The quality of Support in SMF

[geezmo]

I know I'm not the only one who feels disappointed with the kind of support SMF users are getting for the SMF software. Don't get me wrong, I am sure the Support Staff are doing their best to help all SMF users, and probably most if not all of them are doing this on a voluntary basis.

However some of us SMF users cannot afford to wait for support. I once had an SMF problem and as a consequence, my site (primarily a forum site) was down and inaccessible. No matter how hard I tried to search for a solution, I found none in the forum so I decided to post it. Five hours later, there was still no reply. Ten hours later, my site was still down. Fortunately somebody responded to my question and with some tweaking, I solved the problem. But that's not without consequences. You can only imagine the impact of 10 hours of downtime on any site.

I then decided to purchase Charter Membership and paid $50 for that, hoping it would help expedite responses to my support questions. I know it's not an assurance since that's not really payment for support but still, having access to a Charter Members-Only Support section is an advantage.

Yes, I did get some priority thanks to the Charter Members-Only Support section but it's still not enough for me. You see, I cannot wait for several hours to get help for an SMF problem. The longer a site gets inaccessible, the more you lose customers and eventually revenues.

I had another SMF problem and I searched for it in the forum and found no useful reply. I submitted a Support Ticket to the Charter Members-Only Support but got a reply saying modifications, templates, etc. are not in the realm of the Support section, these should be posted in the forum. Fair enough, so I posted the template-related question I have in the forum but until now, after more than 3 weeks of waiting, I've gotten no reply. I decided to ditch that template because I can't afford to wait any longer.

Some days ago, I posted another SMF question in the Charter Members Only folder and got a reply ONLY after one and a half days. The solution he provided though did not work. I pointed that out and said I'll wait for the correct response but until now -- after another 15 hours (and counting) -- I still haven't heard anything. The problem is still in my site AFTER THREE DAYS.

My point? The quality of Support in SMF should be raised.  If SMF really wants to be a major player in the forum software industry, it should not let its users wait in the dark hoping some kind soul would reply to their support questions. I know SMF is a free software and some staff here are just on volunteer work, but the fact that only a few people can find answers to most SMF questions either means SMF is a complicated software to learn or there are only very few people who really understand the software. Either way, it's not not good for SMF.

I used to run vBulletin and although support is not that 100% great, at least I get a reply in just under 12 hours. If you're a paid license holder, you can post your questions in the vB forum and if you don't get a reply within 12 hours, you can bump it and somebody will surely come to the rescue. You can also purchase access to support and have unlimited access to support anytime. Last time I checked, the average time it took vB to solve ALL support questions is 45 minutes. Here in SMF, a question can go on unanswered for days, months, or even years if the poster did not follow it up.

I have paid SMF Charter Membership supposedly for some support and I bet some SMF users here are also willing to pay just to have access to Support that can solve their problems at the quickest time possible. I hope SMF would be able to implement something like this. My point is, a lot of us cannot wait for hours or days just to get replies to our SMF problems. If there's a way for SMF users to avail Support quickly, then that's one step forward towards raising the quality of the SMF software.

The above post may be a rant but I sure believe a lot of SMF users here agree. Thanks for reading my comments.

[Grudge]

geezmo,

Thanks for the feedback. I think we are aware that at the moment providing support is something of an issue for us - we now have many, many users and a relatively under-resourced support team. We are trying to actively recruit new members into the support team and will keep working at this.

Of particular interest is response times to Charter Member questions. If you're referring to the helpdesk or Support Board then 1.5 days is not really acceptable - although I can see it may take some time of the request was particularly taxing. The other boards in the CM area are assumed to be for non-critical issues so I'd expect a delayed response there.

Regards,

Grudge

[geezmo]

Yes, I understand. I think SMF really has to start training and recruiting new people to comprise the Support Staff. As for the Support Board for Charter Members, I do hope you can work on it. Anyway good luck on SMF. I'm still here supporting you