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While we often come here to look for help for problems or rant about vendor failings, I think it’s helpful to give credit where credits due to those who excel at service and support levels.

I had a small issue with one of our backups (I know its sad that I am checking backups at 3am - UK here) so I couldn’t figure out what the problem so I contacted the unitrends support team by email, thinking I would hear from them sometime tomorrow. 1 minute later I receive an email stating the case reference and details around the case in general. 2 minutes later, I receive a phone call from Unitrends in the US ready to connect in and sort the issue, which of course they did.

Unitrends have got it right with everything - Great backup system backed up by (excuse the unintentional pun) great support.

There’s hardly a backup system I haven’t had experience with, Unitrends outshines them all at a fraction of the cost of others.

Thank you Unitrends!

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Keg - Thanks for taking the time to post about this. Our Support team works so hard, and while we aren’t always perfect, it’s so nice to hear when we help a customer out. We have folks in our office 24-7 to support our customers around the world, and it’s great to hear that their late hours are making a difference. Thanks for choosing Unitrends, and for letting us know about this experience.

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Thats awesome! Especially since we are almost ready to pull the trigger on going with Unitrends ourselves.

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I’ve always had a positive experience in working with Support. Of course, as long as we all remember that support people are people too, it usually helps make things go so much smoother. :wink:

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We did and have used it to save our backsides many times over the value of the appliance.

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You won’t regret it. I would always recommend that you try other solutions as well so you can see what suits your business requirements, however, I bet my life that you will end up with the Unitrends solution - it’s the only one that makes sense!

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Im currently with Backup Exec…I will leave it at that. :slight_smile:

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Oh no, not Backup Exec - they don’t even support Windows 2012 yet. I recall the bad days of Backup Exec. I feel your pain. Good luck with Unitrends, it will be a welcoming breath of fresh air :slight_smile:

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hehe this reminds me of when i had an issue with our unitrends box

You have to understand i am used to uk support where 8 hour response is considered good for all sorts of things that are critical (such as phones, internet etc)

I had gone in to do a bare metal, it failed…

I emailed support…and literally 3 minutes later got an email

And just like you i had a call shortly after and they sorted it for me.

I was stunned!. I bored my colleagues the next day going on about what a shame it was that our other suppliers BT etc) werent like them

They also did exactly the same thing when we had the box god knows how many years ago… we were backing up an ancient sco unix box…which noone else would touch. I had an issue with the backup…and again they sorted it incredibly quickly…modifying the agent for us!

I cannot praise their support enough, its the only company where you NEVER have to chase

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Hi Trev,

I hear you man! If only all suppliers were like Unitrends, IT would be more productive within the business. So many unreliable suppliers in the UK. BT is another headache. Have one leased line with Virgin with a view to doing a complete switch over. Glad to say we only had one otherwise we would have been in serious trouble. Took them 4 months to go out to a site in London to do the survey, 3 months later line was installed - thats 7 months!! Agreement was 3 months for completion - I havent heard a dickybird from them since. Areas we face problems with:

Mobile Phone Companies - Network is with Vodafone and service is with CommsXchange. Vodafone are too big to care really and out of all the networks they are fairly reliable, but extremely pricey on data abroad even with the bolt ons - some of our users are costing over £1000 a month! As for CommsXchange - nothing but problems. Empty promises, credit notes agreed but never received, very slow to respond. We had moved from BT (just as bad). Contract is up this October, so anyone know of any reputable providers within the UK?

Broadband - BT, need I say more :slight_smile: Lines are with a 3rd party - big mistake as they always blame BT, BT always blame them, aaarrgghh :slight_smile:

MPLS - Sprint - Great service and support. USA though.

Print Leasing - Was with Balreed. Aweful service, over charging and an account manager that caused a big issue within the company with his lies. Now with Vision 2 years (5 year contract) - Promised us everything but extremely slow on delivery of promises. Worked out more expensive in the end although in fairness the printers were perfectly specc’d for the business and support itself is fairly good. The issues I have is with the accounting side - Overcharging, Waiting on payments for previous early exit from contract - received countless court letters and we ended up signifcantly out of pocket. Certainly wouldn’t renew with them.

IT Supplies (Laptops, General supplies) - Use a few sources. Most of them don’t have any technical knowledge which is annoying as its generally sales guys trying to push you products where their margin is greatest and not what suits the business. Can’t say theres anyone outstanding out there that I’ve found.

Networking - Cisco and Juniper. Both good, Juniper much better.

I’m sure there are a lot of great companies out there who focus on the customer, I just have found that many. I find mobile phone suppliers and printing service companies the worst to deal with.

Of the top of my head there is only 2 I know that excel in all areas, namely:

Unitrends - Superb.

Envertica - Superb service and support.Completely focused on the customer.

Have you any recommendations that you deal with in the UK?

thanks,

Keg.

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Hey Keg

I hear you loud and clear

We are a small operation IT wise, 3 servers, 50 desktops, and have just moved our exchange to 365 (which i am overjoyed about!!!). With an IT department of one person

We have used ‘discus systems’ for crm support and they were pretty good…i would recommend them.

Our print leasing is with arkle, and to be fair they are pretty good, as are connaught who look support our phone system

But BT!.

Our contract was up for renewal, i refused to sign and got an improved support agreement and our broadband upgraded …and about 25% off in the end

The saleswoman said she would deal with it personally when i signed

I specified i NEEDED a static ip for our mail server… and a week later got order confirmation stating we had a dynamic ip!!!

So…i called bt business support, after 40 mins on hold! i got a call centre who told me i couldnt get the order changed even though it was their cockup!!! . Amazingly when i said i was going to use my cooling off period to cancel all contracts…they changed the order :wink:

Dont get me into responses to dead phone lines and bt :).

So yes, unitrends is a refreshing change :slight_smile:

Do you think poor support is a UK thing?

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Hi Trev,

Good on you managing all that yourself. I am sure the move to 365 was a huge weight of your shoulders, definitely makes sense do an office your size.

That’s aweful treatment from BT, although it doesn’t surprise me.

It’s hard to know if the poor support is a UK thing. I think it’s more the type of service and the type of people that sell you certain products or services. I’ve always found telecoms and printer leasing firms all “dell boy” types - their is huge commissions in it for them so they will tell you anything to get the sale.

A good guide on how to tell what services/products have really high commissions which normally attract “dell boy” type sale people is to go on the annoying cold calls you receive from sales people. I bet the majority of them are:

  • Telecoms “Hello, we are such and such a company and we can cut your telephone bills by 50%”

  • Printer leasing companies “Hi, we are from such and such a company and would like to know how you are currently managing your printing services for the business”

  • Other products such as Cisco (Arrrghhh this one kills me everyday, the world must be selling bloody Cisco - sick of them!)

Unfortunately exceptional support, that you would receive from the likes of Envertica and Unitrends, is very very rare indeed. However, from here on in, I will use Unitrends support levels as the standard for any future services/contracts I take on - should be interesting!

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Hi Paul.

If you need anything w/r/t BE, we have several active Green Guys out here who are official members of the Tech Support organization. There have been significant changes and improvements made to the BE support org over the past year.

Not going to deny that there have been issues in the past but we are working to make the changes our users need.

Hit me up if I can be of assistance.