How much do you pay your tech support reps?

[Chicken]

A similar question to my other one:

How much do you pay your tech support reps? I'd like to know what they are paid, what are their responsibilites (especially if you pay certian level techs more than others), and where you are located (or I suppose more specifically, where your techs are located, as pay rates will differ depending on geographical locations), and do they work remotely via a help desk or are they working out of an office.

So many questions, sorry...

[zerphyte]

Our level 1/2's get between $1.5k-$2.5k/m depending on how many hrs they put in. They work all over the place, at customer sites, datacenters, office, and remotely. Their tasks include helpdesk, system patches/updates for managed clients, colo/dedicated server installs at the datacenter both physically and software wise, network/hardware installs/troubleshooting at client sites in nyc/nj, and pretty much whatever else needs to be done.

Us engineering/level 3 folks get paid a little more but we take care of all the complicated networking, site evals, consulting, ip administration, r&d for just about everything, designing and implementing complicated os environments, and when we have time we help out with the basics.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by zerphyte
Our level 1/2's get between $1.5k-$2.5k/m depending on how many hrs they put in.
How much do you pay Level 1 & 2 per hour?

[zerphyte]

Between $9 and $15 depending on skills and training.

[allan]

Our business was in Northern VA and we paid our one support rep $23k a year, for 9-6 m-f hours. It was below market average for the area, but the guy was glad to get the money because it allowed him to put his computer skills to use -- rather than spend his time flipping pizzas :).

[FHDave]

Hey Allan, know of some other guy like that living near Boston? :)

[allan]

Originally posted by FHDave
Hey Allan, know of some other guy like that living near Boston? :)

Given the mass amounts of layoffs I know of some people that would jump at the chance to make $23k a year doing something technical (not in Boston, sorry :(). When my current employer opened up 5 SOC positions, I mailed some of my friends who are out of work and got 25 resumes -- and this is for an entry level position that most of these people would have turned their noses up at 2 years ago.

[firm1]

Originally posted by FHDave
Hey Allan, know of some other guy like that living near Boston? :)

We are also looking in NH;

http://hosthideout.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129

[LetsFly]

we pay our techs about $1.00 per response

[CipherVendor]

From the last two companies I have managed, going rate for tech support/system admins was in a tiered system:

Level 1 who handle basic support. i.e. how to setup email accounts, etc. get paid upwards of 2.5 k/month

Level 2 who are a little bit more experienced and have access to the systems can edit apache configs and set permissions/ownership. They make upwards of 3 - 3.5 K/month

Level 3 which are Sr. system admins make 4 k +/month handle everything under the sun. Support for level 1 + 2 as well as Apache upgrades, security patches, kernel upgrades, etc.

Since there was never a lot of network related work to go around we rotated 2 Sr. network admins and left a third shift on call. This position would deal with anything network from configuration to ARIN paperwork. They made approx. the same as a Sr. system admin (L3).

I should have noted that all of the above positions were remote.

[Altco]

Originally posted by FHDave
Hey Allan, know of some other guy like that living near Boston? :)

I know of one! That's me :D

[nameslave]

Originally posted by AlaskanWolf
we pay our techs about $1.00 per response
May I ask what is the rationale behind paying your techs by the CASE intead of hours?

[iBiz]

paying per ticket is an easy way for a lower income host to get extra help with their support. plus it pays them for their actual work. I guess paying per ticket vs per hour or monthly depends on the size of your company.

[nameslave]

But then there is a danger of compromising the service QUALITY of each ticket. People would then try to kind of "solve" as many cases and as quickly as possible. That's why I asked.

[iBiz]

yeah, that can be a tough problem. in that case, it falls under the situation of the type of person you hire and how well you know him. but in all, it is a roll of the dice until they actually start working and you see what they do.

[Chicken]

I seem to recall a post made by Futurequest Deb about how she used to pay techs per incident, but switched to a hourly rate. It may have been due to these points.

[Altco]

Hourly rates or salaries has been proven for loyalty.

[felix220]

Oh.. are you supposed to pay techs for working on customer support??

[Chicken]

So that's why your support desk has 3,000 requests in it, eh? You can always try the Cyberwings model of no support (or customers supporting eachother only). Of course it didn't work, but that's no shocker.

[allan]

Originally posted by Chicken
So that's why your support desk has 3,000 requests in it, eh? You can always try the Cyberwings model of no support (or customers supporting eachother only). Of course it didn't work, but that's no shocker.

In all fairness, Cyberwings was so busy building out their 10 datacenters they didn't have time for little things like good support :D.

[felix220]

Originally posted by Chicken
So that's why your support desk has 3,000 requests in it, eh? You can always try the Cyberwings model of no support (or customers supporting eachother only). Of course it didn't work, but that's no shocker.

support desk?

[allan]

Originally posted by felix220
support desk?

You know that file in /var/spool/mail called support that keeps getting inexplicibly larger? The one you keep deleting every 30 days, without looking at it :D.

That's your support desk :baghead:.

[felix220]

Is that anything like using Bob Scares ?

[oritsfree]

The tech we use now is $10.00/Hr or monthly $75.00/USD per month.

Very personable and does the job pretty well.

I think there are other companies like bobcares.

-esupport
-actsupport
-hostticket

Plus a few others.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by felix220
...Bob Scares ?
Purposeful Freudian slip?

[felix220]

Originally posted by Chicken
Purposeful Freudian slip?

Well my PC has been seeing a therapist, so who knows... ?

[oritsfree]

I guess the decision is still out, because i have read lots of good reviews, but them some bad ones saying that bob does not care.

Originally posted by Chicken
Purposeful Freudian slip?

[Chicken]

I think most of the comments re: Bob Cares can be put into two categories:

1) Limit on what they can do.

Bob Cares deals with many support emails from many hosts so there is a limit to the type of support question they can effectively handle. The more general and basic the question, the greater the success rate.

All hosts get odd-ball questions that aren't worded well, are confusing, etc., and Bob Cares would most likely have a difficult time at even coming close to successfully and satisfactorily answering this type of ticket.


2) Possible language barriers

Support tickets are answered by people who may not have the best grasp on the English language. Some things may be lost "in the translation" (so to speak). That's not to say an English speaking tech support rep automatically does either, but...

Add to that, what I said above, that many support requests are unclear and cryptic to begin with and you have a recipe for disaster.


Some of my clients email in some rather odd messages and only because I personally know them am I able to guess what they mean and reply. I can't imagine what would happen if I outsourced one particular client's support requests to someone else, let alone foreign support.

For some things, Bob Cares will really work well, however for many things this type fo support simply won't work well. I think that's why the comments are so varied when people discuss them.

[oritsfree]

I have heard a lot of mixed results, but this would explain why.

Outsourced support is a really big deal for any company, because even though you might know it's outsourced your customers don't and this then because the face of the company.

I think with any biz customer service and support is at the heart. Your customers knowing they can a)Get in touch with you, but b) that you will be able to effectively problem solve the situation at hand and give them the solution they require.

[felix220]

must be a nightmare for the poor old end users these days trying to decide who to pay for hosting their site/email... trial and error is fine, but with tens of thousands to choose from all telling the same lies, the new business still to come is going to find the whole thing very tiresome.. I feel a change coming on.. :)

[Jeff]

Cyberwings had some support in their irc channel by volunteer staff and also there were some employees helping. I hated Jan tho and she always got on my nerves :(

[MrManager]

I pay my techs $8 per hour and they receive a quarterly bonus based strictly off the number of ticket resolutions.

The hourly rate serves as their pay and the bonus serves as a decent incentive to do their job better which makes for a more positive experience for the customer and their company.

[maxhest]

I pay my TECH in a domain and bandwidth.
-Max

[allan]

Originally posted by maxhest:

I pay my TECH in a domain and bandwidth.
-Max

Which works well as long as the mortgage company takes bandwidth as payment :D.

[alchiba]

Originally posted by allan:

Which works well as long as the mortgage company takes bandwidth as payment :D.

I just refinanced, so I pay a lot less bandwidth to my mortgage company now. Whew!

:D

[maxhest]

hehe, he's a younger guy :) So, no expences.. He's also a no lifer, so no g/f to take care of.. :)