Looking for an online support technician

serverian

We're looking for an online support technician for our VPS business.

Shift duration: 5 AM - 1 PM GMT Monday - Saturday (You're welcome to apply if you can't work on Saturdays as well)

Required Skills:

• A functional and demonstrable of conversational US/UK English
• Fluent in GNU/Linux (i.e: Using GNU/Linux for at least 5 years in day to day operations)
• Fluent in OpenVZ and KVM (i.e: Dealt with bugs and came up with fixes)
• Have experience with common servers and daemons and deal with their issues (i.e: Apache, nginx, php, python, nodejs, jira, mysql, postgresql, etc.)
• Windows Server experience is a plus but not necessary
• Have worked for at least one VPS company in the past and parted ways in good terms
• Can sympathize with the client and fix issues/offer solutions
• Loving web hosting business and helping people
• Asking other technicians for help on Slack when necessary and learn on the way

Documents to Sign:

• NDA
• Non-compete agreement

Pay:

• A monthly salary is going to be paid. The amount will be discussed with you privately.

Job Description:

• Handle support tickets online during the shift
• Screen new orders against fraud and approve/decline
• Monitor the infrastructure and act when something is not right (i.e: If there is an issue with a server, detect the issue, attempt to resolve/communicate with the DC technicians, follow up.)
• Read past tickets handled on other shifts when shift starts
• Communicate on Slack with other team members
• Read the past Slack chat and take notes of the Slack chat for new announcements and be aware

Explanation of Support Tickets handling:

You must reply the support tickets within 15 minutes. The reply must be meaningful. It shouldn't be something like, "I'm working on it now." and then start working on it. Ideally, you should attend to the tickets as soon as possible and then reply it with the answer/resolution if the resolution is going to take less than 15 minutes. If it's going to take more than 15 minutes, then you should reply the ticket and make the customer aware that you are working on their ticket.

We have either very experienced customers who only ticket us when something is definitely wrong or inexperienced customers whose website is not working due to some error on the VPS OS itself.

You should be able to resolve the issue that VPS has if it's not working correctly due to a reason caused by our infrastructure. For example, the server is down or the network is down.

We have some inexperienced customers who are not, for example able to fix their httpd.conf syntax error and restart their Apache server. You should ask for permission to take a look at it and then handle their issue and reply their ticket.

Most of the issues the inexperienced customers have are very simple issues and as a company, we take pride by not saying no to them as long as they are not abusing our good will.

While handling tickets, you should show utmost respect to the customer if they are not abusing you. If you sense the customer is abusing you, you should escalate the ticket.

Explanation of screening new orders:

We have some inner intelligence to screen orders. You should carefully follow the steps and then decide on whether or not to approve the order. If you decide to decline the order, you should refund and then open a ticket to the customer respectfully denying them. You should put a note on the customer profile why you have denied the order as well.

Explanation of monitoring the infrastructure and handling issues:

You will be getting IPMI access and DC portal access. You are expected to detect the issues and come up with a solution. For example, if a VPS is getting SYN attack and the auto nulling mechanism of the DC is not working for that attack, you should be able to detect what IP is getting attacked and then nullroute it manually and then report the incident resolution on Slack.

Please PM me describing your past experiences to apply.

kkrajk

@MikePT

atomi

One more for @MikePT

AK_KWH

@ReadyDedis

schnafi

@serverian said:
The reply must be meaningful. It shouldn't be something like, "I'm working on it now."

Okay, but then how do you answer this?

If it's going to take more than 15 minutes, then you should reply the ticket and make the customer aware that you are working on their ticket.

15 minutes is quite a short time to evaluate and find the problem... How should a ticket be answered then?

serverian

@schnafi said:

@serverian said:
The reply must be meaningful. It shouldn't be something like, "I'm working on it now."

Okay, but then how do you answer this?

If it's going to take more than 15 minutes, then you should reply the ticket and make the customer aware that you are working on their ticket.

15 minutes is quite a short time to evaluate and find the problem... How should a ticket be answered then?

I'm not here to discuss these in public, to be honest.

If you are interested, please PM me.

Thank you.

ChrisMiller

I have a couple people to send your way! I forwarded them this.

sureiam

@schnafi said:

@serverian said:
The reply must be meaningful. It shouldn't be something like, "I'm working on it now."

Okay, but then how do you answer this?

If it's going to take more than 15 minutes, then you should reply the ticket and make the customer aware that you are working on their ticket.

15 minutes is quite a short time to evaluate and find the problem... How should a ticket be answered then?

Not really sometimes you can resolve an issue within 5-15 mins. Then you would respond with the fix. It's a reasonable protocol imo.

yoursunny

7 years ago SecureDragon promoted their 1-hour ticket response. Now the bar is higher and higher.

ReadyDedis

@serverian I've just dropped you a DM. Looking forward to hearing back from you!

elliotc

Am I the only one who thinks this is an ad to show how good their support is?

schnafi

@sureiam said:
Not really sometimes you can resolve an issue within 5-15 mins. Then you would respond with the fix. It's a reasonable protocol imo.

Yes, but my question was, without stating it explicitly, meant for the (somewhat common, idk) case, when it takes more than 15 minutes to find and/or resolve the problem. As I said, the text in the OP was confusing, atleast for me. Though, my question has been answered already.

mfs

@elliotc said:

Am I the only one who thinks this is an ad to show how good their support is?

Serverian has been around long enough to know they really aren't into that sort of things (and they probably wouldn't need it)

@yoursunny said: 7 years ago SecureDragon promoted their 1-hour ticket response. Now the bar is higher and higher.

I have a couple providers in mind who have always replied solving the few tickets I raised in their first reply, even if it was something related to an absolutely unforeseeable event. Those are quite established providers (not big maybe but old enough)
1 hour is top-tier in my book; 15 minutes as a norm scares me a little

elliotc

@mfs

Serverian has been around long enough to know they really aren't into that sort of things (and they probably wouldn't need it)

My statement does not have any negative connotation, but rather a positive one, just the thought of "this will make me pay more attention to this provider in the future".

MikePT

@kkrajk said:
@MikePT

@atomi said:
One more for @MikePT

Thank you for the recommendation guys!

@serverian pretty sure I'm late here. I do provide NOC Services that cover everything you need as well as SLA's. Do PM me if you'd like to discuss further.