How long should I expect to wait when asking for tech support help through an email/ticket?

tecocat

There used to be telephone tech support for Lectora, but that appears to have been discontinued with the move to eLB. (And, to be fair, even when there was telephone tech support, getting through to someone live has been a crap shoot for the past several years.) At this point, other than the forum and "self-serve" options, the only way to get help appears to be through email/form. However, I can't find anything on the site that says how quickly I should expect someone to get back to me. I'm at a total standstill on an urgent project while I wait for a response, and it's extra frustrating when I don't even know how long it might take for someone to get back to me. So, does anyone know what the standard turn-around time is?

Also, any chance that there might be a more "on-demand" (probably telephone, or at least chat) tech support option coming at some point? If it weren't too expensive, I'd even be willing to pay an annual fee for that service (like we used to)!

carlfink

We've waited anywhere from 2 to 7 days for a response over the past year or so. I miss the days of Lectora X, when you could call and immediately talk to an expert.

RichVass

Hey, all - just wanted to jump in to let everybody know that we do try to respond to all support requests within 24 hours, but our average response time is 14 hours. We do also offer support via chat on the website (although those of us who manage chat are not Lectora experts, so we often have to direct folks to open a support ticket - sometimes we can get answers a bit more quickly, tho). Also, if you call our main number, you do have the option to press 2 to leave a VM which will also open a support ticket.

I appreciate any and all feedback about the support process. We are trying hard to make it awesome!

RichVass

@tecocat We are looking to expand the Solutions team - so, yes - we hope to see that team get some of their daily bandwidth freed up to participate in live chat support!

timk

They claim to respond "as soon as possible", so I'd give them about 24 hours. There should be nothing wrong with trying two ways at once, so ... what's the problem with your course?

tecocat

timk said:

They claim to respond "as soon as possible", so I'd give them about 24 hours. There should be nothing wrong with trying two ways at once, so ... what's the problem with your course?

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Timk!

I ended up having to just remove the problematic part to work around the problem to get the course done on time. So, thanks for the offer of help, but I believe I'm all set for now.

24 hours is not an acceptable turnaround time when a problem has one's project at a stand-still, as sometimes is the case. I'll be interested to see how/if someone at eLB responds to the turnaround time question, as well as the question about a future on-demand phone/chat option.

andrew-robertson

Have you paid for an increased service level agreement (SLA)? In my opinion, under 7 days is perfectly acceptable if you haven't paid for increased service.

tecocat

andrew-robertson said:

Have you paid for an increased service level agreement (SLA)? In my opinion, under 7 days is perfectly acceptable if you haven't paid for increased service.

I saw no option for an increased SLA -- maybe you've purchased an enterprise package of some kind that has such a thing? We just purchased three licenses and was told that support is now included in that price, as opposed to when I used to purchase a separate support option for $295 in the past. I would be HAPPY to pay that again to get more immediate support, but was not offered that option!

And, IMHO, on no planet is 7 days an acceptable turnaround time for support! How much time are you given to do your projects?? If I'm at a standstill on my project because I need help, I can't lose a whole WEEK of work waiting for that help! I don't know what kind of work you do or what company you work for, but I envy you if you can wait a week to move forward on a project. And I dearly hope you don't have a job that provides services to others if you think it's okay to make your customers wait 7 days for a reply when they need help!

tecocat

carlfink said:

We've waited anywhere from 2 to 7 days for a response over the past year or so. I miss the days of Lectora X, when you could call and immediately talk to an expert.

2 to 7 days? That's totally unacceptable! Yes, I'm with you about missing the days when I could get telephone tech support when I need it. IIRC, Trivantis used to have (many years ago) telephone support 7 days a week for pretty long hours each day. It cost $295 a year, but was well worth it. I feel like a lot of companies have chosen to cut their costs at the expense of providing robust customer tech support, not realizing (or maybe not caring) that sometimes the help that a customer needs is preventing them from being able to move forward on their project. These days, most developers are given a MUCH shorter time frame to develop and e-course than they used to, so, if anything, prompt technical support is even MORE important!

I really hope that eLB decides to beef up their tech support and offer a more immediate option (phone and/or chat support)....not doing that could drive customers to tools by other companies who do provide that kind of support.

I'm rooting for eLB, because I think they have a lot going for them, and I know they only recently took over Lectora, but I'm definitely paying attention to this issue and it will factor into whether we renew our licenses next year or move to a different product, like Articulate 360/Storyline, if they offer better support. (And I say this as someone who has been using Lectora for almost 20 years and, as the Chairperson of the New England Lectora Users Group (NELUG) and presenter at several Lectora conferences, has done a lot to promote Lectora over the years....)

tecocat

@RichVass Thanks for the info and glad to hear that the turnaround times are supposed to be shorter than what some have said here! Are there any plans for a tech support phone line or live chat with actual Lectora experts at some point? I look forward to when the support process becomes truly awesome! (I will say that the people I've dealt with so far at eLB have all seemed super friendly and generally helpful...the shortcomings I see are more structural than interpersonal.)

tecocat

@RichVass Thanks for the info and glad to hear that the turnaround times are supposed to be shorter than what some have said here! Are there any plans for a tech support phone line or live chat with actual Lectora experts at some point? I look forward to when the support process becomes truly awesome! (I will say that the people I've dealt with so far at eLB have all seemed super friendly and generally helpful...the shortcomings I see are more structural than interpersonal.)

approg

A decade ago, when I worked for a software firm, I spent some time with support and associated bug fixing. Our response was always within an hour (though actually addressing a bug might take several days). Treating customers like beta testers or, worse, as people that can be ignored was not something our director would tolerate.

carlfink

approg said:

A decade ago, when I worked for a software firm, I spent some time with support and associated bug fixing. Our response was always within an hour (though actually addressing a bug might take several days). Treating customers like beta testers or, worse, as people that can be ignored was not something our director would tolerate.

When I was a product manager at a software company, just over a decade ago, I was the second- or third-line support. If first line support couldn't help, the customer would often get me. This was not an accident, it's philosophy. I was the person who needed to know about any issues, so we could remove them from the actual product as soon as possible. (Note: @wheels seems to agree with me.)