Getting Fast Support for Cpanel

[SageBrian]

Great idea. Hope it works out for you David. Not that you'll be doing anything different, except for helping many more people that can't seem to get the support they deserve.

Many business stumble as they grow. If Nick truly is the only one doing all this, then shame on him. That just does not make sense.

Again, I like to point to vBulletin.com, where they created their bulletin board, supported it, made it semi-open, and created a team. As it grew, and more people wanted to help, they hired their customers. It is a great example of team work, and controlled growth.

Here, it is apparent the boards are here for "Customers help themselves".

If Nick can't keep up, then it's time to bite the bullet and hire some people.
Hire one person to monitor the boards daily. This can be a low paying, almost intern job. They monitor and report back to Nick as to what issues seem to be coming up, and potential solutions. They also create a 'support presence', simply saying 'we know of it and working on it.

Hire another to write documentation. That's their only job. Create a full documentation for the current version, a massive job. Then, add weekly to the documentation any changes made.

See if you can get another programmer that can fix bugs, or research new features, etc.

Basically, an organized, 4 person team, two of them possibly part-time.

===Then.... important.
Stop the crazy upgrade cycle. This is what is causing the nightmares. Ignore the nuts asking for the latest, greatest features. Make them wait. Keep your job simple by going at your own, stable, pace.

Your support headaches will be so much less if the upgrade cycle slows down and things actually work correctly before releasing.

And, once you have proven stability, and good, visible support, it is likely the customer base will expand quickly.

Or....... keep on the current path and watch as things slowly break apart.

Let go of ego, look around at other successful businesses, get assistance where needed and life gets better.

Brian

[jamesbond]

Originally posted by SageBrian
Great idea. Hope it works out for you David. Not that you'll be doing anything different, except for helping many more people that can't seem to get the support they deserve.

Many business stumble as they grow. If Nick truly is the only one doing all this, then shame on him. That just does not make sense.

Again, I like to point to vBulletin.com, where they created their bulletin board, supported it, made it semi-open, and created a team. As it grew, and more people wanted to help, they hired their customers. It is a great example of team work, and controlled growth.

Here, it is apparent the boards are here for "Customers help themselves".

If Nick can't keep up, then it's time to bite the bullet and hire some people.
Hire one person to monitor the boards daily. This can be a low paying, almost intern job. They monitor and report back to Nick as to what issues seem to be coming up, and potential solutions. They also create a 'support presence', simply saying 'we know of it and working on it.

Hire another to write documentation. That's their only job. Create a full documentation for the current version, a massive job. Then, add weekly to the documentation any changes made.

See if you can get another programmer that can fix bugs, or research new features, etc.

Basically, an organized, 4 person team, two of them possibly part-time.

===Then.... important.
Stop the crazy upgrade cycle. This is what is causing the nightmares. Ignore the nuts asking for the latest, greatest features. Make them wait. Keep your job simple by going at your own, stable, pace.

Your support headaches will be so much less if the upgrade cycle slows down and things actually work correctly before releasing.

And, once you have proven stability, and good, visible support, it is likely the customer base will expand quickly.

Or....... keep on the current path and watch as things slowly break apart.

Let go of ego, look around at other successful businesses, get assistance where needed and life gets better.

Brian

Couldn't have said it any better

[imagic]

First, SageBrian, Great Post! Thanks for your input.

Hey Nick, how about it? Please comment on your thoughts about this. I guess my main question to you would be:

NICK, do you think Cpanel offers enough knowledgable, timely support to its hundreds (thousands?) of users?

If your answer is yes, how do you explain all the posts asking for help and getting no response for days on end?

If your answer is no, what is your plan to improve the support? My feeling is that there are alot of people who love Cpanel and want to see it do even better than its already extraordinary success. Not to mention the impact that good support has on all of our hosting businesses.

I don't even see this as something that you have to give away for free. I see this as a revenue-generating idea for you. Offer something like premium support for $19.95-$49.95/month. This money would go toward creating updated documentation, responding to tech support questions, monitoring the forums, etc.

And if you don't want to personally hire people to do this, call on those of us who are willing to help you to manage it.

I don't think I can set up a poll in the forum, but I'd like to see the results of asking people if they would pay $19.95-$49.95 for this kind of support. I know I certainly would!

Nick, bdraco, please respond!

[dgbaker]

Just to give you an idea, I have actually submitted my resume to Nick and Darkorb twice in the past 6 months offering to do work for them.

Once I submitted directly to Nick and he had said to check back in March. Well in March there was also a post in these forums asking for people to apply at which time I had applied again.

I hadn't heard anything so I suppose I was not chosen. Although no other mention of them hiring anyone was every mentioned since.

[PWSowner]

Originally posted by imagic
To: squirrel
Who did you lease your server from that is giving you great cpanel support?

My server is with VO .

One example of their support was with an upgrade a while back. I ran a stable upgrade and suddenly subdomains stopped working on one of my accounts. I went to the VO helpdesk and asked them if I should be reporting it to them or cpanel. 15 minutes later it was fixed and they said as the cpanel provider it was their job to take care of things. A couple other times when a cpanel upgrade messed something, VO had it fixed within an hour at the most. No charge.

[PWSowner]

I have an idea for you David. You should put up a technical FAQ section for paid access. Members go to see if their question is answered and if not, ask, and you then add the answer to that section. I bet many people here would sign up for access. I have lots of questions I would like to ask VO, but I feel it's not their job to teach me how to be an administrator. I'd prefer to pay for access to technical FAQ's and as the client base grows, and more q's and a's are added, we will all know where we can go to find answers.

Just a thought.

[FWC]

Originally posted by dgbaker
I hadn't heard anything so I suppose I was not chosen.

IMHO, you would be an excellent choice.

[dgbaker]

Mike;

That's a pretty good idea.

Would need to look at the format and what type of pricing. We would probably use PaySystems and PayPal and cert. cheque.

What kinda prices though? For how much content.

But, one flaw, who would pay initially for an emtpy FAQ?

I know I could get FAQ Q&A's from all over the net and integrate them into one area. Not sure though if anyone would get po'd if it was there answer that got put into the fact.

[xsenses]

Originally posted by squirrel
I'd prefer to pay for access to technical FAQ's and as the client base grows, and more q's and a's are added, we will all know where we can go to find answers.

Just a thought.

I wouldn't mind paying for a fully documented who/what/where/when of WHM/cPanel and I am sure to get the full low down Nick or his team, if there is one, would have to help in one form or another.

[SoftmegUK]

These are all great idea, but shouln't we already be getting this from cPanel? You wouldn't by a brand new TV set and have a manual for a much older model then go and buy the correct manual would you?
With cPanel we are not looking at a $90 TV set, one off, we are looking at big payments for a quality prouduct.
It would probably be best to get someone to write new manuals for cPanel either official or a group of us join in and write an unofficial one like i said in this post:

http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread....&threadid=9016

More of my ramblings...

[PWSowner]

Originally posted by dgbaker
What kinda prices though? For how much content.

I'd easily pay $5 to $20 per question. Of course, the question can't be something as general as "How do I run a web hosting business?".

But, one flaw, who would pay initially for an emtpy FAQ?

It wouldn't bother me if it was empty, as long as I knew my question would be answered, except for the rare question that may not be answerable, or may be too complicated or too general.


It could be tricky figuring out how to charge for the service because of all the variables involved, but here's what I'm, thinking. How about $20/hour for access to the FAQ's, and if a question isn't answered there yet, for a $5 or $10 fee, we ask the question, and the answer is added to the FAQ's as well as emailed to the member who asked.

This idea may not be possible to put together, but it would be great if it could be.

Like SoftmegUK said, we should get instructions on using cpanel from cpanel, but personally, I have many questions that I don't think cpanel is obligated to answer. Cpanel is an administrators interface. We are still supposed to know at least a little about administration, but many of us can use a source of extra knowledge.

[imagic]

Nick,

I see you're on the forums. How about a comment on this thread?

Thanks.

[cpanelnick]

Originally posted by dgbaker
Mike;

That's a pretty good idea.

Would need to look at the format and what type of pricing. We would probably use PaySystems and PayPal and cert. cheque.

What kinda prices though? For how much content.

But, one flaw, who would pay initially for an emtpy FAQ?

I know I could get FAQ Q&A's from all over the net and integrate them into one area. Not sure though if anyone would get po'd if it was there answer that got put into the fact.

http://faq.cpanel.net/

[PWSowner]

I've never seen that link before. Some useful stuff there.

[imagic]

LOL

Nick, is that all you have to say about this entire thread? A link to a faq with 58 questions in it?

AND, there's no way to add questions.

Nick, please understand I'm not trying to whine and complain, I'm honestly trying to make Cpanel better for everybody. You've done a phenomenal job creating and updating Cpanel, but there is so much room for improvement in the support area.

Is it possible that because you're so smart and knowledgable that you don't realize there are those of us who are not complete idiots, but still need some help?

If you have plans in the works to improve support, then God Bless You and please tell us what the plans are. Otherwise, it looks like there are companies who are willing to put together support resources for cpanel, but I don't think they want to do that if you've got something going already.

Nick, please communicate!

Does anybody feel the same way, or am I all alone on this issue? Please post a reply so that Nick can see what the response is.