Hi,
we are using Switchvox for some of our customers that have contact center. It has a very good reporting and real time queue monitoring (switchboard) features. We are very satisfied with the product (though I would like to have more debugging tools, ping and traceroute for the start) but not with the support.
All of our installations have Platinum support. Currently we are having some serious problems with one of the installation (looks like a bug or some database problem) I have opened two cases for more that one months with no progress at all. I usually get quite fast response, but after some time it looks like tech doesn’t receive notification for the case. I’m responding to case but nobody responds.
In some cases the tech solves the problem really quickly, but it seems that on complex issues it takes too long.
Do you have similar experience? How to get problem solved if nobody respond to tickets?
Yep. Support is a significant problem. Most recently we had a commercial module issue after an upgrade through the clean install/restore from backup process. Support insisted on us opening the support VPN, but agreed to not change anything on the system without discussion. Within 60 seconds of them connecting the problem disappeared but they claimed they had changed nothing.
We have a serious issue with Digium/Sangoma phones that was acknowledged as a bug by a tier 3 in March or so. He left the company the next week and nothing has been done about it since.
In the past I’ve been told we should buy platinum support if we want better service (even though our issues are with commercial modules and Sangoma hardware). But apparently that isn’t actually a solution.
Note there was another restructuring recently and the VP of support services was given the axe along with a whole mess of people which may be support folks. It is probably going to get worse before it hopefully gets better. I can only speculate as to the reasons but something tells me most support responses will be at GMT+5:30
IMO, it’s not a viable business product unless effective, professional support is available during business hours. Support is extremely expensive, given that the credits expire, so having it also be crappy is tough to excuse. I’ve already told Ryan that I don’t think we can continue offering FreePBX to customers with the existing support situation and we will never buy another D-series phone for all the problems. That there are show-stopper code quality issues makes it much worse. I’ve given up opening bug reports because mostly what I got was push-back, but the in-place upgrade scripts and the backup/restore upgrade process both result in partially non-functional systems. We’ve done three in the last four months, all were messed up at the end.
Actually it was 2 different VPs’ from support plus more North America support staff all let go this week including @cosmicwombat who I first hired at Schmooze for FreePBX paid Support around 2010ish, so he has been here 14 plus years in FreePBX. it is hard to replace that brain drain.
Might be an opportunity for third-parties/consultants/partners. OP is talking about Switchvox and I don’t know whether third-party support is available for that product. But for FreePBX/PBXact, there certainly is. How much support would you estimate must be done by Sangoma (e.g. licensing, commercial modules) vs. third parties/consultants/partners? Especially in your own realm of responsibility.
We already do as much as we can, which is quite a bit. Where we get stuck is code that is not working right or that has broken something. The upgrade script partially breaks SangomaTalk/Zulu/whateveritscalledtoday. We figured out how to fix that. The backup/restore to upgrade procedure broke the already only partially functional email config module in a way that we couldn’t fix. It’s clearly a known issue though, because despite what support said, they fixed it in seconds.
While I don’t know, what is sold as support today seems outsourced somewhere. It’s the same routine as M365 support of having to deal with a person with extremely limited technical and English skills who then attempts to relay what we’ve said to someone we’re not allowed to talk to, who then wants unattended access to the system. None of that is good
AFAIK the support staff is not “outsourced” they are all Sangoma paid employees. That said they are from the same tallent pool and price point if you will. Now I have worked with that tallent pool for decades in various companies and there are some very talented people. There are also bodies filling seats. It is hard to say which one you’re going to get. Most likely the bodies filling seats are talking to the ones with tallent which are busy helping all the techs in some weird pyramid.
To fill in a blank here, we have been deploying and supporting FreePBX for a quite a while; right about the time Trixbox went away. It’s a great system that has allowed us to do almost everything every client has ever requested.
The long-standing trouble for us is the nature with which bug reports are received and fixed and, as mentioned, the cost/quality metrics with support. Ten years ago quality was excellent, almost across the board. Not so much now.
To add our two cents, we opened a ticket a month or so ago, and it was a fairly bad experience as well. no response for over a week, wasn;t even sure if we were in the correct place. they make it diffcult to contact them for support.
we’re moving the org over to the Sangoma Desktop/Mobile applications, and are a little worried if we encouner any issues, we’ll be stranded wthout assistance.
Their support model/pricing is a little “ehhhh”, and makes it difficult for us to even think of purchasing, as we’re a charity org., I have to weight the risks vs the benefits of the platform, and being free… definately helps us, so we grin the support issues at this point…
The problem is waiting for response several days. I need some response from the tech and not having one way communication via ticketing system.
I had some tickets solved very fast and the tech was very pleasant. It should be always like that. If you get some “body” in the support if he can’t solve the case he should escalate and forwarded to a next level support.
Switchvox support pricing is acceptable for commercial system. It is quite cheaper than some competing solutions.
