Are your customers receiving your tech support messages?
I just had a frustrating experience as a customer, and thought I would share it as a cautionary tale.
I was having technical problems with an online service, so I went to the service's web site looking for tech support. The information I needed wasn't in their knowledgebase, so I submitted a ticket for support. 36 hours later, I hadn't received any message from the vendor, either in my Inbox or mistakenly filed in my spam folder. I hadn't expected to get help immediately, but I did expect to at least get an acknowledgment email.
I went back to the knowledgebase and logged into my account. I was surprised (and a bit annoyed) to see that my ticket had been closed. I checked all my email folders again to make sure I hadn't missed a message, then opened another ticket. I explained both my technical problem, and the fact that my first ticket had been closed with no response.
A day-and-a-half later, I still had no response. And, sure enough, my ticket had been closed. Now I was pissed. I submitted a third ticket, this time to billing support instead of tech support. I explained the problem (again) and that my two tech support tickets had been closed. I did receive a response from them within 12 hours that assured me that my problem would be taken care of. So, mollified, I decided to stop worrying about that issue for the time being.
And what happened? A couple of days later, there was a response from tech support in my inbox. Strangely, however, the email was actually dated the same day I submitted my original ticket. That prompted me to look at the headers, and, from what I could tell, the email had actually sat on the vendor's mail server for 6 days. A couple of days later, I received a response to my second tech support ticket, which, not surprisingly, was written with a bit of an irritated tone. That message had also sat on the vendor's server for nearly a week. Long after my technical problem was resolved, I received a third message from tech support that had been delayed 10 days.
In the end it all turned out fine, but it could have been a serious problem - I could have given up on the vendor and moved my business elsewhere. Meanwhile, the vendor would have assumed I was just too dumb or willful or something to actually follow tech support's advice. All that because on both ends we assume that email is going to be nearly instantaneous communication - or at least faster than snail mail. I sent the vendor all the headers from the delayed messages, so they can try to fix the issue on their end, but I would bet most customers wouldn't bother to do that.
I don't now enough about mail or tech support software to know how to be certain this kind of delay isn't happening, but it certainly seems like an issue to keep in mind if your customers don't seem to be acknowledging your emails.
- Peggy
I was having technical problems with an online service, so I went to the service's web site looking for tech support. The information I needed wasn't in their knowledgebase, so I submitted a ticket for support. 36 hours later, I hadn't received any message from the vendor, either in my Inbox or mistakenly filed in my spam folder. I hadn't expected to get help immediately, but I did expect to at least get an acknowledgment email.
I went back to the knowledgebase and logged into my account. I was surprised (and a bit annoyed) to see that my ticket had been closed. I checked all my email folders again to make sure I hadn't missed a message, then opened another ticket. I explained both my technical problem, and the fact that my first ticket had been closed with no response.
A day-and-a-half later, I still had no response. And, sure enough, my ticket had been closed. Now I was pissed. I submitted a third ticket, this time to billing support instead of tech support. I explained the problem (again) and that my two tech support tickets had been closed. I did receive a response from them within 12 hours that assured me that my problem would be taken care of. So, mollified, I decided to stop worrying about that issue for the time being.
And what happened? A couple of days later, there was a response from tech support in my inbox. Strangely, however, the email was actually dated the same day I submitted my original ticket. That prompted me to look at the headers, and, from what I could tell, the email had actually sat on the vendor's mail server for 6 days. A couple of days later, I received a response to my second tech support ticket, which, not surprisingly, was written with a bit of an irritated tone. That message had also sat on the vendor's server for nearly a week. Long after my technical problem was resolved, I received a third message from tech support that had been delayed 10 days.
In the end it all turned out fine, but it could have been a serious problem - I could have given up on the vendor and moved my business elsewhere. Meanwhile, the vendor would have assumed I was just too dumb or willful or something to actually follow tech support's advice. All that because on both ends we assume that email is going to be nearly instantaneous communication - or at least faster than snail mail. I sent the vendor all the headers from the delayed messages, so they can try to fix the issue on their end, but I would bet most customers wouldn't bother to do that.
I don't now enough about mail or tech support software to know how to be certain this kind of delay isn't happening, but it certainly seems like an issue to keep in mind if your customers don't seem to be acknowledging your emails.
- Peggy