Support Best Practices

What is the best way to request support?
Are there any "Best Practices" that you recommend when requesting support assistance?

First keep in mind that there are three levels of support. These best practices apply to all three levels, but they are especially important when using Tier 3 support in order to get the fastest response. Any lack of clarity could result in increased time (i.e. costs) as Tier 3 has to ask clarifying questions.

Best Practices: We recommend the following best practices when requesting support.

  1. Write a subject line that is a brief summary of the issue. (e.g. Housing Refund Doesn't Accept a Payment Amount and not "I need help with a refund").
  2. Ideally use the Web portal to fill out a ticket and fill out all fields that you can.
  3. Start with simple statment of the problem.
  4. State what behavior you would expect.
  5. Then spell out the steps you're taking using real live examples.
  6. State what you think could be the problem.

The Bottom Line:
In order for support to do it's job the problem the problem needs to be able to be replicated. So the question you always need to ask yourself when submitting a support request is, "Have I described this in a way that can be replicated." A great phrase to keep in mind is that "Support Can Only Fix What it Can Replicate."   

Example of a Really Good (A++) Support Request
Here's an example of a great support request from a recent inquiry.

Subject: Housing Refund Doesn't Accept a Payment Amount
Simple Statement: Attendee 99999 (John Doe) needs to be refunded for one night's lodging. When I try to do the refund I keep getting a message that the dollar amount I'm trying to enter exceeds the allowable amount.
Expected Behavior: I would expect to be able to enter $101. The original charge was $404.
Steps I'm Taking: 
1. Go to Attendee Listing and hit the "Refund" dropdown for John Doe (aID 99999).
2. Try to enter in $101 in the refund field.
3. It gives me a warning that says my amount (so far only $1) exceeds the allowable amount of $0.
What Could be Problem: We originally tried to do a refund on this room via EFT, but we received a reject notice. That could be causing the problem. 
   
It took Tier 3 about two minutes to recognize what the problem was and the support charge is the 5 minute minimum.  

Example of a Really Bad Request
Contrast that with what would happen if this were the submitted ticket that comes in as an email (we've received some similar to this).

Subject: Refund is Broke
Body: I'm trying to do a refund for an attendee and it isn't working. Can you help me out?

This one ended up being a 15 minute ticket mostly because the next exchange was also unclear and it took a third exchange to finally get the aID number and other key information.