Will XenForo Offer Phone Support?

Do you really think it would be worthwhile for these guys to be covering phones on top of tickets? I think tickets work best from a support stand point because you have a paper-trail and can setup easy canned messages/faqs for the frequently asked questions. As long as Mike & Kier offering quality support with good response times, I feel as though phone support should be an after-thought if not completely inadequate.
 
Remember there's only two guys that I can see doing this. It'd be very hard for them to also offer phone support but in the future when the team and XenForo grows I'm sure we'll see a form of phone support. I don't know anything about that though. You've just got to consider the limitations of a two man army sometimes here.
 
I am a *huge* fan of phone support. Occasionally people just get 'stuck' and cannot describe their problem. I am one of those people.

One of the reasons I bought vb & ipb was for the phone support. That said, time could be better spent with detailed 'how to' videos, even on the simplest things that many people new to forums take for granted.

One problem with tickets is they take much time for going back and forth when people are having a hard time understanding the problem enough to describe it, and of course usually there is no way to attach things to tickets such as screen shots... An interactive system such as skype does allow for attachments and quick replies would be nice, and in an ideal world Personal Conversations might also have the ability to have attachments. Probably not needed at first though.

Regardless of what support systems are put in place, it would be great if they were left in place.
 
I've never used phone support but I can understand why people do use it.

I don't think it should be covered in the $40 a year though, maybe an extra fee for phone support.
 
Do you really think it would be worthwhile for these guys to be covering phones on top of tickets? I think tickets work best from a support stand point because you have a paper-trail and can setup easy canned messages/faqs for the frequently asked questions. As long as Mike & Kier offering quality support with good response times, I feel as though phone support should be an after-thought if not completely inadequate.
Remember there's only two guys that I can see doing this. It'd be very hard for them to also offer phone support but in the future when the team and XenForo grows I'm sure we'll see a form of phone support. I don't know anything about that though. You've just got to consider the limitations of a two man army sometimes here.
Until AND unless there are more to the team than just the two of them and Ashley who is the business side, I don't see a phone support being added. Unless it is one of those automated chat bots. And to be honest, that would annoy the heck out of me. 

99.999999 % of your questions can be answered right here in the forum.  
 
99.999999 % of your questions can be answered right here in the forum.

However, there are times when business dictates that some things are kept secret about a site and it's configuration. There is a business need for phone support, but I would see that as something that comes along later in the XenForo lifetime.
 
There is a business need for phone support...
From a consumer standpoint, maybe. From a provider's standpoint, telephone support is inefficient and expensive. Especially for a small provider.
 
If you're paying me $40 a year as a customer and I have to pay several technically qualified people to talk to you every few months to answer some question that is clearly on the site in a FAQ or KB, or listen to you ramble for ten minutes about how cold it is where you live and how much potatoes cost these days, I'm losing money on you.
 
From a consumer standpoint, maybe. From a provider's standpoint, telephone support is inefficient and expensive. Especially for a small provider.

If you're paying me $40 a year as a customer and I have to pay several technically qualified people to talk to you every few months to answer some question that is clearly on the site in a FAQ or KB, or listen to you ramble for ten minutes about how cold it is where you live and how much potatoes cost these days, I'm losing money on you.
I would just like to say that potatoes are expensive little buggers these days.
 
From a consumer standpoint, maybe. From a provider's standpoint, telephone support is inefficient and expensive. Especially for a small provider.

If you're paying me $40 a year as a customer and I have to pay several technically qualified people to talk to you every few months to answer some question that is clearly on the site in a FAQ or KB, or listen to you ramble for ten minutes about how cold it is where you live and how much potatoes cost these days, I'm losing money on you.

Phone support would have to be an extra cost. The market will bear it. I use a software package where support is provided by annul contract. The low cost is via an email ticketing system, add money and the ability to call X # of times is added. More calls means more money. What you end up with is calls when support is "really needed now".

There is a business case for this. Larger sites that can afford this type of support will use it when needed. For the most part these sites have the ability to fix issues and will use the phone support rarely. At least thats how we do it with the pay per call support level we are on.

I'm not saying that XenForo needs this at launch but I can see a need down the road some.
 
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