AustinS : I guess I cant count on your Community Forums! Theres like three posts in them. How long have you been in operation?

A good support system would be esupport, we also have lpanel integrated for automatic account setup.

Oh We Just have got our new live chat and community forums. We have been a company since 1996, started out as a local advertising firm. But we have just added the community forums.

AustinS : Ok, thanks. If someone else here has a relatively developed Forum/Board, could they post the URL here so I could take a look? I need some advice as to whether it is a good idea and as to how it should be structured! Thanks in advance...

Hostdoom : EDITED DUE TO MISUNDERSTANDING : I apologise for any inconvinience cause directly or indirectly by my actions. It was my misunderstanding. Sorry HostDoom...

Reseller accounts are cannot be setup automatically through our systems.

You first asked me about a reseller account of which I told you about techie prices then you asked me about a web hosting account of which i told you that process was automated... sorry for any confusion.

I would go for following combinations :

Billing :
Modernbill

Helpdesk :
Cerberus ( Modernbill support can be integrated with Cerberus)

Live Chat :
CCS from clickchatsold.com

But the individual views always differ

Trying to keep it simple here:

support, sales, and everything else goes via email, live chat, or help desk. its all up to the customer. If we sense that something is up with the request (say billing info or password change) we generally try to have them use email and provide all the information that they can about their acocunt!

We supply 24/7 toll free telephone support (rarely utilized), trouble ticket,(most utilized), live chat(rarest utilized) and forum(never utilized).

There always pro and con to whichever method you use for support. I dont think there is a 'one size fit all' solution. It depends on your business. In some business where you need to put a lot of articles or some sort of white papers, you may need knowledge base system. In some business where community support is essential, then the forum is highly useful. To induce decision making, the live chat would be a great advantage. I'd prefer email rather than ticketing system which I dont feel the personalization. So, to me, I'd rule out the standard ticket system. Unless the ticket system can be integrated directly into email system then it is good because customer dont feel like dealing with another system but their mail to support@mydomain.tld been routed and answered by a person, customer dont care how you file the ticket etc, all they need is to be able to communicate their problem and get solved. Directly via email is the best. I'm planning to write my own support system that integrate the email system and the customer database -- so it become a CRM rather than having all small support components.

We use helpdesk(ticket system), toll-free phone, forum, and email.

We used to offer live support chat, but have ceased using this method for support, and have been restructuring it for live sales instead.

As a customer ... I prefer using ... in order ....

FAQ/Knowledge base
Forum
Ticket System
Toll free number for "extreme emergency" only - like when every other option is offline for some reason. And a "non toll free" number just in case the toll free number messes up.

Personally, I try to solve my problems on my own first. I love community forums (when they are well used by the customers and monitored by web host staff) ... because I can "pick the brains" of others who may be having (or had) experienced the same issues in the past.

I always consider Ticket System or Help Desk a second to last resort. Unless I consider the problem Urgent. Mind you ... that could be due to a web host I had a few years ago when no matter what I asked the support people always responded to me like I was a total idiot. Ever since then when I submit a ticket I am half ways expecting the same kind of response from every web host since. Its never happened since ... but for some reason I still expect it.

The ONLY time I would use a phone number is when, for whatever reason, I have an urgent problem and cannot contact support staff any other way.

I do not use any chat programs ... I really have no use for them. But that too is a personal opinion and more due to my disability than anything else. My brain does not work fast enough for a chat program anymore ... so when I try to use AIM or similar I am OK for a few sentences but then my brain shuts down.

I have used E-mail in emergency situations ... but previous web hosts have not really condoned or appreciate that means of contact for support.

It honestly depends on what your selling. If it's dedicated servers & colo then most of your support need occurs only in an emergency.

Ticket System
Phone


If your selling shared hosting or vps, where people are just getting their feet wet, with the service all together then I would have to agree with pmhoran.

I use just about every option that i can.

Email/web chat
messenger
forums
FAQ
Toll free phone support

- eddy

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