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Feedback from a new customer.

Comfortably Numb

Dear Sophos,

I just wanted to take the time to relay some of my experiences as a new customer to the support model you have implemented. 

I've experienced both sides of the divide having been in telesupport for Digital Equipment back in the late 1980's and I have to say this setup is certainly confusing from my perspective. The key challenge for me as a customer is like another customer pointed out in a similar thread, I just don't know the status of the ticket logged. When I first logged the call, I wanted to speak directly to technical support. On ringing the number provided I was left in a perpetual loop of music and being told everyone was busy. Eventually after 27mins and 32 seconds I was abruptly cut off. So onto chat, the initial front end response was good and was told I would be put in touch with technical support, this indeed happened, I had a technical support rep come onto the chat and asked what the problem was. I then relayed the problem and then the chat session went quiet, I waited a time then sent a 'Hello?' message to see if there was going to be a response to which the session was terminated from the Sophos side and an email came through to tell me the ticket had been closed.

Act 3 - Onto the Support Portal, I had created an account so thought I'd just have a look around and noticed that indeed my ticket was referenced so I took a look at the content, in essence it said the ticket status is open awaiting customer response. I've responded via email with a full description of the problem (no mention on this on the portal) I've also sent a reply back asking how you would wish me to reply back. Again the status still reads awaiting customer response. So at this moment in time, I don't know if the issue is being investigated, it's now been open since the 28th Dec. I don't know if the technical support folks have seen any emails I've sent or indeed the word documents downloaded to support the ticket (again these are not referenced).

It may just be the fact that I'm missing out on something here, however I've seen similar concerns in other threads. Luckily I've a workaround on the firewall so the impact is not too great, however as a new customer to Sophos I'm not getting that welcoming feeling that I had hoped for.

Hope you find this useful, as they always told us at Digital, "it cost 10x as more to try and win back a customer than to retain a happy customer". Not sure what the ratio is today?

KR.



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    Hi KR,

    thank you for your valuable contribution.
    First of all, I am "only" a volunteer moderator in the Sophos community and therefore do not speak on behalf of Sophos.

    However, as a former Sophos partner and also Sophos customer, I can tell you the following: Sophos Support is in the middle of a restructuring, offices have been closed, employees transferred and new locations opened. There was also a take-over from an investor, that of course affected somehow the older business and support strategies. As a German Sophos partner, we unfortunately also had to face the discontinuation or downsizing of the dedicated German-speaking support, which made many of our customers extremely doubtful about Sophos's strategy - the direct and native-speaking contact was very important to our customers and was, besides the product quality, one of the criteria why they have chosen Sophos.

    Unfortunately, long waiting times are now also common in premium support at Sophos, so I completely agree with you that something has to be done here. The fact that your request was not responded to for such a long time is indeed strange. Best you provide your ticket ID for the Sophos team in a reply or in your first post in this thread.

    Anyway, it has been a right decision to contact Sophos here, as especially Sophos Support Managers and Customer Success Managers are present in the community. I think as long as you are willing to engage in a discussion and also provide valuable feedback, you can go a long way with your feedback via the Sophos community.

    As a member of the Sophos Community I can say, the community team is trying to establish this platform as an increasingly important tool for interaction with Sophos, its customers, partners and fans, and as a platform for free expression. So once again, a big thank you for your honest words.

    I hope you will be heard by those responsible and that your problem will be fixed as soon as possible. Thank you for your hopefully still existing trust in Sophos, thank you for your contribution.

    Happy new year!

    Intrusus
    Sophos Certified Engineer | Sophos Certified Technician

    private lab:
    XG firewall with SFOS 20.X running on Proxmox

    If a post solves your question use the 'Verify Answer' link

  • 0 in reply to intrusus

    Guten tag Intrusus,

    Vielen dank aber mein Problem bleibt bestehen! 

    As I mentioned to another contact from Sophos who 'vetted' my post before it could be made public, I am giving Sophos the benefit of the doubt as we've just come through the Christmas and New Year holidays, another tranche of lockdown so I understand if there's a new set of VPN issues coming is as people again start to work from home.

    Yesterday was challenging as I was told I would get a call back in the morning from the UK team, when this didn't happen I contacted the Abingdon phone line, I was told I would get a call back in 2-3 hours. When I didn't I called the Abingdon number again and was in the queue for over 27 minutes before I gave up, I then tried again  30 minutes later and again was in the queue for over 30 minutes before I hung up.

    The staff here were complaining due to the fact we've been on the backup line since coming back which is a pain staking 1.2Mb/s due to our remote location, as such yesterday I made the decision to roll back to our DrayTek Vigor 2860 LTE getting me back our 40Mb/s and stop the migration to Sophos until the issue was resolved. I now have someone looking at the issue, so here's fingers crossed.

    I also appreciate that being a new customer, I just do not have the knowledge of the nuances of the call handling systems. I still can't find a coherent thread on my support page which gives me the correspondence with Sophos. OK this maybe due to new systems etc.

    I also appreciate the takeover situation, as it happens I was a shareholder in Sophos as I can see the future need for such products, after owning them for over a year I decided to sell just a week before the takeover, a bitter pill to swallow.

    This may sound like a rant, and I don't wish it to be as I have every admiration for the folks that develop these kind of products. I really really want this product to work for me and my company and I understand that I need to brush up on my IT skills after being out of the profession for 5 years, but that's one of the reasons for choosing this device as I can learn as I implement. 

    I would also like Sophos to have the greatest of success, and I hope they see this a constructive as opposed a rant. 

    Cheers D.

Reply
  • 0 in reply to intrusus

    Guten tag Intrusus,

    Vielen dank aber mein Problem bleibt bestehen! 

    As I mentioned to another contact from Sophos who 'vetted' my post before it could be made public, I am giving Sophos the benefit of the doubt as we've just come through the Christmas and New Year holidays, another tranche of lockdown so I understand if there's a new set of VPN issues coming is as people again start to work from home.

    Yesterday was challenging as I was told I would get a call back in the morning from the UK team, when this didn't happen I contacted the Abingdon phone line, I was told I would get a call back in 2-3 hours. When I didn't I called the Abingdon number again and was in the queue for over 27 minutes before I gave up, I then tried again  30 minutes later and again was in the queue for over 30 minutes before I hung up.

    The staff here were complaining due to the fact we've been on the backup line since coming back which is a pain staking 1.2Mb/s due to our remote location, as such yesterday I made the decision to roll back to our DrayTek Vigor 2860 LTE getting me back our 40Mb/s and stop the migration to Sophos until the issue was resolved. I now have someone looking at the issue, so here's fingers crossed.

    I also appreciate that being a new customer, I just do not have the knowledge of the nuances of the call handling systems. I still can't find a coherent thread on my support page which gives me the correspondence with Sophos. OK this maybe due to new systems etc.

    I also appreciate the takeover situation, as it happens I was a shareholder in Sophos as I can see the future need for such products, after owning them for over a year I decided to sell just a week before the takeover, a bitter pill to swallow.

    This may sound like a rant, and I don't wish it to be as I have every admiration for the folks that develop these kind of products. I really really want this product to work for me and my company and I understand that I need to brush up on my IT skills after being out of the profession for 5 years, but that's one of the reasons for choosing this device as I can learn as I implement. 

    I would also like Sophos to have the greatest of success, and I hope they see this a constructive as opposed a rant. 

    Cheers D.

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