We at TotalChoice have always made it a point to reduce the response time for issues brought to our attention. But there are a few things that you as a client can do to get your issues rectified in a zap. Here are some quick tricks and tips.
Support.
Among the various means to get in touch with us — Helpdesk, IMs, Live Chat, IRC, I would recommend the help desk as the primary. Why ?
1) It is a secure link and you will have peace of mind that your sensitive information never gets compromised. Help desk is accessible only to TCH employees currently under contract unlike IM, IRC etc.
2) It allows you to enter critical information like Cpanel logins, servername so that we can search and access your account quickly rather than emailing back and forth requesting more info.
3) This info proves the ownership of the account so that we know the request is coming from a legitimate source.
4) Allows all techs, management and of course yourself to track the progress. You can always quote the ticket id via chat or IM to any of the techs at a later stage.
5) Finally the most significant factor, you do not have to tag along or wait online for the tech to check and reply. Just submit the ticket, get a cup of coffee, watch a couple of commercials, get the garbage out etc etc. By the time you are done, we would have responded back to you.
Now, information is a vital part of getting your issue resolved. Most of the time we get tickets like “My email is not working. Please check”. Some of the things that would be running on the tech’s mind would be :
# Is it for a single email account or for the entire domain ?
# Incoming / outgoing or both ?
# Is the issue on webmail (horde, squirrelmail etc) or on email clients like outlook, thunderbird etc.
# Any error messages ?
So include as much information as possible, and steps to replicate the issue including the logins so that we can get into it straight away. The more information you give, more easier for us to identify and correct the problem.
Contact Address
Ensure that you set a valid, working email as the contact id on billing, domain registration and as cpanel contact address. This should ideally be something that is not connected to the domain or the server hosting the account so that you would receive the email even if the server is down or (…ahem…) if the account gets suspended. You can use any of the free providers like Gmail, Yahoo! etc.
The same holds true while submitting tickets, there is no point in submitting one by setting the contact email to a domain / email account that is not working. But of course, you know that already… silly me 🙂
TCH Forums
Our forum — http://totalchoicehosting.com/forums/ — provides a vast array of knicks and knacks which can be used effectively to manage your account. All issues, updates etc pertainting to your server and TCH operations will be reported there. Migrations, upgrades etc are posted well in advance to minimize client issues. All you need to do is sign up and subscribe to the thread designated for your server and any other threads that you feel is needed like General Announcements, Network Maintenance etc so that the alerts reaches you via email.
You can also find members there who are willing to help you out with third party applications, tweaking your site and so on.
HAPPY HOSTING !!