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Problems with Solarwinds Support

Well, im not sure if anyone has experienced the Solarwinds supports woes or not, but I have. For instance; I was having a problem where I wasn’t receiving emails to my cell from when a site went down; I opened a ticket at 4:29pm with a high priority on Wednesday and the ticket didn’t get picked up until 7:12pm that same day, that’s almost three hours later. I didn’t think anything of it at first; I thought aye they must be busy and just shrugged it off. What did bother me was that I responded to the tech who sent me that email at 7:12pm the next morning. I answered all of his questions and replied to him at 9:03am, do you think I ever heard back from him, nope.

So, I came up with an email address which I wasn’t sure would work and sent a nasty gram to someone at Solarwinds. I told him that "I think your help desk is heading into the wrong direction, delivering poor support and not taking care of the customer." amongst a couple other things that I wont go into detail about. He the one I sent the email to responded "Bret, thanks very much for your email. I assure you we would prefer to have folks like yourself, who we consider our ‘Army of Influencers’, tell us when we’re messing up vs. losing your confidence in us as a partner to help you get your job done." He then had his director of Help desk call. This was a good conversation and went on for several minutes. The bottom line is Solarwinds is going thru some help desk growing pains. They have added so many new staff that they need to be trained and brought up to speed before they can give us the support we need. He said they are trying to fix the problem, which will happen over time. He also said that I should not have waited as long as I did for a response to my ticket and that will be looked into. So if your having the Solarwinds Support woes, things will get better folks, just hang in there.

Maybe we can start a support thread here, and you can give ideas, or share you recent support issues. Im sure someone from Solarwinds will be reading.

Sincerely,
Bret

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Accepted answers

jamham

First of all I don't like the fact that our system was down for 3.5 hrs today but as you know it happens. The net, our ticket system everything was down. We all here take pride, alot of pride in helping our customers with the issue they face. You said " This time I call, and Im treated like a joke. I mean the guy told me that his system is down and that he cant check my case. I asked if he could do a web ex session. He say he cant. I asked if I can email the info to him. He then says his email isnt working.

Well as you said in your statement 'Our systems were down" and now the system is up. No one laughed at you, and the information that I asked for is always based on what I need to do my job, including screen shots. I've have a hard job but one I enjoy, so I look forward to you calling back and allowing us to deal with what ever issue you have.

All comments

Drexel

Interesting, we were just commenting on how the support has really gone downhill the last few months. Hope it improves, or we are going to have to go elsewhere.

Mithrilhall

I haven't called in for support in quite some time (before version 8) but it used to be top notch.

I'm sure it'll be better than it used to.

Network_Guru

quote:Originally posted by Mithrilhall

I haven't called in for support in quite some time (before version 8) but it used to be top notch.

I'm sure it'll be better than it used to.

You really can't do any better than a real live knowledgeable person on the other end of the line when you call in.
Sadly this is no longer the case.... my last support call was not negative, but took much longer to resolve than before.

It seems like SW was bought up by investors & is undergoing change in business processes, support, etc.
www.solarwinds.net/.../management.aspx

Let's hope this improves as time goes on.

-=Cheers=-
NG

~seek & ye shall find---> [url="http://www4.solarwinds.net/SolarWindsForum/search.asp"]

<---no need to wait for answers~

gform400

It is probably growing pains... They used to have a very responsive and tolerant support system, but I've noticed the same things that the rest of you have, and that is the turn around time for a response to an open ticket/support call is extremely slow... I attribute that to increased usage of their product... What I have found to be useful, at least for the basic to the intermediate level is to view the training videos they have on-line... Just a thought...

gbrance

I have had the same issue with there tech support. Several of e-mails I have sent in for a open issue just seem to disappear into a blackhole of e-mails never to be seen again with no response.

GB

mcobb

I must agree that the support has gone downhill, as I have had issues with Version 8 for 2 months now and just finally got to 3rd level support and they are working my case. The web site ticketing is not workin at all for me with getting support. There is a sense of dedication when you can talk to a live person. The main reason why I chose this application in the forst place was support and I must say I have been disappointed. Upper level management is starting to get on my case and it is not a good thing considering we are looking to expand this monitoring system exponentially. Please give us the call Queue back!

davemac

I still haven't had a reply to my request for adding a custom mib file even after 3 follow up emails. It's been almost a month now. All I want is a 'yes we've received it and yes it will take x long to get it done' but no...not a word, complete silence.

Just in case anyone from Solarwinds reads this my case number is #1920.

aegismedia

I call 866 530 8100

go throught the menus and after maybe ten minutes I might get someone to answer (sometimes not).

I give them all the information they ask. account number ID, whatever.

They ask if I submitted a ticket. I say yes, two. Tickets were submitted over ten days ago.

They replied with more questions, which I answered. What version? is the alert enabled? have you submitted a ticket. I answer yes yes yes yes yes.

then I never heard from them again.

This time I call, and Im treated like a joke. I mean the guy told me that his system is down and that he cant check my case.

I asked if he could do a web ex session. He say he cant.

I asked if I can email the info to him. He then says his email isnt working.

This is all while I'm being laughed at in the background by his other co workers.

He made sure I got no help what so ever.

I also asked if I can just read to him what I see. Again he resisted and offered no help by telling me he needs screenshots.

What should I do?

Mind you we're paying for this support.

mobius

If you could call in again we had a outage which cut our external access for a long period time where we have no access to our ticketing systems and also ability to connect to the net. L3 just got it going again. Now we do have lots of echoing going on in the office and the background sounds can be misunderstood and I suspect it is not true we are here to help and I assure you that not helping customer is not what we aim to do at all.

mharvey

Can you let me know what case numbers you have submitted and I will see what issues you have submitted, and contact you on these?

One of the cases that you had with us, I worked with you on and let you know that you could use Visio documents in the Map Maker, but not 3MB visio docs. The files needed to be smaller. On another case, another one of our techs was working with you has given you a direct ext for him and he has not heard back from you on that issue. So I fail to see where you have not gotten support from us.

It was true this morning we had some severe internal network issues that brought down our systems, so the tech was unable to look at you case, email you, or set up an online meeting session. We have since had our connection restored.

Mithrilhall

My overall experience with SolarWinds support has been great.

What I usually do is fill out a TT online and if it's really really important set the priority to urgent. Also, if it was an urgent problem I usually call first and if I get no one I do the online TT.

jamham

Network_Guru

Well as you said in your statement 'Our systems were down" and now the system is up. No one laughed at you, and the information that I asked for is always based on what I need to do my job, including screen shots. I've have a hard job but one I enjoy, so I look forward to you calling back and allowing us to deal with what ever issue you have.

I think the proper thing to do in this case is tell the customer all your systems are down, get a phone number from the customer, and let him know you will call him back when your systems are back up. And then keep your promise & call back. This customer should have priority over any incoming calls when the systems are back up.

That's the best you can do and the most a customer can expect, in a situation like this.