user's name (Max 40 chars)
Text field: user's email (Max 50 chars)
Text field: user's domain (Max 40 chars)
Text field: message title (Max 200 chars)
Text field: message (Max 5000 chars)
Hidden field: reseller's primary domain (Max 40 chars)
Hidden field: email address to bcc replies to (Max 50 chars)
Hidden field: company name to be used in replies (Max 30 chars)

The complexity would then come from the user trying to respond to the reply from support, but it's not insurmountable - it could either be done by generating a ticket number and logging the hidden fields from the initial enquiry to tie them to that particular ticket, or even by forcing the whole process online, and offering a skinnable support ticket system that could be included within reseller's sites by means of AJAX or an IFrame.

There's obviously a certain amount of development needed either way, but I would prefer to see it done with formal guidelines and rules than just ad-hoc. It seems dangerous to me to open up floods of enquiries from resellers' clients in anything other than a formal, rigid way - it's a recipe for disaster and I wouldn't like to see EUKHosts support be sidetracked into dealing with messy end-user tickets without a proper infrastructure. I for one, would happily pay for this service, and no other host I've come across offers this, so it could be a good source of revenue for EUKHost.

[andy_brit]

That would get my vote!

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by danwednesday

API. That's what's needed here. It seems to be a bit of a disorganised idea at the moment - the user just fills in any old form from the reseller's website, and it's sent to an 'anonymous' support email address. How about doing something really simple, but structured, such as making the form have to contain certain standard details. e.g.

Text field: user's name (Max 40 chars)
Text field: user's email (Max 50 chars)
Text field: user's domain (Max 40 chars)
Text field: message title (Max 200 chars)
Text field: message (Max 5000 chars)
Hidden field: reseller's primary domain (Max 40 chars)
Hidden field: email address to bcc replies to (Max 50 chars)
Hidden field: company name to be used in replies (Max 30 chars)

The complexity would then come from the user trying to respond to the reply from support, but it's not insurmountable - it could either be done by generating a ticket number and logging the hidden fields from the initial enquiry to tie them to that particular ticket, or even by forcing the whole process online, and offering a skinnable support ticket system that could be included within reseller's sites by means of AJAX or an IFrame.

There's obviously a certain amount of development needed either way, but I would prefer to see it done with formal guidelines and rules than just ad-hoc. It seems dangerous to me to open up floods of enquiries from resellers' clients in anything other than a formal, rigid way - it's a recipe for disaster and I wouldn't like to see EUKHosts support be sidetracked into dealing with messy end-user tickets without a proper infrastructure. I for one, would happily pay for this service, and no other host I've come across offers this, so it could be a good source of revenue for EUKHost.

You do have a point, however this service has and continues to be very popular and a good selling point among customers of eUKhost.

"No other host you have come across offers this" but this is because eUKhost is not just "another host". eUKhosts business has been built up by the fact that they are different and arn't just the same as others - that is what generates revenue for the company, not withdrawing every offer and only doing the bare miniumum.

Not many other hosts do a free domain competition, most charge for domains but that doesn't mean that eUKhost should end that competition and just fall in line with everyone else.

If you are happy to pay for this service then there are many providers of such services out there that you can integrate with your website / web space provided by eUKhost. And for other people who are currently using this free service and are happy - they can carry on using this.

That way, everybody is happy and pleased - which will ultimately bring in more revenue .

[danwednesday]

Hi DPS, sorry, I didn't mean to come across as being critical at all. To be honest, after having read the whole thread I wasn't sure if the service was something that was actually up and running and widely used or whether it was under construction as there seemed to be some debate about how it should work.

After some terrible VPS teething problems I've been happy with EUKHost - all I was trying to suggest was that if there was a formal API for end user support, it would be very attractive to myself and also to potential customers. It's not something I've seen anyone else advertise, and it's not something I was immediately aware of when I signed up with EUKHost - although it would have been a very strong 'pro' had I known. I've no doubt that the people who use the current service (I will be one of them now I know it's actually up and running) are happy with it.

So is there any documentation at all on this service? What variables to I send to the support email?

Again, sorry if you took my post as being critical - I think it's a good idea to offer this, but to offer a fully documented API would be even better and would give EUKHost an even greater advantage!

[eUKhost.com]

I am not sure what sort of documentation you need or why you need any sort of API for such simplified solution. All you need to do is forward your client requests to clientsupport@supportdepartment.net and it will be replied by one of our staff members anonymously with a signature like following :-

Regards,
Mark,
Support Team.

I hope that makes it look simple now. We will setup a frontend as well which can be used by your customers to submit tickets online. It would be similar to http://support.eukhost.com, but without any information of eUKhost.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by danwednesday

Hi DPS, sorry, I didn't mean to come across as being critical at all. To be honest, after having read the whole thread I wasn't sure if the service was something that was actually up and running and widely used or whether it was under construction as there seemed to be some debate about how it should work.

After some terrible VPS teething problems I've been happy with EUKHost - all I was trying to suggest was that if there was a formal API for end user support, it would be very attractive to myself and also to potential customers. It's not something I've seen anyone else advertise, and it's not something I was immediately aware of when I signed up with EUKHost - although it would have been a very strong 'pro' had I known. I've no doubt that the people who use the current service (I will be one of them now I know it's actually up and running) are happy with it.

So is there any documentation at all on this service? What variables to I send to the support email?

Again, sorry if you took my post as being critical - I think it's a good idea to offer this, but to offer a fully documented API would be even better and would give EUKHost an even greater advantage!

No problem, you are allowed to be critical of things, I was just putting forward the other side of the argument so that there is a balanced view. Your opinions on improving any services or any comments you have are greatfully recieved by both me and I am sure by the eUKhost team.

As Mark has said, the system has worked well thus far and has been running for a significant amount of time. The system is simple, but that I think is the beauty of it - the more complicated you make it the more prone to failure it is and the more failures it has the worse it is recieved by customers thus putting people off .