help desk

Jul

2008

Support Desk Reminder

I just thought I’d post a little reminder that I have a support desk at:-

http://www.Vendiva.com/support/

which uses TicketDesk Pro my help desk software.

The reason I’ve posted this reminder is because when I checked my email yesterday, I’ve had 3 people who are clearly frustrated because it seems I’m not answering their emails.

In fact, I’ve answered all of them, including all 4 of Catherine’s (if you’re reading this), so don’t think I’m ignoring you. Email gets checked twice a week now, with my goal for it to be once a week, but the support desk gets checked several times a day.

The problem is, as I’ve said before, even though I have both domain keys and SPF records in place to authenticate my email (and I also use AuthSMTP on some accounts), ISPs insist on filtering a lot of what they consider to be business email. From their point of view, they supply internet services to home users and therefore will only allow “home usage” email to be delivered.

If you’re running an internet business, then create a business email account off your main domain, and use that instead. No more ISP filters and you can communicate fully with the world again.

But if you really want to get my attention, then use my support desk. And if you want to ease the load on yourself, get a copy of TicketDesk Pro, it’s extremely easy to use. Before TDP, I was spending 2 hours a day on support by email. Since installing TDP, it takes me no more than 30 minutes to do all my support, and that’s with checking at regular intervals.

The reason it’s all become a lot faster is because I’ve fully loaded it with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Standard Responses (SRs).

The FAQs catch most problems, and the SRs catch the bulk of the rest. In practice, many of the SRs are repeats of the FAQs as some people like to be told rather than look it up. That’s okay, it takes me a few seconds to read, select an SR and add it to my reply.

I’ve come to rely on the Standard Responses so much that I’ve created often used URLs in there. So now I can select an SR, add it, then select a URL and add that too. Or I can combine several SRs to create a fuller answer.

If you’re struggling with email yourself, then TicketDesk Pro is definitely the way to go to reduce your workload. It’s easy to use and it has some great benefits.

Apr

2008

What The Spammers Have Done To YOU…

…and what you can do about it.

You must have had at least one of those conversations where someone says to you “didn’t you get my email?”

Or maybe you’ve had an angry email from a customer saying something like “SECOND REQUEST: Why haven’t you answered my email?!?” and when you check, you find you have answered it, and several days ago too.

Well, it never got there thanks to their ISP spam filters.

It’s a real problem now, and especially since about October / November time, I’ve noticed a sharp increase on the number of emails that don’t get through either to me or back to my customers.

I’m pretty sure I know why this is. The increased number of spam emails containing images is causing a major problem for the ISPs.

This is what happens. Even before an email arrives at your email account – so this is even before your own spam filter gets a chance to operate – the mail provider you’re using has already applied its own filters.

Now imagine you’re the ISP, and you get a million emails a day through your network, and they’re all about 6k in size. 750,000 of those are spam, and it’s a burden. I’m making these figures up by the way…

As an ISP, every bit of network traffic costs you money. So all that spam is costing you money with no benefit to either you or your customers. Almost no-one wants it.

(Yes, some people click those links, enough to make it profitable, otherwise the spammers wouldn’t bother. They’re the ones who are really to blame.)

The next thing you know, the spammers are now sending email with images inside, bringing up the average size of an email to 18k. So suddenly, you now have to deal with 3 times as much traffic on your network as before.

What would you do if you were an ISP?

Well as a result of this increased bandwidth usage through junk mail, they’ve had to tighten up on their network filters.

And now you might be thinking “So why do I still get spam?”

Well the spammers are professionals. They’re constantly looking at ways of getting emails through any filter at all. And that’s what they’re good at.

But you and me are just ordinary people trying to make a living off the net.

We don’t stand a chance. Any stray combination of words may trigger a spam filter, we don’t know what might cause it, and so we lose out.

Now apply what I’ve described above, happening to you in a business situation where you have customers you’re trying to hold a conversation with.

It’s a disaster.

This is why my support desk software Ticket Desk Pro is now more useful to me than email.

Any ticket raised gets answered, and even if the automated notification message to my customer doesn’t get through to them, they’ll still see their reply when they come back to check up on what’s going on.

So if you want to beat what the spammers have done to you, grab a copy of Ticket Desk Pro now, and set your business running smoothly again.

http://www.ticketdeskpro.com/

-Frank Haywood

Mar

2008

The eBay Slap and Ticket Desk Pro

With all this hoo-ha about eBay restricting ebook sales, there’s one thing for sure. You’re going to have to become more professional.

There’s no room any more to behave like a small time ebook seller. You have to both educate yourself, and surround yourself with the right tools to do the job.

That’s why I’ve been posting here on my blog ways of how you can do both.

One of the things that you’re going to need is a support desk.

Trust me. It doesn’t matter what size your business is now, you’re going to need some help desk software eventually.

Here’s a fantastic deal for you.

Get $97 worth of full featured support desk software for under $20, but only if you’re quick.

This is what Phil Horsepool has said about Ticket Desk Pro:-

Hi Frank,

Got it, installed it, love it already 🙂

Looks like it will knock my existing helpdesk software into touch without even breaking a sweat!

When’s the affiliate program opening?

Regards

Phil Horsepool

Phil is one of the 192 people that have picked up Ticket Desk Pro for less than $15.

He got it at such a low price through the pre-launch nickel sale I’m running for Ticket Desk Pro.

I’m doing this because I want feedback and testimonials from REAL people like you. I also want affiliates to promote it for me.

As I write this, the current price for Ticket Desk Pro is $14.57 with 192 copies sold.

I don’t care how big your list is, or even if you don’t have a list. By using and promoting Ticket Desk Pro, you’ll make money.

Once you’ve installed it on your site, any customers coming to raise a ticket will see a link to Ticket Desk Pro at the bottom of every page. If they click the link, you earn a commission.

That’s because I’ve made it so you can enter your affiliate ID into the site settings.

How cool is that? Just for using the software, you get to earn money.

Win-wins really make my day.

It’s always very satisfying for me to know that people are earning affiliate commissions for the least effort possible.

If you want to get Ticket Desk Pro at the lowest possible price, get yourself to the link below now. The price is rising by 5 cents with every sale. The longer you wait, the higher the price will go.

Even while you’re reading this, the price has probably jumped up by 5 or 10 cents.

Here’s the link.

http://www.ticketdeskpro.com/

I’ll be closing the nickel sale down some time in the next few days, so don’t hang around. The next time you see it for sale may be at $97.

-Frank Haywood.

Mar

2008

Ticket Desk Pro – All Issues Answered

I think that all Ticket Desk Pro (TDP) issues that were raised have now been answered. If you do have any problems, then please raise a support ticket at:-

http://www.Vendiva.com/support/

All those people who registered their purchase and confirmed their email address will be rewarded in at least two ways.

1) All buyers of my last nickel sale will always receive plenty of warning about my next one, and will also get the link to the sales page at least two hours before anyone else. (The next one is for the Nickel Script itself.)

2) When the official TDP site goes live in 2-3 weeks time, you’ll receive your details by email.

If you didn’t register, then, oh well at least you got this first version at a good price. If you want later versions then as you’re not registered you’ll have to pay full price for them.

I’m sure you understand why I have to do this.

If you haven’t purchased yet, then don’t waste any more time.Â If you do, then the next time you see TDP advertised, it may be at $97.00.

Here’s the link for you:-

http://www.TicketDeskPro.com/

-Frank Haywood.

Mar

2008

Ticket Desk Pro – Nickel Sale Woes

First of all I apologise.

As with all things in life, sometimes things don’t go as you’d like them. Right as I paid for the WSO to go live, I had to go out for a few hours (unplanned) and I’ve just got back.

I had the site design done for me and then I added in the bits to make the nickel sale work. It looks great in Dreamweaver, and works perfectly in FireFox which is the browser I use.

I suspect that something has gone wrong with the nickel script, which is also one of mine. We’ve been doing a few changes to it in the last few days, and then checking the results in our favourite browser which is FireFox. As it already worked in IE, I think we must have had a blind spot, and didn’t bother checking to see if it still looked okay in IE.

I’ve just written to my developer to see if he knows why it might be broken and I’m waiting to hear back from him.

Anyone that sent me a message either via PM, email, my blog, my blog contact form, or my help desk (or any other method I’ve forgotten to include here) to say they saw the price was at $n.nn but couldn’t buy will get it at that price.

That’s not an invitation to make a price up and email me now.

Genuine contacts with the right price for the time they contacted me will get it at that price.

I think that’s as fair as I can make it without upsetting too many people.

I unreservedly apologise for this, it obviously wasn’t planned at all, and is a bit of a nightmare. Especially as I’ll be selling the nickel script in a couple of weeks time too!

Please contact me by my help desk, and look if I can’t get back to you as quickly as we’d both like, please trust me that I will. I have a feeling that it will take a bit of unpicking to get it right and make everyone happy.

Help desk – http://www.Vendiva.com/support/

-Frank Haywood.

Update: I’m very glad to say it wasn’t the fault of the Nickel Script.

I’d set one of the nested tables at 700% instead of 700 pixels. Apparently Dreamweaver and Firefox will compensate for this, but IE just pushes out the other tables to accommodate the 6/7ths of the page that is in the table. D’oh!

That will teach me to always always check out a page in IE before putting it live. I usually do, but this one time…