Why is it that some companies . . .
 

I am trying to understand why some pretty huge companies do not feel they should provide any type of customer support beyond the Mon-Fri, 9-5 schedule.

Do they think the Internet shuts down on the weekend or something?

Unless you are dealing with critical stuff like hosting, there is really no need to offer 24/7 support. Sure it's a plus, but companies shouldn't be looked down upon if at midnight on saturday night they are not available to answer questions about hosted galleries or something.

how about processing? you think maybe a paysite should be able to process signups for their affiliates, or should that just wait until Monday?

I would consider processor to be critical, so extended hours would definatly come in handy.

Baddog,

Great thread. I will respond to this tomorrow morning during normal business hours.

Thanks and Best Regards,

Cory.

i work around the clock pretty much...i take time out to do things..groceries...gym...friends...xbox..lol

but im here always...get in touch mang :)

we're pretty much 24/7 with our stuff :thumbsup

Yah. We forget because we are the online PIONEERS, and we have come to expect a scope of service from ALL the companies we do business with that reflects our own degree of "uptake" of the technology and the role the medium plays in OUR OWN lives. And, if you mostly deal with companies that have a well-developed "online strategy" -- whether that be CS of store-bought products, e-commerce/hard goods fulfillment, or Internet-based services (hehe) -- you can form an even more skewed impression of what the average is.

But the truth is there are many, many companies -- even "large" US-based ones that have not made a meaningful investment in the online aspects of their business. Could be, they don't see it. Could be they though about it, and decided it wasn't worth it.

What company was it?


j-

24 hour support is fucking like, a peter north cumshot.

Everyone needs it.

but there's always fucking haters

Same here. Always around. Every day. Holidays. Goofy ass hours.

That's me. Biatch!

I hit the gym like from 9am till like 6pm so I don't give a fuck about customer support

I agree it can be very annoying

hahaha, that's classic. i don't understand it either, it seems like another example of people not thinking outside the traditional box. :2 cents:

Since I own a hosting and billing company, I agree that support needs to be made available.

There are plenty of other service oriented businesses, along with affiliate programs whose clients need support before and after the 'usual' 9-5 hours.

If you want time off, hire a staff to take care of your customers while you take time off; but, an owner understands that business hours occur at the client's leisure, not his or hers.

Good thread, baddog.

I think most of the larger companies have customer support 24/7. Webmaster support is a different story. I can't think of one program that has 24/7 webmaster support.

whats funny is that i only work on my internet ventures about 3 hours a day and yet i make it a point to answer all emails within 1 day still, and i am a solo operation. but i know what you mean, i've dealt with some of the big boys and its taken me days to get a response back by either email or icq, lol.

I think that they should offer it, but they do not see it as cost effective.

Just to clarify, this thread has nothing to do with a company that directly effects me . . . besides not being able to send signups to one of the programs I have been promoting

i have a problems with all large companies that dont do after bankers hours, i mean i agree does the world stop at five? NO!!!

I agree with you.

We are a company that almost always has at least 1 person online at all times. Since this is a different medium than most, it's imperative that we realize that we are dealing with people all around the world, and in different timezones.

I think more sponsers need to realize this.

I don't want to mention names, but it rhymes with gnats.

it costs a fuckload to provide customer service to attend to 1 call in a 10 hour period.

I often have people comment how I am always online, and "don't you ever sleep." Yeah, I sleep, but I try to be able to at least take the message so when I wake up I can answer.

It is amazing the number of deals I close at 4 AM.

well, look at Sprint......they're closed at night LOL

Yeah, hardly worth it unless you are that one guy that can't bring up a join page on Saturday . . . and have to wait until Monday to get it fixed.

We have phone numbers published, that someone will answer any time of the day or night. And my clients and affiliates know this as they call at all hours.

I agree with you, baddog.

Wiggles, why do you think it costs a fuckload to have someone either on staff or on call?

Like you, baddog, some of my most lucrative business deals occur in the wee hours of the morning.

Well, that seals it

Well, consider the cost of staffing someone during extended business hours over the course of a year. It is rather significant and for the most part, waiting a few hours won't kill you. I'd like it if there was late staffing as well but its not always feasible.
WG

They have these new fangled contraptions called call forwarding, and ICQ which make it possible to staff without having to be physically there.

For a site to not be able to accept signups over an entire weekend, simply because they don't want to make someone available over the weekend in inexcusable :2 cents:

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

If I was a sales rep and someone wanted to contact me at home over the phone or icq, i'd want to be paid for that time.
WG

funny is that smaller companies reply much faster than big companies...

LOL. You're damn lucky I have a spill-proof keyboard. :)

Good thread, baddog :thumbsup

well real big companies provide support 24 hours per day but this cost good money.

I am not talking about sales reps. I am talking about having someone available that can do something.

no, they dont, no, it doesnt

I think ARS offers 24/7 webmaster support.

Webmaster support wise, being able to call you or me 24/7 isn't providing around the call webmaster support. Most webmasters don't call, even when they see a problem. I will either get an ICQ or an e-mail about the problem.

Myself and my staff are around pretty much all the time anyway but we still don't provide 24/7 webmaster support.

I'm not sure if they still provide 24/7 webmaster support. Even if you did e-mail them at 4am to tell them about a tour/join page issue, no coders are around to fix the issues.. :)

Why isn't it?

Baddog,

Seeing that it is working hours, I will put in my perspective on this thread.

Brad and you both made excellent points, but I respectfully think that everyone has missed the most important factor in all of this.

-Competitive advantages / needs vs. overhead and a personal ethics criteria.

Companies dealing with the former (competitive stakes) portion, are competing for your business. In this case, if one competing program offers 7 days a week, it becomes a sale's perk, and then if deemed advantageous, it becomes a stakes raising campaign between a great many like programs; "We have staff on the moon, 24/7 to help you with your new blender." The former is broken down into a clear-cut, easy to understand equation that has a logical flow.

Now, when the former is null and void due to a flurry of reasons such as, less competition, little client need to justify higher rates / lower payouts, etc) or regional / product ineffectiveness when based around support times; you then get the latter of the two: needs vs. overhead and a personal ethics criteria.

Do the clients really need it? If they do, is there enough competition to justify greater yearly support staffing / training / benefits, etc? If no to both, is it now a question of ethics? Or was it always? Business ethics? Or does your financial savings become more important than your need to support a product that does not thrive or become more advantageous to do so?

That is the "ethical" portion.

Otherwise, the product that offers poor support and has competition that offers better support, must lean on certain x factors in the program that justify less support. Otherwise, the stakes would be raised :)

If only one hosting company existed, would they have 24/7 support? Would ethics be called into question if they didn't or would it just seem like a logical, business strategy adapted to the current, competetive climate.

That is the Cory two cents.

Baddog,

Which client of ours are you referring to that was down that we were not there to support? We have a ticket system which is monitored closely all hours of the day and all severe issues are tended to very quickly.

Don't beat around the bush with vague accusations and what not. What is your issue?

The program owner is aware of this thread, if he wants to speak up, he will. I don't want to bring any negativity to his program.

I will be honest, I like a lot of features offered by NATS, but it was a drag when I discovered his join page was down, and there was nothing that could be done about it besides him submitting a ticket, but waiting until Monday for anything to be done about it.

90+% of the time when programs are down it's becuase of NON-NATS related issues. Such as one very recently where there was a disk quote effecting a program causing their join forms to be down. This has nothing to do with NATS yet we did find the problem for him and fix it, going above and beyond what we are, a software company developing a software package. Often MySQL goes down, drives fill, servers are upgraded by hosts which screw up config files, etc. These all cause programs to go down from time to time and many people assume "My NATS is fucked". In most cases it's not yet we help them get it fixed anyway.

It's threads like this however which totally piss me off as people feel the need to bring attention to things and paint us in a bad light when in most likely-hood we did nothing wrong. In this industry people usually speak before knowing all the facts but it's something I've somewhat gotten used to.

We have the ticket system. It's monitored 24/7. We're on ICQ almost ALL the time, both from the US and from Europe to cover the varying timezones of having clients all over the world.

Our support is very good especially in instances where a client is down. As stated, we go above and beyond supporting OUR software and often play server admin for our clients to get them back up as soon as possible. We also monitor our ticket system constantly for server tickets as we understand that our software is resposible for many people's livelihoods. Yet somehow people feel the need to create threads like this not wanting to say the details of what's going on or mention our name but saying "ryhmes with gnats" seems acceptable somehow.

If you're going to call us out on having shitty support please have your facts together beforehand and be willing to discuss the actual issue, not a vague clues as to what it might be which does nothing but cause everyone to assume the worst.

24/7 support and the complaints behind it.

Most webmasters when signing up to a program or service are given support pages to use. Be it a support email address, support ticket system or something else.

Most webmsters trash the welcome letter with this support information, that is if they even read it at all. Instead they go to ICQ which has problems and if they don't get an answer right away they come straight to the boards.

When they are not answered right away they are ready to switch companies and vendors. They have no regard for personal ICQ's ... People behind those ICQ's do crazy things like eat, sleep, spend time with their families, and sometimes (ugh yers this is unbelievable) they even get away from the computer.

Like pbjohn stated a lot of times problems with programs are not the vendor of the programs fault. I have seen many people stuff their hosting hard drive slap full and then programs and databases get corrupt and lost. And like John says the first person to blame is the vendor of the program.

Support ticket systems are setup for a reason. They may not just alert one person. Some are setup to alert a bunch of people all at once.

Then you also have abuses of the systems ... some webmasters need to go get laid or find a hobby. They keep you in ICQ all day long and get pissed when you tell them you're busy. They want their hand held through every step. And god forbid anybody tell a webmaster they must learn something on their own or pay hourly rates because then that person is drug to the boards and called all sorts of names.

Going on what I was told.

I have said this for years. We are a North American based company however we have staff that work around the clock. Not that we demand it it's just how we are. We are passionate.

All staff members are constaly checking our icq's, email and cell phone. I cant agree with Baddog more how important it is to have 24/7 support.

I can admit in the less busy hours at 5 am there may be some delay with replies we all may happen to sleep at the same time highly unlikey but feasible. So am I lying whne we say we have 24/7 support? I can assure you between the hours of 9 am and 9 pm you will get a reply.

anyways.....

Please have the client ICQ me or ICQ me yourself, 5596373, I'm very curious as to who it is and I also need to make sure it's all resolved.

It was resolved Monday afternoon.