Acceptable time to wait for ticket response?
- Thread starter Minmeo
- Start date
Under $20 - 24 hours
Over $20 Under $30 - 12 hours
Over $30 - 10-30 min
Everything is relative. I don't care about my dev environments, they are very portable. Production needs to have fast support and I pay for that.
People can't expect an instant response for the cost of a burger per month.
Over $20 Under $30 - 12 hours
Over $30 - 10-30 min
Everything is relative. I don't care about my dev environments, they are very portable. Production needs to have fast support and I pay for that.
People can't expect an instant response for the cost of a burger per month.
Licensecart
Active Member
It depends on the time.
If you submit a ticket on a monday - friday at 3am you have to wait until they are open at 9am.
If you submit a ticket on the weekend you might need to wait for Monday 9am so it could be 24 hours to 48hours+ but if they advertise 24 hours support I would say 4 hours maximum.
If you submit a ticket on a monday - friday at 3am you have to wait until they are open at 9am.
If you submit a ticket on the weekend you might need to wait for Monday 9am so it could be 24 hours to 48hours+ but if they advertise 24 hours support I would say 4 hours maximum.
I disagree at about $30, I think honestly, unless you go with a very reilable company which has a guarantee, then you can't get an exact time when they will reply - as they work on their own schedule, not yours, or anyone elses.
Whether you have a $3 VPS or a $100 dedicated server, your ticket is going into the same queue. The price of the package has less to do with the ticket response time than the way the support desk is run and the type of ticket that is submitted. Unless a vendor explicitly sells different support packages, I think they ought to be giving the same ticket experience regardless of actual price paid.
Depending on the complexity of the request and the urgency of the support request, 10-15 minutes is where a server vendor should be for service-impeding tickets. That should be complimented with one or more live options (livechat or phone) for more urgent requests. With a request that is non-urgent or takes more time 1-24 hours seems reasonable to me. Sales and billing ticket response times should be within one business day.
It's my own personal opinion that the expectation a customer has for a quick response time is inversely correlated with how much they pay.
Depending on the complexity of the request and the urgency of the support request, 10-15 minutes is where a server vendor should be for service-impeding tickets. That should be complimented with one or more live options (livechat or phone) for more urgent requests. With a request that is non-urgent or takes more time 1-24 hours seems reasonable to me. Sales and billing ticket response times should be within one business day.
It's my own personal opinion that the expectation a customer has for a quick response time is inversely correlated with how much they pay.
Vertical
New Member
It all depends on what your vendor offers as support times. Some companies offer better support than others but generally what zomgmike outlined above looks about right. Most vendors worth their salt will answer tech support tickets within the hour or better and sales/billing tickets the same day or within the 24hr window.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
It depends on the labeled priority. If things are hard down and some other mass failure I expect promptness.
I hold folks to the levels they advertise. So if your company says 15 minute average response time, I expect that and might get a tad aggressive about it after 30 minutes.
Problem is 60% of the companies out there either lie about support, or fail to staff enough folks, or fail to staff competent folks. Lots of tickets can linger because staff isn't in the mood or attentive. Support times are all over the place, some places are only their business hours staffed with emergency only major systems overnight.
More in general needs to be done to standardize reports, reviews, and experiences of customers with providers so we can all gauge who is talking it vs. who is walking it.
I hold folks to the levels they advertise. So if your company says 15 minute average response time, I expect that and might get a tad aggressive about it after 30 minutes.
Problem is 60% of the companies out there either lie about support, or fail to staff enough folks, or fail to staff competent folks. Lots of tickets can linger because staff isn't in the mood or attentive. Support times are all over the place, some places are only their business hours staffed with emergency only major systems overnight.
More in general needs to be done to standardize reports, reviews, and experiences of customers with providers so we can all gauge who is talking it vs. who is walking it.
Allowing customers to label their own ticket priority or even see what the ticket priority has been set to is a bad idea, especially if you use that to judge who gets attention first.
Vast majority of customers will always submit their tickets as Critical / Emergency.
No, your pre-sales question is not an emergency.
"First in, first out" is a motto I picked up when working in the food industry in regards to food items that have entered the storage freezers. It should be the same with tickets: Answered in the order they're received, with only an internal/staff viewing of any adjustment to ticket priority.
Unfortunately the internal/staff only viewing of ticket priority and the setting of is not a feature that exists... but it should.
In regards to response times... For support issues I'm happy with acknowledgement within an hour or so. I'm not super picky. I've seen support as fast as five minutes, which wowed me, but I'd not have been upset had I waited 50 minutes either.
Vast majority of customers will always submit their tickets as Critical / Emergency.
No, your pre-sales question is not an emergency.
"First in, first out" is a motto I picked up when working in the food industry in regards to food items that have entered the storage freezers. It should be the same with tickets: Answered in the order they're received, with only an internal/staff viewing of any adjustment to ticket priority.
Unfortunately the internal/staff only viewing of ticket priority and the setting of is not a feature that exists... but it should.
In regards to response times... For support issues I'm happy with acknowledgement within an hour or so. I'm not super picky. I've seen support as fast as five minutes, which wowed me, but I'd not have been upset had I waited 50 minutes either.
fixidixi
Active Member
depends on who am i sending that ticket.
for example if its work hours and im sending in a ticket to a mission critical system. then.. i expect them to give me a straight detailed anwser in half an hour max.
if its about my lowend box unavailable then is "the sooner the better". but i expect a general anwser in a few hours ("yea there is a problem") and a more detailed one in 24 hours..
for example if its work hours and im sending in a ticket to a mission critical system. then.. i expect them to give me a straight detailed anwser in half an hour max.
if its about my lowend box unavailable then is "the sooner the better". but i expect a general anwser in a few hours ("yea there is a problem") and a more detailed one in 24 hours..
It is completely relative.
Personally I think having a 'first response' time is a complete waste of time, but some people love metrics for the sake of having them.
I think that the only thing that is of worth is the first meaningful response and the resolution time.
If I open a ticket and get a "We are looking in to this for you" reply, I just cringe.... unless it comes from the person that is actually doing the work and does not have 1st line support after their name.
I know my opinion will not be shared by all, I like results not fluff.
Also if you open a ticket with "my site not working" don't expect the worlds highest priority if your on an unmanned service
Personally I think having a 'first response' time is a complete waste of time, but some people love metrics for the sake of having them.
I think that the only thing that is of worth is the first meaningful response and the resolution time.
If I open a ticket and get a "We are looking in to this for you" reply, I just cringe.... unless it comes from the person that is actually doing the work and does not have 1st line support after their name.
I know my opinion will not be shared by all, I like results not fluff.
Also if you open a ticket with "my site not working" don't expect the worlds highest priority if your on an unmanned service
Last edited by a moderator:
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
There are some sLowend companies that were notorious for jerking the chicken like that. I am no fan of ticket hockey and unneeded updates like that. Totally with you on this one. Meaningful responses, not empty discards littering my inbox.
Are you paying for mission critical or are you just expecting because it is critical to you they should jump anyway?
(not a loaded question)
mikho
Not to be taken seriously, ever!
Not only companies in the sLowend give that kind of ticket response.
PacketPunks
New Member
Ideal first response I think is between 15 - 45 minutes, follow-up 1-2 hours.
souen
Active Member
Generally I don't mind waiting up to 48 h, with lowend price range especially I don't expect priority support. However, if the server is down and the provider has a SLA, then I'd expect some answers Soon, preferably within 8-12 hours given timezone differences. A quick first-response is nice, if only as a sign there's somebody around. Resolution can take a little longer as long as it's not going in circles or turning into ticket hockey. I've had anywhere between 10 mins to 4 hours for first responses, 5 minutes to 3 days for subsequent replies (days usually only when the provider was supposed to wait for something to report back but forgot about it.)
+1 @MannDude's observation about letting the customer set the ticket priority. If the provider bases their response time on it, there's nothing stopping other customers from marking theirs as Critical to get their tickets answered first (and other customers might be tempted to follow in case it gets their tickets pushed down), and if they don't, it's an extraneous step on the ticket form, not sure why I bothered.
+1 @MannDude's observation about letting the customer set the ticket priority. If the provider bases their response time on it, there's nothing stopping other customers from marking theirs as Critical to get their tickets answered first (and other customers might be tempted to follow in case it gets their tickets pushed down), and if they don't, it's an extraneous step on the ticket form, not sure why I bothered.
Personally when I used to buy web hosting and vps - i was not phased about the time as I wasn't running a business - as long as it wasn't days to respond. What annoyed me mostly was hosts responding with
"We will check this and update you back soon" within the first hour, and then nothing for 5 hours on a basic request.
The only reason they do this is so they are living up to their SLA, which i don't really think is acceptable or living up to the SLA....
If you have time to answer the ticket then you should attend to it, not give a bullshit response.
"We will check this and update you back soon" within the first hour, and then nothing for 5 hours on a basic request.
The only reason they do this is so they are living up to their SLA, which i don't really think is acceptable or living up to the SLA....
If you have time to answer the ticket then you should attend to it, not give a bullshit response.