High standards for hosting, data security, and service uptime (99+%) are maintained in part through responsive customer support, and sound escalation procedures. These human processes are complemented by multi-layered automated monitoring systems which will automatically notify system admins about a range of issues.
All issues around product usage, and perceived faults should be raised first through support requests. The product support team’s historical response time sits around ~1 hour. Product support queries and fault reports are differentiated as quickly as possible.
In most scenarios, a case will be escalated internally from frontline support to support team management before further escalation. Our goal is to escalate all faults to the product development team as soon as they’re confirmed, no later than 24 hours after the initial report.
In the course of diagnosis by the support team, every effort will be made to help users continue their work.
| Support requests can be started by trial and paid users. Users on our free community edition plan should post their product support queries in the user forum. If you are a community user and are confident you’ve identified a fault, please email support@surveycto.com. |
Escalation levels #
How rapidly issues get escalated beyond the support team depends on the urgency, the complexity of the issue, and the availability of supporting evidence. Depending on the level of urgency, our goals for time to escalate are as follows:
|
Urgency |
Description |
Example |
Target escalation time |
|
Critical |
Serious problems arising, affecting the work of users system wide. No workaround exists. |
A service outage across services (e.g., as the result of an AWS outage). Users on many servers cannot log into their server consoles. |
0 – 1 hrs |
|
Major |
Moderate to serious issues affecting one or a smaller group of users. A workaround exists. |
After a recent improvement to a component (e.g., SurveyCTO Desktop) a regression is discovered affecting functionality. |
1 – 2 hrs |
|
Minor |
An inconvenience affecting one or a few users. Alternative direct features may exist. |
A circumstantial problem occurs in an uncommon use case (e.g. a file naming convention for attachments that SurveyCTO Collect doesn’t support is discovered). |
1 – 4 hrs |
Developer-level escalation #
Irrespective of urgency level, the product development team will continue to lean on the support team for evidence and testing as required. With the level of urgency confirmed, the development team will respond as follows once escalated:
|
Urgency |
Initial response time target |
Target resolution time |
Example resolution |
|
Critical |
0 – 1 hrs |
12 – 24 hours |
A slipstream update might be rapidly developed and pushed out. |
|
Major |
0 – 4 hrs |
2 – 7 days |
Depending on frequency and complexity, a fix might wait until our routine maintenance window. |
|
Minor |
0 – 12 hrs |
7+ days |
Depending on the fault, an issue might wait until the next scheduled update for a component, or be added to the backlog. |
All of the target times above represent our minimum operating standards. Where possible, we look to exceed these targets and minimize inconvenience to users.
Communication on escalated issues #
The support team will remain the point of contact with users throughout. The support team will communicate with developers, requesting updates, carefully documenting the issue. At all times throughout an escalation, the support team will set clear expectations and keep users informed.
Should you have any questions or concerns about this policy document, write to info@surveycto.com.
