I am so very upset with tech support, i guess im feeling as if WHMCS has become just like any other corp entity now. They use scripted replies for emails, when you ask for something personal as far as making things right you get some generic reply cookie cutter email in return. I am really thinking that the company as well as support has lost that "buy in" attitude with customers.
And im not saying that this has anything to do with cpanel partnership but it sure seems that way. In early 2011 when i got this software i had some questions and the techs seemed back then to ask alot of questions and really take an interest in what your going through. Now they just copy and paste a link to the docs and dont ask you anything as far as your particular situation. And we pay for that support. I really do feel as if they care more about how many tickets they can process in a day, they doing so with personal quality and earning our business.
This happens all the time, a companies support is great when they are young and starving for business but once they go big time and get in with the big boys in the industry they become distant, inpersonal automated robots instead of personal contacts for help.
It so reminds me of the horrible support i got from HP several times. The passiveness, the total lack of real interest in how what they do effects us and our bottom line.
This all came about due to this whole issue with the so called requirement regarding shell_exec enabling. In which i will share with you my text reply to them and their reply from managent back to me. But before i do that let me go over what i ask for so its clear.
I ask for a personal apology from Matt - i didnt get that.
I ask for them to give me a reason that i should pay for support - i didnt get that.
I ask for them to do something or say something to earn my business - they didnt do that.
And worst of all they closed the ticket after replying with their cookie cutter reply - which i took as closing the door in my face.
The number one thing you companies need to understand and teach your reps is that when a customer is upset and asks you to do something, you need to make that effort or explain why you cant make that effort. When im talking to tech support from any company and i ask to speak to a manager "i expect to talk to a manager" and that means that i am done talking to your rep. I dont want to hear excuses and i dont want to hear "well the manager is going to tell you the same thing". The next voice on the phone better be a manager or im going to get irate. You big companies make tons and tons of money off us and yet you sit there and treat us as if we as individual costumers mean nothing to your company. And im not just talking about WHMCS im talking about most large companies. All that training you say you do in training your reps is worthless if they are unable to connect with us other than on a digital level.
Anyway, here is my letter to tech support on ticket #638920 and then after that i will share their reply back.
OK a couple of things, first as far as i know your latest version is 5.13 and it says i have 5.13 in my admin panel and yet the dbconnect file you gave me which should work on 5.13 locked up my admin panel. So i went back to the older file. So that is strike 1.
Strike 2:
As you may have gathered right now i am NOT a happy camper, why you ask. Because both myself and my host were sent on a wild goose chase by your tech regarding this shell_exec requirement in order to show the load and uptime on the CLIENT SIDE. Which i now know was just a bunch of bull from your tech support. The fact of the matter is that we dont need shell_exec to get those values of load and uptime, thats the truth. So why was i told right from the beginning that i had to have them, and that it was required.
I will tell you why, because in my opinion your tech support staff is more interested in quantity of tickets handled the quality and this has been the case ever since you all became a part of cPanel. Ever since then you seem to have been more worried about pleasing everyone else but your customers the very people that got you where you are today in my opinion.
With that said lets talk about facts here, first of all your misinformation cost me 3 days that i could have been productive doing somethng else, second it also cost my host over a day to do some research to try to decide if they wanted to enable exec or not.
I sat down and wrote and ajax and php script to allow myself to gather the data so i could get it posted in the event my host did not enable exec and i could bypass that requirement by just putting the data in session and grabbing the sesson from the tpl along with all the other reading and reading and reading i did on this issue.
In the process i was on the forum with a very nice gentlemen named james last night who when i told him about the file i built and why, and also shared with him your tech support staff ticket text, his reply was quite basically HORSEHOCKY! He advised me of the truth and how it works and that i dont need to have exec enabled and he uses it every day without it. So we started a converstation and he went above and beyond asking me questions and we talked, and low and behold GUESS WHAT! We found the problem.
Embarassing enough the problem was my fault because when i updated from 503 to 513 i did not update my custom template and i am very embarrased by that fact, i should have known better because i work with scripts every day. Once i updated my custom template with the new files the load and uptime showed perfectly. But i will tell you that if i was not so uttlerly confused and stressed out by your instructions and having to then go back and do patches after the update i may have remembed to do so. But im not blaming you entirely for that part, thats my bag.
What is your bag is that your tech didnt even ask any questions, they didnt dig, they knew i updated and all they did was make a copy of a link to docs or the most common solution and send that all in the attempt to just process the ticket, which if you dont know this, IS NOT TECH SUPPORT. If you want to hire monkeys with no talent and no customers service skills to simply copy and paste a link and go to the next ticket or have mindless people with no skill send people on a wild goose chase with no "buy in" or "personal attachment" to the ticket issue then that is your decision as a business, but it is also my decision to not do business with you in the future.
Your probably sick of reading this right now but thats just too bad. I will grant you that tech support and customer service people many times get a bad rap for no reason as i used to be one myself. But lets face it folks, you totally dropped the ball on this one. All you had to do was ask a few questions and be alittle inquisitive as james from the forum was and it would have been solved the first day within hours rather than three days.
So here i see my support and upgrade fees are now due on the account, tell me again why i should pay you those fees when i get better and faster support free from the forum and by people that really care about my issue and not how many threads they process.
I have 5 days to decide and unless you convince me otherwise then im not going to pay your worthless support fee, it is money i dont have and dont need to spend anyway as it is obvious now that i get very little for it.
If you need to go to management on this then do so, but i want to you earn my business right here and now. I also want an apology personally from Matt for wasting 3 days of my time on a wild goose chase.
And please dont reply to the fact that shell_exec can be enabled and the doc are truthfull, you and i both know its not a "requirement" and i was totally misled to think that was the case.
Dave
And here is their cookie cutter reply..
And this statement is just funny, because i never said anything like that.
"I can assure you not a single person in this ticket or anyone at works at WHMCS has any ill or bad intentions towards you and your company"
Hi,
Thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback, I'm please dto hear you were able to get to the bottom of the issue and that our tech support staff weren't able to identify the cause of the problem on this occasion.
I can assure you our aim is to provide the best-in-class technical support and on this occasion we didn't reach the high standard we set for ourselves, however I can assure you not a single person in this ticket or anyone at works at WHMCS has any ill or bad intentions towards you and your company.
We do sincerely apologize that we were not able to help and I wanted to make sure you know that our intentions, efforts, and responses have been an attempt to communicate and work towards the best solution. While we were not able to identify the problem here we do appreciate and want this situation to have the best outcome possible.
If we can be of any more assistance, please don't hesitate to get back in contact.
And im not saying that this has anything to do with cpanel partnership but it sure seems that way. In early 2011 when i got this software i had some questions and the techs seemed back then to ask alot of questions and really take an interest in what your going through. Now they just copy and paste a link to the docs and dont ask you anything as far as your particular situation. And we pay for that support. I really do feel as if they care more about how many tickets they can process in a day, they doing so with personal quality and earning our business.
This happens all the time, a companies support is great when they are young and starving for business but once they go big time and get in with the big boys in the industry they become distant, inpersonal automated robots instead of personal contacts for help.
It so reminds me of the horrible support i got from HP several times. The passiveness, the total lack of real interest in how what they do effects us and our bottom line.
This all came about due to this whole issue with the so called requirement regarding shell_exec enabling. In which i will share with you my text reply to them and their reply from managent back to me. But before i do that let me go over what i ask for so its clear.
I ask for a personal apology from Matt - i didnt get that.
I ask for them to give me a reason that i should pay for support - i didnt get that.
I ask for them to do something or say something to earn my business - they didnt do that.
And worst of all they closed the ticket after replying with their cookie cutter reply - which i took as closing the door in my face.
The number one thing you companies need to understand and teach your reps is that when a customer is upset and asks you to do something, you need to make that effort or explain why you cant make that effort. When im talking to tech support from any company and i ask to speak to a manager "i expect to talk to a manager" and that means that i am done talking to your rep. I dont want to hear excuses and i dont want to hear "well the manager is going to tell you the same thing". The next voice on the phone better be a manager or im going to get irate. You big companies make tons and tons of money off us and yet you sit there and treat us as if we as individual costumers mean nothing to your company. And im not just talking about WHMCS im talking about most large companies. All that training you say you do in training your reps is worthless if they are unable to connect with us other than on a digital level.
Anyway, here is my letter to tech support on ticket #638920 and then after that i will share their reply back.
Quote:
OK a couple of things, first as far as i know your latest version is 5.13 and it says i have 5.13 in my admin panel and yet the dbconnect file you gave me which should work on 5.13 locked up my admin panel. So i went back to the older file. So that is strike 1.
Strike 2:
As you may have gathered right now i am NOT a happy camper, why you ask. Because both myself and my host were sent on a wild goose chase by your tech regarding this shell_exec requirement in order to show the load and uptime on the CLIENT SIDE. Which i now know was just a bunch of bull from your tech support. The fact of the matter is that we dont need shell_exec to get those values of load and uptime, thats the truth. So why was i told right from the beginning that i had to have them, and that it was required.
I will tell you why, because in my opinion your tech support staff is more interested in quantity of tickets handled the quality and this has been the case ever since you all became a part of cPanel. Ever since then you seem to have been more worried about pleasing everyone else but your customers the very people that got you where you are today in my opinion.
With that said lets talk about facts here, first of all your misinformation cost me 3 days that i could have been productive doing somethng else, second it also cost my host over a day to do some research to try to decide if they wanted to enable exec or not.
I sat down and wrote and ajax and php script to allow myself to gather the data so i could get it posted in the event my host did not enable exec and i could bypass that requirement by just putting the data in session and grabbing the sesson from the tpl along with all the other reading and reading and reading i did on this issue.
In the process i was on the forum with a very nice gentlemen named james last night who when i told him about the file i built and why, and also shared with him your tech support staff ticket text, his reply was quite basically HORSEHOCKY! He advised me of the truth and how it works and that i dont need to have exec enabled and he uses it every day without it. So we started a converstation and he went above and beyond asking me questions and we talked, and low and behold GUESS WHAT! We found the problem.
Embarassing enough the problem was my fault because when i updated from 503 to 513 i did not update my custom template and i am very embarrased by that fact, i should have known better because i work with scripts every day. Once i updated my custom template with the new files the load and uptime showed perfectly. But i will tell you that if i was not so uttlerly confused and stressed out by your instructions and having to then go back and do patches after the update i may have remembed to do so. But im not blaming you entirely for that part, thats my bag.
What is your bag is that your tech didnt even ask any questions, they didnt dig, they knew i updated and all they did was make a copy of a link to docs or the most common solution and send that all in the attempt to just process the ticket, which if you dont know this, IS NOT TECH SUPPORT. If you want to hire monkeys with no talent and no customers service skills to simply copy and paste a link and go to the next ticket or have mindless people with no skill send people on a wild goose chase with no "buy in" or "personal attachment" to the ticket issue then that is your decision as a business, but it is also my decision to not do business with you in the future.
Your probably sick of reading this right now but thats just too bad. I will grant you that tech support and customer service people many times get a bad rap for no reason as i used to be one myself. But lets face it folks, you totally dropped the ball on this one. All you had to do was ask a few questions and be alittle inquisitive as james from the forum was and it would have been solved the first day within hours rather than three days.
So here i see my support and upgrade fees are now due on the account, tell me again why i should pay you those fees when i get better and faster support free from the forum and by people that really care about my issue and not how many threads they process.
I have 5 days to decide and unless you convince me otherwise then im not going to pay your worthless support fee, it is money i dont have and dont need to spend anyway as it is obvious now that i get very little for it.
If you need to go to management on this then do so, but i want to you earn my business right here and now. I also want an apology personally from Matt for wasting 3 days of my time on a wild goose chase.
And please dont reply to the fact that shell_exec can be enabled and the doc are truthfull, you and i both know its not a "requirement" and i was totally misled to think that was the case.
Dave
And here is their cookie cutter reply..
And this statement is just funny, because i never said anything like that.
"I can assure you not a single person in this ticket or anyone at works at WHMCS has any ill or bad intentions towards you and your company"
Quote:
Hi,
Thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback, I'm please dto hear you were able to get to the bottom of the issue and that our tech support staff weren't able to identify the cause of the problem on this occasion.
I can assure you our aim is to provide the best-in-class technical support and on this occasion we didn't reach the high standard we set for ourselves, however I can assure you not a single person in this ticket or anyone at works at WHMCS has any ill or bad intentions towards you and your company.
We do sincerely apologize that we were not able to help and I wanted to make sure you know that our intentions, efforts, and responses have been an attempt to communicate and work towards the best solution. While we were not able to identify the problem here we do appreciate and want this situation to have the best outcome possible.
If we can be of any more assistance, please don't hesitate to get back in contact.