Single Image Sundays – Type, The Hand That Feeds

Shot via Hipstamatic in Winston-Salem, NC. Musical accompaniment here.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To A Support Ticket

No ticket – not an option!  Buh-bye!

My web hosting company, Bluehost, has opted no longer to offer tickets for support. Instead, they are seeking to focus on chat and phone as primary communication channels for website issues.

As someone who has run sites for nearly two decades now, this is unheard of. On one hand, I absolutely understand how support tickets can be a bottomless pit for support staff, often containing not enough information to address an issue.

On the other hand, I’ve often enjoyed the convenience of opening a ticket then getting back to work while awaiting a response, then having it documented as the conversation progressed, sometimes with it being emailed back to me for future reference (from Bluehost & others).

I had an issue with my art website, RSMITHINGS.com this morning, and within 10 minutes I opened a chat session and it was resolved. Plus, I’ve had great help from Bluehost’s phone support in the past as well.

So in my own personal experience, not having tickets has been so far, so good. Still, this is a major shift in approach. I reached out to Bluehost support via Twitter for some details, and they confirmed the switch:

@rsmithing Hi, yes we've made the decision to focus our efforts on providing timely solutions with personal direct phone/chat supprt.

— help.bluehost.com (@bluehostsupport) July 8, 2016

I have mixed feelings about this, but hey, if my issues can be resolved faster this way, I’m all for it.

What do you think? Do you prefer phone, chat or tickets for website tech support? Let us hear from you in the comments.