Thoughts

[GreenLantern]

Tim,

I agree that most support issues are on the customers end.

That said, it would be nice to have a skeleton crew dedicated for reseller support available a bit later, say 8 or 9pm. Sometimes we just need basic questions answered. Or need to get little things worked out, like when a number needs to be moved from a voice account to a fax account.

An alterantive would be if resellers had a bit more control over accounts. For example, being able to change the account name or type without having to call support would help.

My two cents.

[genxweb]

Tim is right about the issues at the customers end i had a few this week def the customer but how do you tell them no its your problem.

The customers I host on a asterisk box I can at least check the logs watch the packets and debug issues. Customers that are just on the voipo system it self it is supports word vs customers word when there is a issue.

I def agree if the network is up it is up but their can always be a bad route especially with lcr running, static on the line, echoing. (I have several customers complain abut that on international calls).

Once again thank Tim for the link to show the system status on Twitter but it be nice to have some sort of better debuging or troubleshooting guide.

[burris]

Tim is right about the issues at the customers end i had a few this week def the customer but how do you tell them no its your problem.

The customers I host on a asterisk box I can at least check the logs watch the packets and debug issues. Customers that are just on the voipo system it self it is supports word vs customers word when there is a issue.

I def agree if the network is up it is up but their can always be a bad route especially with lcr running, static on the line, echoing. (I have several customers complain abut that on international calls).

Once again thank Tim for the link to show the system status on Twitter but it be nice to have some sort of better debuging or troubleshooting guide.

Not to intrude, but way back after the ATT breakup, we became first a long distance provider(reseller) and ultimately a facilities based CLEC.

We always had to handle all trouble calls and customer support even though none of the network components belonged to us...

What I fail to understand in the issues you are citing is what functions do you as a reseller expect to maintain and how much interfacing would you want VOIPo to engage in with your customers since you are most likely branded.

It is my opinion that a reseller would be totally responsible for maintaining his/her customers across the board.

Why else would you be buying at one price and reselling at a profit.

Otherwise, I imagine you could simply be a referrer to a provider and make a % off that.

I really don't know this difference between my old world and today's world.

[genxweb]

Burris i am confused on your response. I support my customers as far as I can unfortunately without insight into the back end and the ability to view the servers / logs / connections and so on I can not sit there with them trouble shooting issues like I do for my other customers for other products I offer. What I have to do instead is send a ticket to support saying account # blah is having a issue here is what it is.

One thing I have been working on is scrapping the Voipo twitter feed replacing the voipo name with my name and using it as a rss feed for customers to see the status on the back end network before saying there is a issue.

[burris]

Burris i am confused on your response. I support my customers as far as I can unfortunately without insight into the back end and the ability to view the servers / logs / connections and so on I can not sit there with them trouble shooting issues like I do for my other customers for other products I offer. What I have to do instead is send a ticket to support saying account # blah is having a issue here is what it is.

One thing I have been working on is scrapping the Voipo twitter feed replacing the voipo name with my name and using it as a rss feed for customers to see the status on the back end network before saying there is a issue.

I still have some confusion about how support should be performed for a VOIP reseller. Again, way back, as resellers, we did all the support and we had no access to any CPE....we took the trouble call, called the NOC and analyzed the problem. Most business problems, and that's all we did then, were problems with their PBX equipment, etc. If a network was down, that was easy...hold their hand and apologize. Since it was the customer's equipment nearly all the time, I suppose the same analogy would hold true here....except that the provider could possibly log into the customers router and try to define the problem further....still understanding that if it is the customers problem, they cannot set up a truck roll.

I would find it interesting if perhaps Tim could join in this thread and tell us if it is any different than what my experience was. His input would be more valuable since he lives it every day....and sometimes at night as well.