Knowledgebase
Support Levels
Posted by on 07 March 2012 05:00 PM

Technical support is often subdivided into tiers or levels, in order to better serve a business or customer base.  For efficiency, Touch Support's technical assistance is divided into three distinct levels, each of which is associated with different tasks covered within our support scope. You can select which levels of support Touch Support provides to your customers based on your unique business requirements.

Level 1 Support

These specialists solve basic consumer issues and have a general understanding of the product and services. They gather customer information, analyze symptoms and determine the basic problem(s). Their responsibilities include;

  • To register and classify incoming support requests and to undertake an immediate effort in order to restore a failed IT service as quickly as possible.
  • If no ad-hoc solution can be achieved, Level 2 Support will escalate the support request to expert technical support groups (Level 2 Support).
  • Manage customer interactions via live chat and phone support channels, submitting support requests on behalf of end-users when necessary.
  • Assist with basic end-user processes
    • Company policy questions
    • Resolving issues without a server or control panel login required as well issues that can be resolved from within the client's control panel log in
      • Basic e-mail set up and configuration (creation, deletion, forwarders, etc)
      • Basic domain management (adding/removing subdomains, parked domains, redirects, etc)
      • Relaying server-specific client configuration options (e-mail, FTP, etc)
  • Service Monitoring reactionary items (contacting the data center, rebooting a down machine, or following emergency reaction policies)
  • Password resets
  • Basic sales questions 
    • Directing end-users to order forms, pricing pages, or other appropriate documentation
  • Appropriately escalating requests to alternate teams (Level 2, Billing, Abuse, Sales, etc)

Level 2 Support

These specialists have more experience and knowledge and can assist Level 1 specialists with basic technical problems. They investigate the issues raised and check for known solutions to complex issues. They also review work orders to determine the extent of Level 1 support already given and how long Level 1 specialists have been working with the customer. This permits them to manage their time effectively. If a solution is not determined, the issue is escalated to the next level.

  • Level 2 Support takes over support requests which cannot be solved immediately with the means of Level 1 Support and troubleshoot them
  • If necessary, they may request external support, e.g. from software or hardware manufacturers.
  • If no solution can be found, the Level 2 Support escalates the support request to Level 3 support.
  • Assist with advanced end-user support requests
    • Resolving issues requiring account and/or server log in credentials
    • General Support Operations
      • Password resets
      • Domain level DNS configurations
      • Domain level Apache configurations
      • .htaccess/.htpasswd issues
      • In-depth e-mail issues
      • many more requests of this nature which focus on a single account
    • Admin level control panel work which clients cannot handle through their own login (ie WHM/Plesk)
    • Single account migration assistance between same control panel of the same version (cpanel=>cpanel, plesk=>plesk, etc)
    • Restoring single account backups
    • Persistent server load investigation
    • Appropriately escalating requests to alternate teams (Level 3, Billing, Abuse, Sales, etc)

Level 3 Support

These specialists handle the most difficult problems and are experts in the system administration field with a specific focus on uptime and resource management. They research and develop solutions for new or unknown issues, sometimes assisting both Level 1 and Level 2 specialists with challenging technical requests.

  • Advanced end-user requests
  • System-wide changes and configuration requests
    • Resolving issues requiring server login details
    • Software package malfunctions (rebuilding or upgrading apache, php, mysql, python, etc.)
    • Installing additional supported system software (imagemagick, eaccelerator, zend, etc)
    • Server performance investigation and mitigation
    • Upgrading control panels between stable revisions (in cases where it doesn’t do so automatically)
    • Multi-account migrations of up to 20 accounts between systems which use the same control panel software and major version (ex: cPanel 11.x to cPanel 11.x)
      • Migrations of accounts great than 20 will need to be scheduled with our accounts team
    • Diagnosis of hardware issues 
    • Blacklist removal
    • Issues escalated by Level 1 or Level 2

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