Well, I wanted to talk a bit about this. I want to see other companies opinions same from customers.

For you company what support methods do you use and why? I currently have PHP Live Support, WHMAutoPilot clients area and E-Mail. Why do I use them? Because they are the support methods used more frequently. There are others methods like Forums. I've tried providing a forum but Customers seem to not needed it as they find it enough with E-Mail and Support Tickets so I decided just to use this 2.

Customers: What kind of support method would you like to see on a company and why? I would like to know opinion of the people that apply for all this support.

Hope to see some good answers.

Thanks & Regards

Currenty we have Support as Follows:

Billing:
E-mail & Ticket System built in MB

Support:
E-mail & Forums
Soon to be integrated: Ticket System & Chat

My customers don't post on the forums but they regularly state they check the uptime and like the idea and they regulary check the network news and such as well on the forums. Overall everything I am currently using, the customers love. I did an individual one on one survey on a few customers who didn't mind me contacting them relating to quality support and I asked them what other things they would like to see; the majority stated a ticket system with only 10% stating they wished to see chat software and 5% asking for phone support.

Some people are way to shy to use Phone Support.

As a customer, here are the 3 in order of what I prefer:

1. Chat - quick and effective
2. Telephone - better if the problem is more in-depth
3. Email- good if I'm not ina hurry or the problem doesn't need immediate attention.

You can count me in. Add to that not being a native English speaker and you get the picture.

As a customer I like to be able to contact the host 24/7, but not necesarily live (someone has to be there and get back to me fast though). I also like forums and since support forums are forums, I will use them. Email is OK too, as long as it's answered properly. I'm not a big fan of ticket systems, but i recognise their value in keeping things ordered. I would use one if asked.

For serious issues I would say email is my no. 1 choice. Second would be IM.

************* Uses the following listed below
3 ticketing systems
2 helpcenters
1 forum
phone support
9 aim reps
2msn reps
1 yahoo reps
Tycoon Help
And we are planning to have a addition of 6 more aim reps.

That's really intereting. And which is the support method they like the most? Of what I can see I would say it's AIM, or am I wrong?

Support is very high on my agenda at **********....something we are always improving. Just last week we installed live sales chat, we also have a custom built ticket system and e-mail.

Support:
Cerberus HelpDesk
Support Logic
phpManager (built in helpdesk)
Email
Support Forums

Billing / Sales:

phpManager
Whois.Cart
ModernBill
Email
Forums
AIM / ICQ in some cases

Support methods;
Phone (toll free)
Cerberus helpdesk (for non-hsphere customers)
H-Sphere
Custom support application
Customer support center II (seperate subsidiary - seperate concept)
Forum

Billing:
ModernBill (for non-hsphere customers)
H-Sphere



Simon

As a customer:

1. Email is my first choice.
2. PIM or Live Chat
3. Phone Support

As a provider i offer the same channels of communications to my customers.

(In order of how we prefer customers to contact us)

1) Using self-help resources (FAQ/Knowledge base)
2) Using group-help resources (Forums)
3) Using our on-line ticket system (only avaliable to paying customers)
4) Email
----> we ask that they use the ticket system over email
as it provides a history that the customer can look
through and also gives a better sense of accountability
to our customers as they have a "record" of our responses
that we can look into later
5) Telephone (toll free)
6) In-person (for customers that live locally) as we had done a large
outbound sales type deal locally to various businesses.

We just got through developing our own product: SightMax. We used to use LivePerson, but it got to be too expensive, and didnt allow customized chat windows. If you guys have any questions, I would be happy to answer them. sightmax.com.

Who of you have Forums that are publicly viewable? I want to get some ideas for a support system of my own. From what I can see, eMail (via a ticket system) seems to people's number one choice. Instant messenger and IRC chat are also my avaliable options, but would a Forum be a good idea? If you have had experience, please do me a favour and spill the beans...

We offer Support with the following:

Sales:
-Knowledge Base
-Helpdesk
-Live Chat
-Email
-Community Forums

Support
-Knowledge Base
-Helpdesk
-Live Chat
-Email
-Community Forums

Billing:
-HelpDesk
-Email

Austin S
PierceMultimedia.com