Support Policy
Our goal is to provide you the best quality support possible. We will do everything we can to meet and exceed your expectations about quality service and support.If you want to get the best support, spend a few seconds asking a good question. If you want some tips on how to do this, read our handout.
Support Question Categories
Before contacting us for support, please think about your question and try and categorize it into one of three classes:Class I: A non-urgent question which you would like an answer to but which does not involve system failure of hardware or software. An example of this kind of question might be "how do I use USENET news?" or "what's the best modem to buy?"
Class II: A question or problem which needs an answer quickly but which does not impact the operation of a system or service. An example of this kind of question might be "I need to add another user" or "I forgot my password."
Class III: A problem which impacts services or systems that are critical to you. An example of this kind of question might be "DNS service is down" or "The Internet link is unavailable."
Email vs. Phone, Voice Mail, and FAX
In general, all problems should be sent in via electronic mail. This is because we have people on-call at all times electronically, but not always by the telephones.We do not want to discourage you from calling us to work through an especially complex question that cannot be handled any other way. However, problems should all come through email since that's the only way we have for tracking and ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. Our support system is not designed to track voice mail or FAXes.
We can guarantee that if you send us email which says "I have a problem, please call me at 555-1212 to talk about it," that we will never call you back. Similarly, if you leave voice mail with the same information, you will never get a call back.
How to Get Support
Class I Problems
Class I problems should be sent via email to the main technical support email group, support@opus1.com. If you want to call during normal business hours (9 AM to 5 PM), and if we're here, we may be able to take your call or we may want to schedule another time to talk to you. If your main contact is out of town, you may get back a preliminary reply with a promise for further investigation in a few days. Although we are sympathetic to the complexity and fragility of software, we aren't here to walk you through the upgrade to your software or your hard disk crash. (Even if you have a main contact you have been working with, always send mail to support@opus1.com. so that we can log it and track problem resolutions.)We will contact you about a Class I problem and begin work on a solution within 72 hours.
Class II Problems
Class II problems should be sent via email to support@opus1.com. This will go to the primary and secondary team members in charge of support at that time. If you feel it is appropriate, you can also try calling us at 520-324-0494. However, you should always send electronic mail (even if the only message is "I left a message on your voice mail"). We make an effort to read electronic mail many times during a day, but only listen to voice mail once, and sometimes not that often.We will contact you about a Class II problem and begin work on a solution within 8 hours.
Class III Problems
If you have a Class III problem, you should follow the following escalation procedure:
- Send email to urgent. This will go to the primary and secondary team members and will be delivered via alphanumeric pager. Wait ten minutes for a call (or email) back. If you have no response, immediately go to step (2).
- Call 520-324-0494. Press (3) for support, and then (9) to indicate that this is an emergency, system-down problem. This will cause a lot of phones to ring all over the place. If no one answers, definitely leave voice mail---even more phones will start ringing to track down someone to listen to your voice mail.
Please be aware that have set up this system for truly urgent problems. We want you to be able to get in contact with us when you need us. If you use the Class III escalation procedures for a problem which is not truly urgent, we will treat that as a "panic mode" consulting project and will bill you accordingly.
Summary of support and escalation policies:
| Non-urgent problems | send email to your contact support@opus1.com. |
| Immediate answer needed, but not critical | send email to support; call 520-324-0494 if you feel it is necessary. |
| Urgent and Critical problem | send email to urgent; call 520-324-0494; press (3) and then (9) if no answer in 10 minutes. |
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