Where can I open a support ticket?

David Tenne

Hi All,

I cannot find a "Support" button where I can ask for support.

Can anyone direct me to it?

Thanks,

David

Aaron Rothberg

You can chat here or call 1.800.443.9441


 

Steven Cinquegrana 2

I have to say, I continue to really dislike this support flow: start a chat, wait a while, spend 20 minutes on a chat to get a support case created, wait for the support case to get attended to, etc. (I have one open support case that has been roundly ignored for a month despite emails, case updates and a follow-up chat session!)


This flow is not appropriate for support which doesn't fit into the fairly restrictive chat categories, eg an issue about chat categories not showing in the portal, problems with support contracts, development/partner-related issues, etc.


We used to be able to submit cases directly but someone, somewhere decided that that wasn't working for ... the support people, is my guess. From a customer POV I think it just takes that much longer and requires more effort to get answers.

 

JoAnn Strommen

So agree, Steven.


I have had several times when I wanted to create a case, get an email reply.  Waiting for chat and then being told they need to research it and/or schedule screen sharing at some point in the future is very frustrating. I wish we still had the option to create a case. Sad to see level of/options for support declining.

Sunshine Reinken Watson

David Tenne:

Hi All,

I cannot find a "Support" button where I can ask for support.

Can anyone direct me to it?

Thanks,

David

My chats almost always end up with them creating a case and getting back to me. I know what kind of question requires a chat and which kind requires a case. I wish we still had the option.

David Tenne

You can chat here or call 1.800.443.9441

This answer is not directed at Aaron but at Blackbaud. A chat is not a replacement for allowing customers to open a support ticket via an email / submitting a form. As others mentioned this process, from the customer's perspective, is more cumbersome. Sometimes I just want to lodge the ticket and move on to something else. 

In my case (and probably others'), since I am not based in the US, I have to wait for certain hours, sometimes out of my work hours, just for this purpose.

Not a very good customer experience.

Ryan Hyde

Well just to be contrary, I've always been very impressed by chat support. I learned much of what I know about RE by getting in touch with chat support, and I actively recommend people reach out to them more regularly because my experiences have been almost exclusively positive.


Just my two cents.

Aaron Rothberg

I've also had good experiences with Chat, but I too miss being able to open my own cases. When I have a complicated issue that I know Chat cannot address, I'd prefer to open a case in Case Central and submit all supporting documentation and screenshots so someone can take the time to review the problem before reaching back out to me.


Opening my own case allows me to explain the problem without support wasting any of my time and it allows the support person to review my problem without me wasting any of his/her time.


I can certainly see where this service might be used inappropriately if someone were to open cases like, "Why is my Export not working" without providing any additional information (perhaps that's why this feature was taken away from us?), but for those of us more technically inclined, opening our own cases in Case Central which used to be allowed would be exceedingly helpful.

Aubrie Wright

David Tenne:

Hi All,

I cannot find a "Support" button where I can ask for support.

Can anyone direct me to it?

Thanks,

David

I find that it's easier to call the 800 number rather than chat.  It seems to be faster and you get a case worker that works on your problem through the end.  It's easier to deal with the one person then continuously having to get shuffled around to different people.  Hopefully that helps you out.

ShawnAlis Cusato

I like the phone number, too.  It seems I get better, faster results although it can take a while to get through to someone.

Jennifer Lange

David Tenne:

Hi All,

I cannot find a "Support" button where I can ask for support.

Can anyone direct me to it?

Thanks,

David

As someone mentioned, email would be AMAZING!!!! I want to email and move on. Also, a screen shot helps a LOT for many things. Don't like chat.

 

Barbara Schlichter

I agree with David and Aaron.  When I need support, it's not for something "trivial".  I look at the kb to find answers or within the community, but when I need someone to look at specific information, I don't want to waste my time or the support person's time with "have you tried this?", or "looked at this kb solution?".  It gets me annoyed.  We all pay lots of $ for maintenance, they shouldn't take suppport options away.

Barbara

Alan French

Yesterday I created a new case for an issue I was having with Address Accelerator. Didn't go through chat, just logged into the website and went to Support > Manage Your Cases > Create A Case and someone got back to me by email within a couple of hours.


Worth mentioning that I'm using blackbaud.co.uk, not blackbaud.com. It does seem odd that they're offering different channels of support depending on location.

Aaron Rothberg

That's interesting, Alan. If I go to the UK support website and click on Manage Your Cases, I don't see a way to open a case. I wonder why UK accounts have accesss to this feature, but those of us in the USA, don't?









 

JoAnn Strommen

The difference in access might possibly be due to difference in time zones. Not sure what hours they have chat for UK. Just a thought.

Steven Cinquegrana 2

Alan French:

[I] just logged into the website and went to Support > Manage Your Cases > Create A Case and someone got back to me by email within a couple of hours.

Wow! That's amazing. And ... repeatable, at least in my case.


I just signed directly into the Blackbaud Australia site, blackbaud.com.au, (I was originally associated with Blackbaud AU but generally use the Blackbaud US site due to customer location and plain laziness) and ... I could directly create a case.




So that's weird. Then I tried just changing to the UK site (not re-logging in) ... and I could do the same thing.


And here's the really weird bit; I swapped to the US site and tried creating a case ... and I could do that as well.


I created real cases - 14101190 (AU), 14101193 (US), 14101199 (UK) - and  didn't end up getting redirected to Chat in any instance:




What's going on? Has direct case creation been reinstated? Can anyone else replicate this behaviour?

UPDATE


As a consulting Blackbaud entity, I can associate our account with our clients' accounts. In the above tests, our account was associated with a client in Singapore. When I changed our association back to our own account (US-based, I think), I could no longer see the "Create a Case" item in the left-hand menu. So it seems that different regional Blackbaud customers have access to different support options with, as far as I can tell, US (and Canada?) clients not being offered the option to directly create Cases. That's all I can surmise from this experiment. Can anyone else verify this hypothesis?


Well spotted Alan!


Cheers, Steve


PS It's obviously not a time-zone thing as I created these cases within 5 min of each other, around noon US Central Time.

Mary Zieten

Yeah, I have an end of day issue, with 10 people ahead of me in line.  I can't wait in chat, but I'd love to get a case opened to be looked at when someone has the time.  This particular issue should also have a screenshot or document attached, and I can't do that via chat or phone.  It's the end of my day, I just want to send a message to someone and go home, not sit in chat for 20 or 30 minutes just to have them tell me to send them a screenshot, and they'll look into it...  *sigh*  Guess that's going to be my morning tomorrow!

Sheila Lutz

I am a fan of phone support unless it is a really simple yes or no question (it seems like when I do chat I either get knowledgebase links or they end up telling me to call phone support anyway), if they need a screen shot they can give you their email and you can send it off to them while still being able to talk to someone in person. Chat can also be frustrating to me because often the agents are dealing with more than one chat at a time, so it's not quite as "live" as phone support.

Kathleen Eastman

I agree most heartily. I miss being able to create the case and get back to work. Today I was 13 in the queu. I hope they bring that functionality back. PLEASE!!!