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Do you prefer sugar-coated support or the full truth that might feel rude?
It seems 2 people got offended at me recently when I was just asking question like "Why do you want to buy a VPS?" because the possible client didn't know what is hostname or telling "Cancelled means cancelled" when a service was terminated due to non-payment days ago.
As a client myself, I always preferred the truth and transparency of my provider.
What do you personally prefer?
Comments
Note: We had last month's backup for the terminated VPS.
depends if you prefer feedback in the form of "don't be an asshole" vs "more professionalism would be nice"
but your business, your call.
And I love him for it.
I usually try to get issues resolved with one reply. I don't want to waste time. I feel like being direct and transparent helped us grow so far.
i want shortest path to solution, be direct.
try not to be a snotty cunt, nobody wants a business relationship with a teenager.
I recall the conversation with @host_c and other providers on the topic of avoiding storing root password. Because apparently some people can't use PKI keys for ssh.
People may feel offended when you're asking
Why do you want to buy a VPS?as they struggled setting up using control panel, using ssh, and other kind of installation required to set up things. So, instead of doing that, respond in sympathetic tones and offer setup fees for one time configuration.And you are going to see more of this clueless clientele that doesn't understand the concept of folder or psychologically stunted as school are reshaped into daycare
If it can feel rude, it is rude.
One can be efficient, assertive and respectful al the same time.
These feel like two different scenarios. If you told a client that failing to pay would result in their VPS being canceled, then they didn't pay and you deleted their data, I have no problem with you being very direct and telling them their shit is gone. Hell, offer them an hourly rate to attempt to find a backup, but make it clear it is best effort and they must pay up front.
On the other hand, "Why do you want to buy a VPS?" does seem a bit rude. If you don't want to hold people's hands or you're concerned about the increased support load, you can probably communicate that more clearly with different wording. Something like "Your questions indicate that you might not have a lot of experience with server administration. We are an infrastructure provider and expect that our customers have the knowledge required to setup environments which utilize that infrastructure. If you are asking questions like this one pre-sale, we might be a good fit for you."
Full truth
No sugarcoating
No 1000 word AI lecture
Also “Why do you want to buy a VPS” as a reply to newbie questions can be interpreted as rude and dismissive
I think you can provide the full truth without being rude and without necessarily needing to write a novel either. It’s a bit of an art/balancing act at times, but it’s a line that can be walked.
You won’t keep everyone happy because some customers will know everything, or they’ll go into a conversation expecting to be offended, but I think you can find a happy medium that works most of the time and helps avoid the risk that you wear the sigma of being a company that’s ‘difficult' to deal with.
Just give this to people as a response then close their account and block their IP, subnet, ASN or region so they can't respond.
Kidding
Definitely be blunt and straight forward. whatever else can and will be misinterpreted.
And yes, I am 100 on what @rpqu said. Schools do turn into daycare, i mean if i could show you the tickets we reply mostly ..... at the 3rd reply the initial subject vanishes and turns into whatever else except the initial issue.
regardless my personal frustration on the matter, truth + be blunt short and direct. - even if that can be also interprted as being an ass.
Cheers!
Instead of sugar-coated support, I would say a support which sounds kind with the truth in it but actually which is helpful.
The thing is sugar coated support can just be words which don't help and complete full truth can be rude which doesn't give the person any chance to ask question/clarify as it did sound rude and it can sound rude then.
be kind but not fake. Try to genuinely help the other person in your way and be truthful in that, if you aren't understanding what they are saying, just ask them to respectfully tell you again.
(Most people would just say full truth in this comment thread as LET wants no BS but one comment I really liked in this discussion is I feel like @Nyr 's response is what I am trying to say too)
Just don't be rude though. Just try to be kind :-D
Client: my server can't connect to telnet yahoo.com 25
Staff: let's test communications first. please send exactly $22k worth of bitcoin to this address xxxxxxxxx so we can see if communication can be established.
straight to the point.
Hi,
when i saw this thread i thought "oh interesting topic, i will write something"....
... just to find out that someone already showed skeletons in the closet....
you both are so mean ;-;
But yes, there are a lot some of like this i think ^^;
While i was actually super curious what text was so evil, that just 0 nothing was understood
But to the topic:
Professional support for me is, if you are
this way the receiver know's where he is, why he is there and has a good starting point to make better decisions because he just got a honest and straight feedback.
To me, unprofessional support is:
But yes, definitely. 8 Billion people with different opinions of what is rude or not, 5-6 different religions of bigger size, tons of different cultures and language barriers.
Quiet easy to catch a bullet in this. But yes, i can understand if people feel here and there insulted. And if ever it comes to my attention, i always apologize for that as its not the goal to be rude and insult people.
But definitely also not to waste anyone's time -- while by the way respect and kindness is something that can come from both parties. Just because someone is a customer it does not mean he is right and the king.
If i would start treating people like this i would feel a dirty dishonest. And i think thats where the real rudeness starts.
I prefer honesty. Though it may feel personal, it's a genuine feedback to whatever I wrote, instead of glazed responses.
I like this Oliver Dzombic guy 👍(no homo).
if you know a quiet number of german people, you would know that oliver is the most chill guy there according to @emgh humor
Truth. Always. Even if you fucked up big time. You/we just human. With truth, you can resolve issues. With sugarcoated replies, you're just being led on/leading on.
That being said, try not to be rude. Though there's circumstances it's ok to be rude.
It's actually a complicated line to walk when you're in support. I do support one day every other week to keep in touch with whats going on and its both cringe at times and a lot of fun at times.
Biggest takeaway for me... Support people dont get payed enough for putting up with a lot of shit
Saying someone shouldnt buy a vps because they dont know what to put for host name is a weird take imo. I dont think u even have to specify host name in most big vps providers, only seen it in let hosts. Plus what do you even need it for in a vps? Maybe im missing something but doesnt seem too necessary and idk why let providers require it to create a vps. I dont really think u need more than basic knowledge to use a vps
To me it is hard to get where's the distinction between "not being rude" and "sugarcoating". Recently I had a ticket from a Windows customer who've had problem with configuring their PuTTY client and blamed Skhron for delivering broken server, which I know did behave normally but still checked (tried to reproduce on a test VPS) - public keys generated by PuTTY were working just fine. However, instead of being direct with customer I didn't said that they did a mistake, I sugarcoated it to not be seen rude, and phrased it as "could you please follow this guide to ensure that you haven't accidentally typoed your public key". If I were direct, I would expect the customer to get even more angry at me and probably leave a bad review and never ever use Skhron again. However, I sugarcoated same honest response, which did took a little bit more time, but was a safe strategy to not lose a customer, avoid refunds/bad review etc etc.
100% agreed
Because the control panel they use has that enabled by default and they don't have the skills or resources to edit the template to remove that requirement.
I tend to balance between professional and being human, code switching depending on how the customer responds. If a customer is incapable of the basics of a more advanced service, we also aren't afraid to be direct and tell them that they need to perform more research on their end. Certain products aren't designed to be hand held.
Please give us the brutal truth with packet based evidence.
Good: your machine sent spam, this is the pcap file and the link to SpamHaus.
Bad: you have abuse so we are suspending your service.
Good: a hard drive has failed and our RAID-10 is actually RAID-0, all data is lost.
Bad: we are recovering the storage array.
Good: randomware has infected the hypervisor and all client drives have been encrypted.
Bad: we are checking a hypervisor outage.
Good: the motherboard has failed because you streamed too many push-ups.
Bad: we are investigating a hardware issue.
Good: there's significant packet loss because we did not pay for enough port speed at the IXP.
Bad: there's a network stability issue.
Good: you can use 25% CPU persistently and can burst to 200% for 10 minutes per day without risk of suspension; if you burst excessively, your CPU will be permanently capped at 25%.
Bad: it is strictly fair share.
Good: this will take 7~10 days to complete (and actually fulfilled the request in 5 days).
Bad: we will fix tomorrow (and actually fulfilled the request in 5 days).
Good: we are deadpooling and we will exit scam with your money.
Bad: (silence)
Honestly, I'm on @host_c's side in this: some people should not be allowed near computers. If you don't know what a hostname is, you should not be running a VPS. I am not saying this out of a place of arrogance. Once upon a time I too didn't know what a hostname was. I remember renting my first VPS from a small Australian provider and asking myself "wtf is this ns prefix thing?". I was not ready to be hosting things back then. The only thing that kept my server from getting instapwned is that I hated with a visceral passion (and still do) any and all turnkey solutions like Wordpress and never installed those. My first websites were static, so my attack surface was small. That gave me time to learn how to do things properly. I feel utter contempt for people who can only do a monkey
curl | bashto install something and then call themselves "selfhosters" or "sysadmins" or whatever.I'm not saying that support staff should go out of their way to be dicks. I've dealt with very supportive (no pun intended) operators when I was still using shared application hosting. Dude was probably way nicer than he needed to be because he saw I was trying to learn and was helping me with the process. But the "XY Problem" is a legitimate thing. Some people don't know how to problem solve, some don't know how to ask questions, and some just want to get the veneer of being "cool". But the thing is, a person who is a customer worth having, who is genuinely interested in learning, is not going to flip his shit after being asked "Why do you want to buy a VPS?"
At the ticketing system of a LowEnd service provider, I believe you will see many jaw-dropping support tickets, like the ones saying, "Cops: Sometimes I wanna call the cops too."
Some people are new to VPS (I'm sure everyone has come from this stage), but many VPSs here are unmanaged VPS, and service providers usually don't provide services like how to set up a hostname or what a hostname is.
After all, LLMs are more suitable for answering these kinds of questions right now.
As for sincerity and transparency, that should be more important!
PS: On the product pricing page/details page, please clearly indicate "Unmanaged Services" and provide protocol instructions.
Hostcram is good, i just like it.
the way @layer7 does.
Direct to the point. No sugar coating but no rudeness also. I raised many tickets, many times it was my own fault for which shit happened but he took out the time to explain why it happened and what to do and what not to do.
This way, I will make learn something to not to repeat and he will have less tickets. win win for everyone.
Why not meet in the middle? It's not black and white. Just serve the truth with a little sugar so it actually goes down smooth.
rude truth is the best
Not sugar-coated but full info, straight + polite. And no ai!
Most often the true problem is the variety of customers and the response to OP tends to include not sugar-coating but rather to get a feeling for the customer, as in "total noob?" vs, at the other extreme "hardcore pro?" or in between. Hence it basically boils down to whether - and how much - hand-holding is needed (and how much a provider can offer).
Gladly though most first support contacts already indicate to which group a new customer belongs. Experienced pros tend to ask direct questions re some technical details like e.g. "mask seems to not be /24. Please tell mask and gw!" and any support staff worth their salt will easily spot which is which.