Hi Todd,
My name is Alistair Skinner. I run the global support center at Network Appliance, and was passed your comments concerning the our email responsiveness and holdtimes. Thanks for taking the time to give us some feedback. I'll make sure we follow up
with you on your specific support cases, but wanted to let you know what we're doing generally on web access and phone holdtimes.
Our preferred method of online access is through the web. Using the email option from within a case view gives you a pre-formatted subject line to make sure the email is attached to the case in our system. The comments field can also be used. Unfortunately currently there can be up to a day delay between you submitting something and it getting into our system as these updates are batched. We expect to have an enhanced version implemented in the next two months which will include immediate updates directly to the case.
Regarding phone responsiveness, due to our continued growth, we still experience some long holdtimes at certain times of the day. We have 10 new staff who will complete their training over the next few weeks, and we are in the middle of reallocating existing staff within the various specialty groups to better match resources to demand. Additionally this week we have changed our process behind the "the filer is not serving data" option - instead of queuing blindly for the next
available support engineer, these calls are now routed to our customer support group who will connect you directly with a support engineer if your system is down.
I also wanted to let you know as an additional resource, if you have concerns about how a case is being handled, you can call 1-888-4NETAPP, select the "new case" option, and ask to speak to the Duty Manager.
Thanks again for your feedback,
Alistair
Alistair Skinner Network Appliance alistair.skinner@netapp.com 408-822-6339
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Todd C. Merrill wrote:
I am getting frustrated with the response time from tech support.
[rest of diatribe deleted]
On Thu, 19 Aug 1999, Skinner, Alistair wrote:
Our preferred method of online access is through the web. Using the email option from within a case view gives you a pre-formatted subject line to make sure the email is attached to the case in our system. The comments field can also be used. Unfortunately currently there can be up to a day delay between you submitting something and it getting into our system as these updates are batched. We expect to have an enhanced version implemented in the next two months which will include immediate updates directly to the case.
I have a good response and a bad response to this response.
First, the good. I like what has been done to the NOW site. Getting to a final destination (ONTAP updates, case searches, etc.) requires a lot less clicking and the responsiveness seems much improved. Bravo.
However, I recently entered a case into the system via the NOW site for a tech support issue. *Nine* days later I got first response from an engineer on the case. (Luckily, it wasn't a critical issue.) With a response time like that, I am not encouraged to use the web/email way of calling in for tech support. [0] Throw some more manpower on the phones, 'cause that's how I'll be entering tech support cases in the future. [1]
(There's not much else to say on this case, but if you want to talk to me about it, Alistair, give a call.)
[0] This is generally true of most tech support calls I make, to NetApp or other companies. Email/web requests are treated as second class, lower-priority calls. If you (enter-your-favorite-company's-tech- support-organization-here) want us to save you time by entering data into your system, the least you could do is respond to the calls with equal priority. [1]
[1] Forgive the attitude. Having a bad week....bad weather....bad machines....bad network....stress headaches. Grrrr....
Until next time...
The Mathworks, Inc. 508-647-7000 x7792 3 Apple Hill Drive, Natick, MA 01760-2098 508-647-7001 FAX tmerrill@mathworks.com http://www.mathworks.com ---
"Todd" == Todd C Merrill tmerrill@mathworks.com writes:
Todd> However, I recently entered a case into the system via the Todd> NOW site for a tech support issue. *Nine* days later I got Todd> first response from an engineer on the case. (Luckily, it
Consider yourself lucky. A case I opened on 8/19 wasn't responded to until 9/14.
I opened another case on the same day that was resolved that week. Interestingly, on this second case, NetApp also opened a case on my behalf over the same issue in response to an autosupport email my NetApp generated when it crashed.
NetApp is extremely inconsistent about this. Our filers have probably crashed a half dozen to a dozen times in the couple of years we've owned them and this is the only time I've seen the autosupport email cause a case to be opened.
j.
I opened another case on the same day that was resolved that week. Interestingly, on this second case, NetApp also opened a case on my behalf over the same issue in response to an autosupport email my NetApp generated when it crashed.
NetApp is extremely inconsistent about this. Our filers have probably crashed a half dozen to a dozen times in the couple of years we've owned them and this is the only time I've seen the autosupport email cause a case to be opened.
I have seen the same thing. I had a filer throw a disk one night, I called in, got a disk sent to me, got it 6 hours later( our support contract says 4 ), and dropped it in place. then the next day i had someone from netapp call me with an open case and explain they wanted to ship me another disk, and had a new case opened for me.
other times i have had a filer reboot on random crashes, and never heard a thing.
on th eother hand, it is nice to be able to get a warm body on the phone 24 hours a day, now if only there was a way to escalate faster...
-steve
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armijoļ¼ cs.unm.edu -
Jay Soffian -
Skinner, Alistair -
Todd C. Merrill