Our customers sometimes ask why we no longer offer toll-free support. The fact is that a number of factors played into our decision to offer support via a toll number rather than toll-free. And, it wasn’t an easy decision or one we made lightly. However, based on the factors we explain subsequently, we felt the change was a necessary one.

Toll-free support keeps our pricing as competitive as possible

While price increases may be inevitable, we didn’t want rising service costs to drive any further pricing pressure.

Residential long-distance rates are lower than ever

In most cases, consumers can now get long-distance rates as low as .02 to .05 cents per minute. If we took the average customer and calculated the expected costs to call us via a toll number vs. a toll-free number, we estimated the change would cost individual customers less than $1/mo.

We wanted to reduce confusion and increase consistency

While we traditionally offered 800 or toll-free support to eSignal users, support for Advanced GET software was serviced by a toll number in Ohio. We also introduced several lower-priced products (MarketCenter LIVE, QuoTrek and eSignal Basic, and so forth) and, with those much thinner margins, could not justify toll-free support. We felt the confusion created by supporting different types of service, for different groups of customers, would eventually lead to reduced service quality for all.

This approach allows us to expand our service offering

We have been able to re-direct the funds that resulted from eliminating toll-free support to other areas to expand and enhance the services we provide, including:

Online Training -- We conduct live user training each week at no cost to subscribers. We have also built a library of eSignal movie clips, so users can learn more effectively 24 / 7.

Expanded Email and LiveRep Support -- We added a swing shift of email support to complement our current staffing from London and California, and we now monitor and respond to email messages 24 hours a day from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon. As a result, we’ve dramatically reduced the average response time for all email inquiries. LiveRep support can be reached between the hours of midnight and 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (8.00 - 23.00 GMT)

Improved Documentation via the eSignal KnowledgeBase -- This KnowledgeBase (aka KB) is now the primary place we store (and update frequently) all documentation and technical support material for all of our eSignal products. You can browse by category or use the powerful search options to find just what you need. Best of all, with 30+ internal contributors, we add more information to the KB everyday, and it’s available 24 / 7.

Continued Expansion of Account Maintenance -- We’ve added more functionality to Account Maintenance, so, now, more than ever, you can make changes directly to your account at any time. Whether you want to add a new service, cancel an existing service or update your credit card information, Account Maintenance is always there.

Continued Success of the eSignal Central Forums -- The eSignal Central forums have become an integral part of the eSignal experience. Not only do we have dedicated Community Support Representatives ready to help, but you also gain the invaluable perspective of thousands of existing eSignal users from across the globe.

So, Let’s Hear from You

It’s never easy to take away a service that customers value, but we felt the benefits of eliminating toll-free service far outweighed the consequences. We are always eager to hear your feedback, so feel free to email the Customer Service Management team with your comments or suggestions. Go to the Contact Us page of eSignal Central.

This brings us to another question from our customers, also related to contacting us for support. We’re often asked: “I didn't get a response to a recent email message. What’s the best way to email for help?”

Like many businesses today, we are dealing with a serious deluge of unwanted email (aka spam) hitting our servers on a daily basis. It’s not uncommon for us to get upwards of 1 million spam messages in one day! As we put automated filters in place to combat these unwanted messages, we run the risk of filtering out legitimate messages from customers.

As you can imagine, we have no way to scan hundreds of thousands of email messages each day, so we have to rely on intelligent logic to keep our servers from being inundated. But, even if the filters accurately function 99.9% of the time, that still means we may lose a handful of legitimate messages each day.

To deal with this situation, we ask that customers use email forms rather than directly send messages to a given email address. We have hidden, special coding inside these forms, so our filtering logic will always let these messages pass through to their intended target. All of these forms are available on our main Contact Us page.

For a complete list of contact phone numbers, email addresses, hours of operation and links to LiveRep and support-oriented Bulletin Board forums, please visit our main Contact Us page.