Improve your customer support quality (chat/tickets)
I don't know if it's just me, but the support quality and speed has been degraded fast lately..
When I just became customer @Cloudways (like a year ago) support was fast and helpful. They took time and really looked into my issues.
Now it's a whole different story. Today for example, I have been on the chat for OVER 2 HOURS. Literally. All this time waiting, following up what the status was, if they weredoing anything. Very little replies. After an hour the first real reply came in which totally missed the boat, wasn't even related to my question.
I pointed this out on the chat and I was transfered to another agent which took a little time for like 2 minutes and then stopped replying too. Also messages are only read half, I need to point out things multiple times which I already mentioned.
When I pointed out this on the chat I received: "actually i am dealing with multiple customers which is wy it got delayed in the response"
We pay a serious extra for the 'managed service and support'. I mean, the prices of DigitalOcean servers are more than doubled. Which is totally find, but please keep your support and service in check..!
More staff maybe?
Oh, and my issue isn't resolved yet. Has been transfered to a ticket, so after 2 hours chatting with really not that much helpful feedback, I now have to wait for a reply on the ticket.
Dirk
shared this idea
23 comments
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Jay Purohit
commented
This is saddening but I must say, Cloudways has come a long way in resolving such issues.
Customer Support doesn't require rocket science but this isn't as easy as it seems. After all, dealing with humans and that too humans looking for a solution and with varied emotional states, aren't easy to handle.
Here is a resource to KPIs that one can follow to enhance the support quality: https://acquire.io/blog/kpis-for-customer-support-in-2019/
Hope this is helpful.
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Garth Penglase
commented
ps. and not one of my tickets has been followed up without me chasing it via a chat call...
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Garth Penglase
commented
Yes, I am new to Cloudways. This is precisely what I have experienced from the very beginning. Half the time the answers aren't relevant or a so basic that it is pathetic. To have to spend 30 minutes+ (including waiting time) replying to standard responses which are generally covered by my initial request, is frustrating to say the least.
Get rid of the multiple ticket handling at a time nonsense. Maybe that is appropriate we are slow in responding, but for the rest of us who are waiting eagerly on chat to get the issue resolved it is just so annoying.
Frankly, if it weren't for a senior support technician who jumps into help me out when I have an issue (because he knows I am not going to be wasting *his* time and that I've covered all the usual options before bothering to initiate a chat) I would have given up in the first month - because the migration team were unable to get permission settings right on the server, and 3 low level support people change max input timeout settings, and the console that we have doesn't actually change them.
I feel that I know more than 90% of the support people about - that shouldn't be the case. I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way.
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Joe Ammel
commented
+1,000,000! Please add more support staff. It often seems like they are overworked and distracted. Some of the best people you have, who usually respond instantly, are sometimes unable to respond for 5, 10, even 15 minutes at other times.
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Marcus Stafford
commented
I have to agree with the support responses. We;ve been with Cloudways for three years and the quality of support has dropped. Some tickets have such generic and unhelpful answers that I'm sure they are just getting rid of them as quickly as they can. It's almost at the stage where I have to consider submitting a ticket or just getting on with things without an answer.
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Anonymous
commented
I was about to move over 10 websites, but the chat sucks. You ask them basic questions about pricing and such which I am a newbie and they easily should be able to answer. Going to stick with my provider until this improves as I am realizing paying a bit more for faster service is worth the time saved
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Anonymous
commented
Terrible experience recently, created a staging site to test out some new plugins. All went smoothly (according to the interface). Then my live site was corrupted with spurious URL entries, raised a ticket. Was told it was fixed, and it was actually worse. Then I was told it was my site that was at fault plugins etc.
Waited an age for response, chased it in chat, was told it would be fixed asap. Left it 8hrs and went back nothing had been done, no response to ticket. Raised it again, was told that I had run out of disk space. Apparently it makes two copies of your site and files to do staging. No one explained that, nor did the interface warn me of low disk space. At my request they deleted the staging, and I was told the fix would then be quick. It wasn't. They also only replied to one of the issues said that was fixed and it wasn't.
I've lost 3 days worth of user uploads/comments and the like because of this (had to restore to before the staging).
I really admire what you get with cloudways, but am thinking I might have to go somewhere else for my new projects as I need support when things break badly.
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Anonymous
commented
Sooo, I signed up, and after not receiving any email, I followed the splash page instructions to engage online chat. Should there be 5-8 minutes between reponses? Short staffed or ? Here was the convo (I was trying to lightnen the wait up, perhaps get a smile, since I was sure no CSR would take that long...). Hello. How may I help you?
Hi there
adrian
Um, is this the, um wordpress web host for domains?
*Umair gazes at the screen, puzzled by the question....*
Um, yes sir, is this the cloud/web/internet/other that hosts domains?
Are you trapped in this little box? Do you need help? just send a "y" for yes and a "n" for no...
I could call someone, perhaps we can get you some help? Do they feed you in there? Your AWFUL grey in your lil camera view there...
Umair
Could you please confirm your registered email ID and the URL of the site you want to host here with usadrian
regionauts@gmail.com. https://eastbaymarines.com. Hey lil fella, it aint too late, maybe you can squeeze through a crack in the screen if I break the screen a lil....
perhaps its this? Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'open_chat_window' of undefined
at HTMLAnchorElement.onclick (success:1) Hello? Has something terrible happened to you? Dont tell me you are having to typoe with your nose?
Read
Umair
Could you please share screenshot for this?adrian
10:07 am
who are you and how are you getting paid for this? I mean, seriously. I saved this conversation to mail to ops. Perhaps they can tell me what is going on here. It certainly isnts customer service...
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Marcel
commented
Wish I could give this thread 100 points. Because just like Daniel says, the support quality is declining fast. i just filed a complaint about this.
They hire cheap ass support agents (I assume). The support agents are overbusy and stall customers with cheap excuses like 'we are looking into it' or 'please allow me some time while I read your question'. Like really..? Read my question takes you 5 minutes?
It's really, really bad. They take hours to solve the simples of things and often they create a ticket because they can't solve the most simple issues. I ask to clean a bunch of log files and it literally takes 1,5 hours.
This needs to be fixed because it will definitely cost Cloudways customers. I was a huge fan of Cloudways, refered quite some people to them as well. Right now I am not so sure anymore.
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Hans
commented
Poor support. They should hire more well trained support staff. Hope Cloudways will take action on this.
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Marcel
commented
Couldn't agree more. When I first came to Cloudways the support was great. Now it's total crap. They respons once an hour if you are lucky and you constantly need to remind them that you are in a chat. Don't they understand our time is valuable too?
Was way better in the early days of Cloudways. Also better quality, the support staff now is outsourced and not trained and don't know shit, or take ages too solve the simplest of things..
This can cost Cloudways lots of customers altough their platform has such great potential..!
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Dirk
commented
Ps. I don't intend to come over complaining or bitchy. In general I am really happy with Cloudways and the overall service. In general I am really patient as well. I don't mind waiting 5 or 10 minutes for an answer. However, if it takes 2 hours for 3 answers it's getting a bit out of hand, especially since the answers were not really helpful and my questions get handled really hasty without real attention to my actual issue. Hope I don't come over the wrong way because I am still a Cloudways fan :)
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Anonymous
commented
The support on Cloudways stinks. If the chat drops forget it you will need to have all your points written down as you will need to start your chat over and probably with someone else that you will need to explain everything over again to. Then if you lucky that person will maybe understand your problem. If they not already talking to 10 other people and tell you to wait please. From day one the support has sucked big time and that for me is the heart of this industry. There are so many deals out there that its no longer about the best price its about best service and who will understand your problem with out a text book answer. I feel cloudways does not care about the customer as they say. If they did I would not have to speak to 5 support people till the job gets done.
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Hunter F
commented
Great support is CRITICAL for web hosting.
I want to move to cloudways because of the excellent speed scores. But it seems your support is really lacking in quality. I ( and many others i'm sure ) would be willing to pay a small additional fee for high end support from super geeks with English as their first language.
I'm considering moving a lot of sites here but am use to GoDaddy's level of support and I'm afraid to make the switch based on this alone.
Make the investment in your support team and it will carry your business for the long haul!
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Anonymous
commented
Yeah. Support is a total shit dump. Worst support ever. Agree with everyone else on here.
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Orett
commented
I Second!!! this is so true. Usually they point you to a help article and if they don't have an article they can't solve the problem. i have an issue for 2.5 months where i cant add new servers or application, only clone my current application. i have a new ticket open for days now and still no fix. it begs the question... why are we using this service?
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Daniel
commented
I'm afraid I have to say that after beeing a CW customer for quite some time, running ~10 servers and hosting around ~80 sites, the support might be a dealbreaker if it continues to show this decline.
When we first started using CW the support was ok (not much more than ok, but still ok). I've seen a rapid decline in quality of support over the last 6 months.
Not one question I've placed to support the last few weeks has been answered properly, its always some generic answer and no root-cause explanation or problem solving involved. A re-active approach instead of a pro-active approach to problem solving.
As a previous commenter stated, chat support seems almost script driven as it stands right now. Its impossible to get clear answers to a serious matter such as a server, for no apparent reason, stopping to respond. This was one of the things I've recently contacted support about. After over an hour on chat (90% of the time on hold) I still didn't have an answer. I don't know why the server went down, I don't know why it came back online, and it was impossible to get a solid response from the support agent about this because of lacking communication skills. As a technician myself, I wouldn't be able to sleep well not knowing why this happened, since then it can of course happen again. This approach to support remedies ISSUES, but doesn't SOLVE PROBLEMS.
I've also requested something like 4-5 tickets to be opened by support staff when I simply don't have the time to wait 45mins for a generic response, and they neglect to open these tickets each time...
Its currently an ongoing negative trend with support, and if the decline continues, it will make the platform unusable in the long run.
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moreCake
commented
Horrendous support quality over chat. They do not know how to read or know anything about their own system
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Amjad Abdelaziz
commented
It took me 10 hours talking with different support agents, and I get nothing answered.
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Paul
commented
I am starting to have similar feelings.
Support seems to be driven by scripts and flow charts without anybody in first line support actually knowing what they saying or reading the support question properley