Live Chat Support Restructuring

[othellobloke]

What's the chances of you getting rid of all the Level 1 support technicians from live chat by training them to a higher level and have live chat more able to help out instead of being told to submit a ticket for tiny little things like adding a wildcard dns?

I know the situation with HG technicians on live chat and all the hiring etc... but I see a lot of people with beefs about having to submit a ticket.

Just makes more sense to have SOME of the more highly knowledgeable/trained staff on live chat.

[esl]

Hello,
Live Tech operators are for simple issues, answering questions, sales, etc. The reason you must open a trouble ticket is because your question/problem may take some time to resolve; that would cause excessive wait times for people who do have quick questions. Trouble tickets are often responded to promptly.

[othellobloke]

I hear that...

but it physically takes about 90 seconds to add a wildcard dns entry which i was told to submit a ticket.

or the time when i couldn't delete a folder and had to submit a ticket to get it deleted... it happened almost immediately and took about 90 seconds to finish.

I'm not talking about MAJOR stuff... i understand that takes time and have no problem submitting a ticket... but when it's very very simple it does get a little infuriating having to submit a ticket instead of just typing in the chat window...

'hey there, my domain is www.ryanpaul.ca can you please delete the subdomain teika.ryanpaul.ca'...

I think a lot of people would appreciate a move like this from HG

[esl]

I understand what you mean.

Here is a response to another comment about chat support for a HostGator staff member.

http://forums.hostgator.com/showpost...26&postcount=8

[othellobloke]

Point taken.

[KyleK]

Please understand that if you are sent to a ticket, there is good reason. Usually, ticketed issues require server-side access allowed only by admins -- qualified professionals who have the knowledge not to mess up your entire box just to fix a server-side permissions issue,

Hes saying all the tech support should be qualified professionals who have the knowledge not to mess up your entire box just to fix a server-side permissions issue.

[kmaw]

Submitting a ticket also keeps track of everything... there are thousands of people that aren`t members of the forum that may love LiveChat.... but we don`t hear from them.... it just doesn`t work for many of us here because we`re more advanced users and don`t require simple things like instructions for FTP.

[smp]

The main point though is that Brent needs all the level II and III techs he can get working on more complex issues as there is a great shortage of them, even if he could put level III techs on live support he wouldn't because it isn't logical from a business perspective.

In my opinion live support is more about marketing than anything else, they're used to pull in potential clients and to give another means of communication to customers.

Regards, Steve Xx

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by smp

In my opinion live support is more about marketing than anything else, they're used to pull in potential clients and to give another means of communication to customers.

Also, IMO, there is great value in having an omni-present information resource. Maybe most of the forum members don't need that kind of info (stuff like the 'phrasing' of a shared ssl url; whether the www folder is the same as the public_html; whether a subdomain is the same as an add-on; and so on).

But with thousands of customers, some of them do need those kinds of questions answered. That will always be true.

Looked at from another perspective, it's an invaluable way for people who may eventually become higher level techs to interface with and understand how customers think. An unfortunate side effect of tech people everywhere is that the higher their skill level, the less they can remember (or understand intuitively) how those less knowledgeable or apt perceive and experience things.

[smp]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

Also, IMO, there is great value in having an omni-present information resource. Maybe most of the forum members don't need that kind of info (stuff like the 'phrasing' of a shared ssl url; whether the www folder is the same as the public_html; whether a subdomain is the same as an add-on; and so on).

But with thousands of customers, some of them do need those kinds of questions answered. That will always be true.

Looked at from another perspective, it's an invaluable way for people who may eventually become higher level techs to interface with and understand how customers think. An unfortunate side effect of tech people everywhere is that the higher their skill level, the less they can remember (or understand intuitively) how those less knowledgeable or apt perceive and experience things.

I couldn't agree with you more, I was actually considering editing my post as it is incomplete.
I still find them useful when I want to know if HG supports something or If I want clarifying...

Regards, Steve Xx

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by smp

I still find them useful when I want to know if HG supports something or If I want clarifying...

Yet another way to look at it: live help is for information, support is for action.

Many of the people who need action taken--particularly those who know exactly what action they need--either have customers or are advanced enough that they really should be tracking changes and actions.

Not necessarily formally (although that's an excellent practice)...but knowing what was changed (or fixed) when is crucial for many purposes--debugging, complaining to HG, dealing with complaints from one's own customers, deciding what to try next, and so on.

HG customers can work the ticket system into that approach.