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Ticket Processing Policy and Status Definitions
Posted by Kevin Stange, Last modified by Kevin Stange on 19 March 2012 11:50 AM
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Customers occasionally ask for explanations about how tickets and support issues are processed, as well as what various ticket status codes indicate. This article provides a summary of how we handle support requests within our system.
To assure fastest response and avoid tickets becoming stalled or delayed, always provide as much detail as you can about an issue, including any changes you may have recently made to your services or even your local computer (in case of access issues), even if they don't seem relevant. Provide any necessary special directions to access your account. For dedicated server customers, make sure you have updated access information stored in our management system. We generally recommend you do not send password information in tickets, especially via email, unless it is absolutely necessary. Where possible, we prefer that customers submit one ticket per issue and keep one issue per ticket. This allows us to easily tell what specific matter is being handled in a ticket, to correctly close issues once they are completed, and to move tickets to other departments without stalling the progress of other unrelated matters in the same ticket. Duplicate tickets, especially from multiple account contacts can cause confusion as to the progress of an issue and can result in slower or inconsistent responses. Duplicate tickets may be merged or closed to consolidate requests and mitigate confusing situations. Please do not send ticket emails addressed to more than one department or CC'ed to other individuals that should not be given private information. These tickets may not be routed properly and may end up in the wrong department, or all in the same department, and any replies will go to anyone that was CC'ed on your messages. If you need to address multiple departments, send emails to each department separately with only the information for issues relevant to that department. Cross posting duplicate tickets will not result in faster responses, and may cause confusion between departments as to whether an issue has already been handled. If you feel a ticket is not being handled promptly, a reply to the ticket is a valid way to request attention. If you prefer to call our support staff, please have a ticket number ready, as well as any IP address or account details so we can identify you and your issue quickly. When calling, please be aware that we will not always be able to completely resolve a request with a single phone call and some matters simply cannot be handled via telephone for security or policy reasons. A phone call does not necessarily guarantee that any issue will be able to be solved more quickly than an equivalent ticket about the same issue. Use of the ticket system is generally more efficient than verbal troubleshooting due to the type of information that often must be relayed. Tickets also allow us to maintain a history of the progress on your issue (so you do not have to explain your issue several times to different people), and permit us to handle more issues at a time, so we often will ask you submit a ticket if your issue is complex or is expected to take a while to address completely. While you may notice that you are able to choose from two different priority levels for your tickets, you should note that we treat all support tickets as high priority and will always consider outage conditions to be of the highest priority. Tickets are triaged by our staff to ensure focus on issues affecting the most customers most quickly, but all tickets will always be handled as quickly as possible. Any reply to any ticket in any status will return it to the "Open" state and it will immediately be seen by our support staff. Please note that non-support departments, such as IP Allocation, Sales, Billing, and others may have specific hours of operation and will be considered to be relatively low priority. If you have an issue that is affecting your service, it should always be filed to the support department, but be advised that Sales and Billing related issues cannot always be resolved by technical support staff. Ticket statuses indicate what type of ticket you have submitted as well as its progress. The definitions below explain what each status indicates and what you may expect to happen to your ticket while in this state. Routine Statuses
Special Statuses
Non-Support Statuses
If there is ever an issue with how a ticket is being handled, reply to reopen the ticket. If you require escalation to management, you may request this in the ticket. It will be flagged, kept "open" or "in progress" and reviewed during the same business day. | |
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