When you know a ticket is ready for a call, use the General::Invite customer call macro in Zendesk. (Please modify the PERSONAL_CALENDLY_LINK to your own personal Calendly link)
A few point to consider when sending a customer the invite to call link.
Support (case insensitive), this is necessary for the event to appear in the GitLab Support Calendar.Please consider sending a pre-call email. This helps set expectations to the call regarding goals, duration, and
the people required to be on the call for effective troubleshooting. You can use the Support::Self-Managed::Pre customer call macro in Zendesk
for that, please modify it as you see fit.
For Premium Support customers, and customers who have purchased Implementation Support, we offer intake and installation support. Premium Support customers also receive live upgrade assistance. The different levels of service that are offered are described on the support page, and Implementation Support is described in more detail in the statement of support.
Call/screen sharing sessions involve guiding a customer through the GitLab upgrade process or taking control of the customer's server to perform the upgrade. You should make sure that the customer has finished creating a backup before you start the call, as they can take a lot of time to complete and you don't want to do them while in the call.
Important information to collect
We collect this information in Zendesk and link it to the organization.
Sometimes a one hour call doesn't seem like the best step to take forward, and may not be the best use of our time. This is where the Discovery Call comes in.
A Discovery call is a short 15 minute call with the sole purpose of learning enough to start troubleshooting asynchronously again. These calls are also great at helping ease a customer who is getting frustrated not being able to show us the problem.
If you feel that you're close to a resolution or need more time to collect info, then it's at your discretion to continue the call or not.
Create a Calendly event in your account labeled Support - Discovery Call with <your name>
and send a one-time link to this event when you find that a Discovery call
would be useful.
Following your scheduled or unscheduled call you should complete a summary of the call in Zendesk using the
macro Support::Self-Managed::Post Customer Call. This will provide a record of events for
anyone who works on the ticket, including the customer. It will also provide
valuable information for support engineers in the future who search Zendesk
looking for similar issues and their resolutions.
While working with customers you should always be prepared to host a quick call with them. It's easier to get all the information you might need on a short (5 - 20 minutes) call than in a long series of back-and-forth emails. If anything similar to the following situations is true, suggest a Zoom call:
If you feel too inexperienced to handle a call, ask someone more experienced to lead it while you shadow. After shadowing, it is still your responsibility to handle the ticket as long as it is assigned to you.
If the problem is urgent you can simply send the customer a Zoom link and jump on immediately. For less urgent calls, you may send the customer a Calendly link so that they can schedule a convenient time in their time zone. The link you send may be a link to your personal calendar or to the Team Calendly event, depending on the circumstances, but in every case you should send a single-use Calendly link, to ensure proper processes are followed for scheduling calls.
For some customers, only Cisco systems are allowed and in those cases, WebEx will be the best tool for calls. To start a call/session, use the GitLab Support WebEx account. Go to our WebEx Portal, click on the login button on the top right and use the credentials found in the Support Vault on 1Password.
Once logged in, click the Enter Room button to start the WebEx meeting and send the following link to the customer and ask them to join the call.
https://gitlabmeetings.webex.com/meet/gitlabsupport
Note: Make sure you lock the meeting so that you (as the presenter) have to allow people in. Otherwise others may attempt to use the room.
WebEx allows you to see the customer's desktop and to control it on request. It also gives the customer the possibility to join via phone and us the possibility to use our computer audio connection.
