email setup for iPhone & Android driving us nuts!

[electric]

Hello,

We get way too many customers every day that are having problems setting up their cpanel email account with an iPhone or Android phone. It is driving us crazy, because it shouldn't be so difficult!

Is there some kind of unbranded cpanel documentation page for setting up an email account properly with various iphone and/or android versions? Something with lots of pictures, so that the "non technical" customers can easily get things working?

I sure wish there was a simple link or something they could click from their webmail page that would auto-setup their email account, but I guess that is wishfull thinking? (ie: Tell customer to login to webmail on their phone's browser, then click an auto-setup button to download and setup their email settings on their phone automatically.)

Surely we can't be the only ones with so many customers having problems.

Thanks for any suggestions or help!

 

[Infopro]

I sure wish there was a simple link or something they could click from their webmail page that would auto-setup their email account

Have a look here:

cPanel > Mail section > Email Accounts > to the right side of any of the email accounts listed, click the More menu, then, Configure Client link.

HTH!

 

[electric]

Have a look here:

cPanel > Mail section > Email Accounts > to the right side of any of the email accounts listed, click the More menu, then, Configure Client link.

Yes, this lists the email account setup info, but it is still too complicated for many non-technical customers who have no idea what this stuff means.

They needs pictures and simple step by step instructions to setup their email account(s) in their iphone and/or android.

It would be nice if cpanel documentation included that stuff... but I understand good useful documentation targeted towards non-technical customers is not a priority for cpanel.



EDITED TO ADD:

Specifically, what is needed here are pictures and "step by step" instructions, like this:

Do you have a PHONE? Which one:

- Iphone 3
- Iphone 3g
- iPHone 3gs
- iPHone 4
- iPhone 4s
- etc..

So the customer then selects which phone model they have. Then they see a simple, click "here" and "here" and then enter the following information from the configuration page for your account in this box here. Use arrows and pictures to show EXACTLY where to put the info, and what options to enable/disable, etc.

Like, I'm talking about really really detailed instructions and direction with pictures, big red arrows, and ZERO room for misunderstanding.

Make sense? I'm very surprised cpanel doesn't already include this in their documentation, as it wouldn't take them that long, and it would be useful for thousands of their customers.

 

[screege]

Did you managed to get such documentation we have over 3000 accounts and also this is driving us nuts, between iphones and Android devices.

 

[cPanelMichael]

You may find the phone vendor itself offers better step-by-step tutorials for their device. For example, with Apple:

iOS: Adding an email account

Thank you.

 

[electric]

You may find the phone vendor itself offers better step-by-step tutorials for their device. For example, with Apple:

iOS: Adding an email account

This is only helpful if the customer already understands how the "technical" stuff of email works. The problem we have is that most of our customers are non-technical and don't know what a "hostname" means or "port" means.

So for them, it is an hour of absolute frustration trying to get their email account "configured" with their phone. Of course, they think the problem is that we make it too complicated and so we get yelled at in frustration once they have exhausted themselves and still can't get things working.

Of course, for us it's very easy to configure for them and only takes a few minutes. By then, it's too late and our customer already has a bad taste in their mouth and now thinks we are over-complicated and so they have a negative view. We have lost some goodwill.

That isn't a nice situation, and is totally unnecessary if cpanel could spend some time and better show how to configure the most common devices. It always has made me laugh (not the good kind) that we must pay a 3rd party company to provide clear help and tutorials to our customers for how to use the cpanel software and services.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Would a feature that provides step-by-step instructions for mobile devices such as the iPhone within the cPanel interface itself be of help? If so, I recommend opening a feature request via:

Submit A Feature Request

Thank you.

 

[Infopro]

...if cpanel could spend some time and better show how to configure the most common devices.

Would you mind going into a few more details about what you'd like to see more details on?

I understand that question reads silly, but I'd like to better understand whats needed here to help better understand the issue that needs more time spent on it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[electric]

Hello,

The answer to your question is very simple.

1. Find any non-technical person who is over the age of 50.

2. Give them a cpanel un/pw and login URL, and an iphone (or android).

3. Tell them their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to configure the iphone with an email account.

Now watch what happens.

You'll very quickly discover what is needed.

Welcome to my world.

 

[Infopro]

Careful, I'm over 50. And it's my world too, Hosting Provider.

Your reply doesn't answer my core question though.

Give grandma a new iPhone for xmas and a link to the apple site mentioned above and ask her to set up an email account. Leave cPanel out of this for a moment.

 

[electric]

Give grandma a new iPhone for xmas and a link to the apple site mentioned above and ask her to set up an email account. Leave cPanel out of this for a moment.

Grandma isn't going to have a clue what hostname to enter, what is her email account username, what port number to use, etc.

Some common questions/problems:

- iphone defaults to ssl. So when they enter "mail.domain.com", it doesn't work. Then they get confused, try to fiddle with ports and get upset. Of course, for us it's easy. We understand what "ssl" means and why it needs the server's hostname instead of their domain name. Non-technical customers don't understand, get upset, and then think we are making it complicated...

- Of course we understand their email account username is their email address. Many non-technical customers don't get that. They think it's their cpanel account un/pw.. which works, so they don't see any errors and then wonder why their email isn't working.

- Many customers (non-technical) do not realize they must enter their SMTP information "again", even though they just entered their incoming email details. So they wonder why they can't send, get upset after a while, then complain about how our service is too complicated, etc..

My point here is that sending them to the apple website to setup their email isn't going to help. The fact is that they use our cpanel service to get their email, so we need to provide them with cpanel-specific instructions. This includes an brain-dead simple illustrated guide that walks them through, step by step, how to login to their cpanel, find their specific email account configuration details, and nice pictures of step by step instructions for how to use that information to complete each screen in their iphone/android.

I know this is ridiculous, and I shake my head and silently scream in frustration every time I have to walk yet another moron non-technical customer through setting up their iphone. Yet, it happens over and over and over and over. It's a major time consumer for our helpdesk staff, and (imho) should not be necessary for a simple control panel like cpanel.

 

[Infopro]

You've still not answered my core question with specifics, and have now insulted every new user that reads this thread looking for a solid answer, by calling them morons. Not cool, IMO.

I've been assisting iPhone users setup email accounts on their phones since iPhone came out, we all have I'm sure. Some do need a little extra help, but this isn't exactly a showstopper.

...we need to provide them with cpanel-specific instructions. This includes an brain-dead simple illustrated guide that walks them through, step by step, how to login to their cpanel, find their specific email account configuration details, and nice pictures of step by step instructions for how to use that information to complete each screen in their iphone/android.

Going by that, you'd like to see something like this, only for setting up email, is that correct?
How to Connect to Web Disk on Your Mobile Device - cPanel Documentation

 

[cPanelPeter]

Hello,

I personally used video tutorials for my customers in the past. They are readily available via a Google Search.
purchasing video tutorials on how to set up email on iphone.

Take a look at the last link for example.

 

[cPanelKenneth]

Grandma isn't going to have a clue what hostname to enter, what is her email account username, what port number to use, etc.

Some common questions/problems:

- iphone defaults to ssl. So when they enter "mail.domain.com", it doesn't work. Then they get confused, try to fiddle with ports and get upset. Of course, for us it's easy. We understand what "ssl" means and why it needs the server's hostname instead of their domain name. Non-technical customers don't understand, get upset, and then think we are making it complicated...

- Of course we understand their email account username is their email address. Many non-technical customers don't get that. They think it's their cpanel account un/pw.. which works, so they don't see any errors and then wonder why their email isn't working.

- Many customers (non-technical) do not realize they must enter their SMTP information "again", even though they just entered their incoming email details. So they wonder why they can't send, get upset after a while, then complain about how our service is too complicated, etc..

My point here is that sending them to the apple website to setup their email isn't going to help. The fact is that they use our cpanel service to get their email, so we need to provide them with cpanel-specific instructions. This includes an brain-dead simple illustrated guide that walks them through, step by step, how to login to their cpanel, find their specific email account configuration details, and nice pictures of step by step instructions for how to use that information to complete each screen in their iphone/android.

I know this is ridiculous, and I shake my head and silently scream in frustration every time I have to walk yet another moron non-technical customer through setting up their iphone. Yet, it happens over and over and over and over. It's a major time consumer for our helpdesk staff, and (imho) should not be necessary for a simple control panel like cpanel.

I feel a little bit of your pain. Not only is it confusing, it is also frustrating. I'm highly technical, and I get frustrated and annoyed whenever I have to setup email on a new phone. It should be much simpler than it currently is.

Do you happen to use the email auto discovery feature we added in 11.36? It is supposed to reduce the pain of configuring the email client.

 

[ThinIce]

- iphone defaults to ssl. So when they enter "mail.domain.com", it doesn't work. Then they get confused, try to fiddle with ports and get upset. Of course, for us it's easy. We understand what "ssl" means and why it needs the server's hostname instead of their domain name. Non-technical customers don't understand, get upset, and then think we are making it complicated...

The hostname issue is the primary one I run into. It's also the one that is sufficiently complicated there is no hope of the average user working it through themselves.

Using the server hostname breaks the ability to be able to move accounts around a providers different servers if necessary. Asking clients to use mail.domain.com and get their device to trust whichever hostname certificate they're presented with runs into serious problems. Some phones require "trust all ssl" or similar and this is a poor suggestion for us to be making in any case. Users who have been spooked by media stories of hacks will rightly call it out as such.

This particular issue could be resolved by per domain certificates support for the various services, this is sorely needed and the feature request is SSL certificate per domain on all services | cPanel Feature Requests

To give you an example, it's bad enough that a fair proportion of people now are willing to pay hourly rate to have us teamviewer onto their computer / phone and configure it for them - in my view this is justification enough to commit developer time to that feature request, as the current status quo is an argument for users to join the google / apple walled garden that "just works" on their device.