What happens if I call and nobody answers?

Calls queue. If nobody picks up, you choose to hold or to speak to a live answering service, which takes the details and raises the ticket directly. Nobody gets voicemail and nobody gets an unanswered ring, and the published response target applies to those tickets like any other.

How do you decide what is urgent?

By impact rather than by who is asking. A service unavailable to everyone is a P1; one person unable to print is a P3. If you think we have it wrong, say so and we will look at re-classifying it — not automatically, because a priority that moves on request stops meaning anything, but we would rather you told us than sat on it.

Will someone come to site?

When the problem needs someone in the room, yes, and it is included rather than charged per visit. Most faults are resolved remotely and faster that way, so we will try that first unless it is obviously physical.

What do you need from us?

One named person who can make decisions, as much notice as you have for starters and leavers, and a way to reach someone during an incident — out-of-hours contact details whether or not you have bought out-of-hours cover. Access to the building where a visit is needed, and a decision-maker reachable when a P1 needs one.

What happens when you raise a ticket

A ticket is what happens when the technology has stopped working, and so, usually, have the people using it. Everything below is arranged around getting both going again.

How to reach us

Telephone: 01480 570339, or your dedicated helpdesk number. Use this for anything urgent. A service that is down should always be a phone call.
The portal: portal.puzzletech.co.uk. Raise and track tickets, and see what is open. Best for anything that is not urgent.
Email: help@puzzletech.co.uk. Creates a ticket automatically. Fine for routine requests, wrong for an outage.

What happens when you call

Calls queue. If nobody picks up within a short time, you are offered a choice: hold, or speak to a live answering service. The answering service takes your details and raises the ticket directly in our system — it is not a message that someone transcribes later.

The clock starts either way. A ticket raised through the answering service carries the same response target as one raised by a person picking up the phone. That is the point of the arrangement, and it is why nobody gets voicemail and nobody gets an unanswered ring.

This is a designed fallback rather than an apology for one. It is a better outcome than an unstaffed queue at a larger provider, which is what it is competing against.

A word about the number

Every request gets an ID number, and we would rather it did not have to. Any ticketing system worth using numbers things, because that is how nothing gets lost between the person who took the call and the person who fixes it — but the number is there to track your issue, not to describe you. We have never thought of a customer as a number and we are not about to start because a database needs a primary key.

What sits behind it

An ISO 27001 management system, which means the work is documented rather than held in one person's head.
A current record of every customer environment, rather than a picture rebuilt each time someone asks a question about it.
Monitoring and automation that handle detection and routine remediation without a human being involved at all.
A contracted 24/7 service desk, available where a business needs cover outside the window.

Triage and priority

Every ticket is given a priority on impact, not on who is asking. The four levels, their definitions and their targets are on service levels.

Those targets are the latest we should have responded by, not a schedule we work to. Call while we are open and someone picks up, and where we can we will start on it while you are still describing it. That is not always possible — someone already on a P1 cannot stop — but it is the normal outcome rather than the exception.

P1 Critical — Service unavailable, affecting all users and all functions. No internet connectivity at a site; the server or line-of-business system is down for everyone; a suspected active security incident.
P2 High — Significant degradation, affecting many users or a business-critical function. Email delivery failing for a department; a shared application unusable for a team; a failed backup on a critical system.
P3 Medium — Limited degradation. The business process can continue. One user cannot print; a single mailbox issue; an application fault with a workaround in place.
P4 Low — Service requests: new equipment, starters, leavers, changes. A new starter needs an account and a laptop; a software licence request; a planned change.

On-site attendance

Included for managed devices rather than charged per visit. Most faults resolve faster remotely, so we will try that first unless the problem is obviously physical. Where we work sets out realistic attendance times by distance.

On-site attendance is during business hours in every case, including for customers on extended or 24/7 cover. Wider cover widens the window for remote response; it does not put someone in your building overnight.

Hours, and buying more of them

Three windows. The first is included with every agreement and the two wider ones are paid options, and all three carry exactly the same response and resolution targets — the window changes, the targets do not.

Standard — 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday: Included with every agreement.
Extended — 08:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday: Two hours either side of the standard window, for businesses that start before nine or finish after five.
24/7 — Any hour, any day: A contracted service desk covering nights, weekends and public holidays.

Outside your service window we monitor and respond on a best-efforts basis at no charge. Best-efforts means exactly that: no target applies, and nobody is guaranteed to be there. Where someone is, the answer will usually come by email rather than by telephone, because the phones are not staffed outside the window.

On-site attendance is during business hours in every case, including on 24/7 cover. Wider cover buys a wider window for remote response, not someone in your building at three in the morning. Attendance outside business hours is possible, but only where it has been agreed in advance — planned project work, usually, because that is what it is for. Without that arrangement, do not expect it even on best efforts. We would rather say so here than have you discover it during an incident.

What we need from you

Support works both ways, and these are the things that most often slow a ticket down.

One named person who can make a decision, and a deputy when they are away.
As much notice as you have for starters and leavers. We know a leaver is sometimes decided the same morning — tell us the moment you know rather than once it is tidy, because until we are told, their access is still working.
A way to reach someone during an incident, including out of hours. Leave those details with us whether or not you have bought out-of-hours cover: if we are around when something happens at nine on a Sunday, we would rather be able to call you than discover on Monday that we could not.
Access to the building when a visit is needed.
Telling us when something is not working rather than living with it for a month.

Questions people ask

What happens if I call and nobody answers?: Calls queue. If nobody picks up, you choose to hold or to speak to a live answering service, which takes the details and raises the ticket directly. Nobody gets voicemail and nobody gets an unanswered ring, and the published response target applies to those tickets like any other.
How do you decide what is urgent?: By impact rather than by who is asking. A service unavailable to everyone is a P1; one person unable to print is a P3. If you think we have it wrong, say so and we will look at re-classifying it — not automatically, because a priority that moves on request stops meaning anything, but we would rather you told us than sat on it.
Will someone come to site?: When the problem needs someone in the room, yes, and it is included rather than charged per visit. Most faults are resolved remotely and faster that way, so we will try that first unless it is obviously physical.
What do you need from us?: One named person who can make decisions, as much notice as you have for starters and leavers, and a way to reach someone during an incident — out-of-hours contact details whether or not you have bought out-of-hours cover. Access to the building where a visit is needed, and a decision-maker reachable when a P1 needs one.

What happens when you raise a ticket.