Thursday, October 9, 2008

Lessons in Customer Service

A client is looking for an elegant way for backing up user files on remote workers laptops. We're looking for something that operates seamlessly, requires little if any user interaction once past the initial setup, and can adjust for bandwidth fluctuations. Originally I was hoping to use something native to Windows such as the offline file synchronization but it doesn't adjust for bandwidth fluctuations and requires a VPN connection in order to synchronize securely.

So I'm talking with vendors to see what services are available and it seems to come down to 2 different companies, Mozy and Carbonite. Mozy is super-accessible over the phone and has lots of different options so that the customer gets what they need. I've read a few posts of where the client side can be complicated for a non-IT person and sometimes the restorations don't go as smoothly as you'd like. I called their tech support yesterday to clear up a couple of my questions which were outside the fray. They were quick to answer and my questions were resolved quickly.

This morning I put a call in to Carbonite sales to see if they have a corporate version of their product. Immediately the automated voice told me there were 9 calls ahead of me. Okay, that is not unusual. What is unusual is that I've now been on hold for 63 minutes. Now this isn't a tech support call, it's SALES. You'd think sales would be a little faster to talk to a prospective customer. Based on this experience, heaven forbid that you ever need technical support! With this typed, I'll be hanging up and crossing Carbonite off the list of potential vendors!

3 comments:

Jeff Robison said...

Aron -

I am VP of customer support and responding to your posting. First and most importantly, crossing Carbonite off your list I think is a mistake (obviously). More on that at the end of my note.

Regarding access to our support team, yes, our time to answer was too long. We know this and we are working to hire more outstanding staff. Like many companies with significant growth hiring and training enough staff is a continious process and challenge. We also offer support at www.carbonite.com/chat. Via chat access to our support team is much faster and also very effective. Apologies for this shortcoming.

Second, you should compare both products where it really counts. What happens when you need to restore all of the files on your computer. I am sure that you will find in this area Carbonite is the winner.

Jeff Robison

Unknown said...

Jeff,

Thanks a lot for your post, this means a lot and reflects very well upon the organization and you. I will give Carbonite another chance, and thanks again for taking the time to post a response.

Aron

Devin Knighton said...

Aron - thanks for taking time to look at Mozy. We not only have customer support that is quick to respond, but we have more restore options than Carbonite and other online backup services. You can order your data on DVD's, download it from the web without installing Mozy, or install it from the Mozy virtual drive.

Contact me directly and let me know what other questions you have.

Devin Knighton
Mozy Inc, an EMC Company
(801) 722-8187
devin@mozy.com