What do you term as Lack of Support?

I'm curious on this aspect as it can span a large array of areas amongst you fellow admins.

This can span anything from free support to paid support.


Examples of free might be like a mod/hack/gfx that is provided for free, yet the author provides support.

Then there are paid support, where you've purchased a service or product, and it includes support. Sometimes that support time has a finite duration.


In any case, when you submit for support what do you feel is a reasonable amount of time to wait?

What kind of experiences have you had, please share, in either of the categories.

I feel that some of the stories revolving around paid type category could be quite....ugly, so please try to stay on point and brief (e.g., issue, method of submission, response time, results).

I'd like to gauge amongst you all what might be a general level of expectation, b/c that is what ALWAYS blows things out of whack. I mean expectations (written or implied or other) b/t the provider and the customer.

 

Oh boy...
I bought [removed] before the plugin for phpBB was released but after *Owner said he was going to release it in 2 weeks. Sure enough, delay after delay after delay. He even claimed he would install it on my server, never did. Finally the plugin was released! I composed a message with screenshots of e-mails, promised release dates, etc and asked him to change the "Free upgrades until" date since I never got to install it since he didn't provide a product which I paid for.
And he did. the whole process took about a month, but he gave me lifetime updates. I feel in the end of the day like it all ended well, sometimes life gets in the way, etc...

 

Thanks for your experience. Just so you know, it's not really necessary to show any proof on yours. I don't want it to be mistakenly taken as a negative criticism on [Removed] or even your own part. Both parties have their owenership portions to a said "issue". So no need to upload your doc and I'd even suggest removing the Provider's name. Just my suggestion.

So in your experience provided, the service provider actually provided release dates, that unfortunately were not being fulfilled. I think its good that you remained communicative as with any service or product, somethings don't come to the surface until they have been "trialed", shall we say.

So would you say in the end you were satisfied with the service?

If there was one thing you would have done differently, b/c hindsight is 20/20, what would it have been? (e.g., wait more, prod differently, offer something on your end, etc.)

Thanks

 

Removed providers name.

The way it played out, he provided dates. I purchased the software which only comes with one year of free updates because I thought he would have it out in 1 to 2 weeks.
He didn't
I asked, he eventually said they would install it FOC
He didn't
Eventaully release the plugin. I inquired about getting the update date changed the extra month and a half.
I check back, he gave me free updates for life.

Response time is slow. First "Lack of support".
Promised one thing, another happened. Second "Lack of support".

When things did settle down and he provided the plugin, he took my complaint and handled it in a nice way. Went above and beyond the law.

Awesome support in the end.

If I could do it again, I wouldn't have been so angry and rude to him after he failed to deliver the product. Cause in the end, he made sure everyone was winners.

 

I define lack of support as not getting the support required to use a product in a way it was intended. I (over) research things for that specific feature in a product.

There are many products that I will not use because the lack of support.

• I just got back from the Apple computer store and may buy a computer because of their support.
• I get decent response times at vb.com when asking simple questions, and there is always the support tickets too.
• I have a hosting provider that will answer the phone and support tickets quickly

Are you are asking for examples of what we consider bad support, describe our experiences, but not say what company it was? If so, I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense because most of us would know from the descriptions which company it was.

 

You've shared the primary part of this topic about "what is lack of support" [for you].

As for not mentioning specific company's, which is again my suggestion, was only meant to dissuade potential flaming or bashing. Most likely the other party being bashed will not know of this topic to do a proper rebuttal as it's typically a "he said, she said" type of thing.

I think an experience can be described for the purpose of this topic of "defining your lack of support" experience without mentioning explicit names. However, I do understand some cases just make all the more sense to mention an entity involved to get the point across.

But after said incident(s), the real substantive part is afterwards. What did you learn in your part of the relationship? Could the outcome have been differently had you done A) B) or C) etc. ?

If that makes sense, then I'll add to the OP for clarification.

Thanks for sharing

 

Not listening to the client.