This article explains the difference between the free support and the consulting services proposed by Cloudiway when you are using the cloud migration platform.
While both focus on helping customers, the difference between consulting services and support is that consulting services is a specific type of customer service involving other skills than documentation, product feedback, and technical problem-solving.
Support Engineer:
Focus on Technical Support:
Support Engineers primarily focus on providing technical support to customers or end-users.
They troubleshoot issues, resolve technical problems, and assist users in using the product.
Product or Service Expertise:
Support Engineers typically specialize in the product and have in-depth knowledge about its functionality and features. However Cloudiway support engineers do not make support on third party service such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Zimbra.
As such, do not ask the Cloudiway support engineer assistance for configuring MFA in Microsoft 365 or Firewall in Zimbra. You would be redirect to the support of these product and services.
Reactive Role:
Their role is often reactive, responding to customer inquiries, issues, or tickets that come in through customer support channels.
Consultant:
Focus on Advisory and Solutions:
Consultants are more focused on providing advisory services and solutions to clients or businesses.
They may be brought in to analyze business processes, identify areas for improvement, and recommend solutions.
Problem Solving and Strategy:
Consultants are often involved in strategic planning, problem-solving, and helping clients optimize their operations or achieve specific goals.
Proactive Role:
Unlike Support Engineers, consultants are typically more proactive. They may initiate projects, conduct assessments, and propose changes before issues arise.
Project-Based Work:
Consultants often work on a project basis. They may be hired to implement new systems, improve efficiency, or provide expertise on a specific matter.
Client-Facing:
Consultants work closely with clients, understanding their business needs, and tailoring solutions to meet those needs. Communication and relationship-building are crucial aspects of a consulting role.
Consulting Services VS Free Support Tables
The following tables show a non-exhaustive list of what consulting services provide vs free support:
Task | Free Support | Consulting Services |
---|---|---|
Direct contact available by phone or Teams | ||
Kickoff meeting to define the scope of the project | ||
Provide guidance to configure the platform | ||
Help in defining the migration path | ||
Weekly updates & reports | ||
Post-meeting for recommendations and feedback | ||
Root cause analysis | ||
Assistance for “How to” questions | ||
Generation of advanced reports | ||
Migration Analysis | ||
Office 365, Google, or Exchange configuration for setting up the prerequisites | ||
Technical account management ( Crisis meeting requests, etc.) |
Here are some typical examples that can’t be processed by support (However, they can be addressed and covered by our consulting service):
Issue | Reason for refusal |
Please, call me back to troubleshoot my issue. | Support is done exclusively by mail.
If you wish to talk to a Cloudiway engineer, you must purchase hours of service. |
What was the cause of the problem, we need to come back to our customer with an explanation of the problem. | Support fixes the problem. Extra time consisting of writing Root Cause Analysis and eventually additional meetings with the final customer is out of Support scope. |
I have 7 users in error, can you please investigate and fix them? | This is your project.
Support does not proceed to your analysis, no extraction of logs in various formats, and no extraction or analysis of backend content not available through the GUI. Instead, open the logs, sort the issues by type of error and open 1 ticket per type of error that is not documented either on the internet or https://help.cloudiway.com/. |
Please analyze my migration and send me a report. | Like above, you do your project, and Cloudiway support supports the software. Cloudiway Consulting Services can be involved in your project. |
Please help me configure my firewall. | Out of scope. Cloudiway support eventually pointed you to the exact issue and asked you to authorize an IP address and a port.
It’s up to you to make the change. |
Please help me configure my Exchange Policies.
Please help me disable MFA on a given account, Etc. |
Cloudiway supports its product exclusively.
If you do not have the time or expertise for the extra configuration, you may involve a freelance, an integrator, or even Cloudiway Consulting services. |
Important Notice
When you consulting hours are consumed, you have the option to purchase additional hours. If you don’t choose this option, you will not have access anymore to your consultant.
But don’t worry though ! You would continue your project using the Cloudiway support team. The experience would then be slightly different. You are not just changing of point of contact, you are also changing the way you are interacting with the team:
In free support mode, you have to proceed to the analysis, detect the errors and then raise a support ticket.
What does it mean practically?
While working with your consultant, you may ask him: I have several errors, please solve them all. As long as you have consulting hours, your consultant will execute and do the work.
Support does not not work this way. Support will ask you to open 1 ticket per family of incident or error message. This helps us engage the right team for troubleshooting your specific issue and assign different engineers. Also support will start working on tickets only once fully qualified:
For instance you cannot open a ticket stating I have several Teams with this error message “xxx”, please fix. The support team cannot invest time in searching which Team is experiencing your problem. Even if you find it frustrating, support will come back to you, asking to provide a relevant repro: one team that is impacted and the exact error message in clear text (not as screenshot that cannot be copy/pasted in troubleshooting tools).
After all, if you contact your bank for a transaction issue, you will provide your account number and the complete reference of the transaction (amount, date, recipient, etc…). Just do the same with your issues: Provide enough information so that our support can start working on your problem.
It happens that customers struggle to work efficiently with the support team after being accustomed to working with Cloudiway consultants and they keep pinging their former consultant. This is useless. Consultants are not working for free and are already assigned to new projects : they have instructions to not process requests that they can’t charge and will irremediably redirect you to support.
With your understanding, we are asking you to accept this process regardless of your level of urgency. You have the option to continue with the free support or to purchase additional service hours. There is no third option.
Please contact us if you have been redirected from the support to get assistance.