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Providers: What are some things you wish was more common knowledge among customers and end users?
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Providers: What are some things you wish was more common knowledge among customers and end users?

MannDudeMannDude Host Rep, Veteran
edited August 2021 in General

I figured this could be a good topic and maybe some knowledge would get passed around.

After having dealt with another GeoIP related ticket, I thought I'd do a post about GeoIP databases and the random websites that show 'information' about an IP but decided I'd make a more general thread where other providers can share things like this.

Customers: Your favorite GeoIP site may be using an old, outdated database. These databases require manual entry and correction, nothing about how an IP address is assigned specifically states that IP is for a specific city, state, or country. So when an IP block that was previously unassigned or announced in one location is now announced in a new location, the information for it either does not exist or will show incorrectly until the provider submits changes to databases like Maxmind. Once approved, it's up to the slew of random websites and other databases to actually pull the update so that their websites can display accurate information. Five different websites may show five different results depending on their databases used and when they pulled an update last. The site I most recently contacted to request them pull DB updates shows the user 4 different database results, but all 4 results showed different locations and all 4 databases they used hadn't been updated since March or April.

It's not a huge deal, but it's something worth noting for customers who buy servers who need it to display a specific location. Perhaps try a different tool. Perhaps try doing whatever it is you were intending to do to begin with, as whatever geo-locked service you may wish to access may be accessing an updated database and it'll work anyway, even if some random IP-checker website hasn't pulled a database update in months. Something to consider!

So, providers. What other things do you wish was more common knowledge among customers?

Thanked by 1farsighter

Comments

  • Not every damn ticket is a high priority and you selecting priory doesn’t really do much to how that ticket is handled, simply because people don’t know how to select the priority

  • MannDudeMannDude Host Rep, Veteran

    @seriesn said: Not every damn ticket is a high priority and you selecting priory doesn’t really do much to how that ticket is handled, simply because people don’t know how to select the priority

    Speaking of tickets and urgency... When a customer responds to a ticket or 'bumps' it in the hopes of a faster response, it is often automatically reset to the bottom of the queue as most support systems showcase tickets by sorting them by last response. I'm not sure if common systems like WHMCS still do it like that, and isn't anything I've seen recently (Small provider, usually 3 or less tickets in queue at once) but years ago when working for some very large non-LE* providers where you'd have 50+ tickets in queue 24/7 and an actual support team processing them non-stop, it wasn't uncommon for an irate customer to 'bump' their ticket several times, each time having it reset and put back at the bottom of the queue whereas if they hadn't touched it at all it would have been seen and responded to faster. In turn, it would make a ticket that would have had a response in an hour or 2 take 10 hours to get to because the customer's updates requesting urgent help was actually causing the opposite to happen.

    Thanked by 1seriesn
  • aquaaqua Member, Patron Provider
    edited August 2021

    Disputes. Asking the provider directly for a refund will be a lot more easier than opening a dispute with their bank. It also helps out the provider to not get raped by the payment gateway.

  • MannDudeMannDude Host Rep, Veteran

    @aqua said:
    Disputes. Asking the provider directly for a refund will be a lot more easier than opening a dispute with their bank. It also helps out the provider to not get raped by the payment gateway.

    Yup. Disputes should be a last resort and require proof that a resolution was attempted prior to opening one.

  • @MannDude This is worth adding to your kb. Your kb should also be in your Support Center dropdown. if the same question/ticket is repeated x times, it would be worth adding the answer to your kb. Even if the user didn't bother to read the kb, answering the ticket would be a simple link to the kb article.

    @seriesn said: Not every damn ticket is a high priority and you selecting priory doesn’t really do much to how that ticket is handled, simply because people don’t know how to select the priority

    You tried adding a big bold flashy warning that this is specifically for high priority issues and listing exactly what it means high priority issues? Not sure how hard it would be to implement A/B for this but would be interesting to see the results with the warning.

    Warning: this is for high priority issues only!
    
    Examples of high priority issues:
    ...
    
    Thanked by 1seriesn
  • @Kassem said:
    @MannDude This is worth adding to your kb. Your kb should also be in your Support Center dropdown. if the same question/ticket is repeated x times, it would be worth adding the answer to your kb. Even if the user didn't bother to read the kb, answering the ticket would be a simple link to the kb article.

    @seriesn said: Not every damn ticket is a high priority and you selecting priory doesn’t really do much to how that ticket is handled, simply because people don’t know how to select the priority

    You tried adding a big bold flashy warning that this is specifically for high priority issues and listing exactly what it means high priority issues? Not sure how hard it would be to implement A/B for this but would be interesting to see the results with the warning.

    Warning: this is for high priority issues only!
    
    Examples of high priority issues:
    ...
    

    The problem is, people always thinks every is high priority and there’s no simple way of generalizing it :(.

    Also no one reads

    Thanked by 1skorous
  • yoursunnyyoursunny Member, IPv6 Advocate

    Learn from @VirMach:
    If you open a ticket in Priority department but the issue is not priority, you receive a $15 invoice.
    You must pay this invoice before being able to order/renew any service or open another Priority ticket.

    Or, learn from Internal Revenue Service, Comcast, etc:
    Nothing is priority.
    You must talk to a bot for an hour and listen to music for another hour before being able to speak to anyone.

  • 1gservers1gservers Member, Patron Provider

    We stopped allowing customers to specify priority, because it got so bad, that some customers requesting a simple cancellation, or OS re-install were submitting with 911/Emergency priority. Needless to say, staff were not too happy about getting SMS alerts for a cancellation. Moving forward from that, we simply started internally prioritizing tickets based upon our own criteria, and we haven't had any major issues doing that. It's fairly easy to skim the ticket subjects for actual legitimate emergencies and work them first.

  • @1gservers said:
    We stopped allowing customers to specify priority, because it got so bad, that some customers requesting a simple cancellation, or OS re-install were submitting with 911/Emergency priority. Needless to say, staff were not too happy about getting SMS alerts for a cancellation. Moving forward from that, we simply started internally prioritizing tickets based upon our own criteria, and we haven't had any major issues doing that. It's fairly easy to skim the ticket subjects for actual legitimate emergencies and work them first.

    but do u use gnome on ubuntu

  • I think hiring an extremely inexpensive resource or an intern just to categorize the priority of the tickets could be one way.
    He/She would read them and change its priority and then the main support staff should take care of it.
    This does incur an extra cost but it could be one way to solve this issue.

  • adlyadly Veteran

    @noaman said:
    I think hiring an extremely inexpensive resource or an intern just to categorize the priority of the tickets could be one way.
    He/She would read them and change its priority and then the main support staff should take care of it.
    This does incur an extra cost but it could be one way to solve this issue.

    There should be an ‘asshole’ score per customer. Everyone starts at 0; reasonable tickets get +1, unreasonable -1. The ticket list should then be weighted so that those with a lower score get dropped down the list. That way all the decent customers get served first and those that don’t read/are demanding get served last.

    Even +0.2/mo with no tickets to let the score return to neutral so that people can recover if they’ve learned; if they haven’t they’ll quickly end up back at the bottom of the shit list.

    Much fairer way to ensure those that are reasonable get treat well and have a good experience.

    Thanked by 2TimboJones yoursunny
  • @adly said:

    @noaman said:
    I think hiring an extremely inexpensive resource or an intern just to categorize the priority of the tickets could be one way.
    He/She would read them and change its priority and then the main support staff should take care of it.
    This does incur an extra cost but it could be one way to solve this issue.

    There should be an ‘asshole’ score per customer. Everyone starts at 0; reasonable tickets get +1, unreasonable -1. The ticket list should then be weighted so that those with a lower score get dropped down the list. That way all the decent customers get served first and those that don’t read/are demanding get served last.

    Even +0.2/mo with no tickets to let the score return to neutral so that people can recover if they’ve learned; if they haven’t they’ll quickly end up back at the bottom of the shit list.

    Much fairer way to ensure those that are reasonable get treat well and have a good experience.

    This is f**cking brilliant. The best part is implementing something like this shouldn't be that complicated.

    Thanked by 1adly
  • zedzed Member

    customers gonna prioritize according to their pov, not yours. having a user-selectable priority is just nuts.

    also can we get a companion thread "users what are some things you wish your providers knew", i want someplace to rant about single ipv6 providers.

    hugs.

    Thanked by 2seriesn zer0r00t
  • @seriesn said:
    Not every damn ticket is a high priority and you selecting priory doesn’t really do much to how that ticket is handled, simply because people don’t know how to select the priority

    When it costs them nothing, then it's "why not?" I value my time more than you (value my time).

    I don't NEED Amazon one-day delivery most times, but I'm sure going to fucking select it if free.

    Thanked by 1seriesn
  • @noaman said:

    @adly said:

    @noaman said:
    I think hiring an extremely inexpensive resource or an intern just to categorize the priority of the tickets could be one way.
    He/She would read them and change its priority and then the main support staff should take care of it.
    This does incur an extra cost but it could be one way to solve this issue.

    There should be an ‘asshole’ score per customer. Everyone starts at 0; reasonable tickets get +1, unreasonable -1. The ticket list should then be weighted so that those with a lower score get dropped down the list. That way all the decent customers get served first and those that don’t read/are demanding get served last.

    Even +0.2/mo with no tickets to let the score return to neutral so that people can recover if they’ve learned; if they haven’t they’ll quickly end up back at the bottom of the shit list.

    Much fairer way to ensure those that are reasonable get treat well and have a good experience.

    This is f**cking brilliant. The best part is implementing something like this shouldn't be that complicated.

    Rating assholes fairly is not complicated? Every one of those rated assholes will disagree.

  • hostmariahostmaria Member, Host Rep

    :) that self-managed hosting doesn't involve solving website errors :D :D .. and that it takes time for the nameservers to change

  • DataIdeas-JoshDataIdeas-Josh Member, Patron Provider

    How to use the Cancel button vs doing a chargeback.

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