[FAQ] What kind of support should I expect from the Community.

[SteffenBaierUK]

Question: What kind of support should I expect from the Community?

Answer: As explained => here <=

QUOTE:
 

• The purpose of these forums is to allow community members collaborate and help each other.
  Questions posted here do not follow Polycom’s SLA / Service Level Agreement guidelines.
  If you require assistance from Polycom technical support, please open a web service request or call us.

and in addition within the VoIP Read First => here <=

QUOTE:

• As the title suggests, the Community Forums are open to all, and driven by the Polycom community: customers, resellers, distributors, and other industry activists from all over the world.
  The Community Forums are NOT an official support channel, and answers or suggestions provided by other community members may not always resolve your issue.
  If you need official support for your Polycom product or service, please contact Polycom directly through the official support channels, or contact your Certified Polycom Partner for assistance.

The Polycom Community is not a replacement for the Polycom Support Structure and any End User should contact their certified Polycom Reseller to contact Polycom Support in order to raise a case.

A Polycom device may be purchased via an online reseller that is not actually certified and therefore unable to raise a case directly with Polycom Support. In this instance the reseller should contact their Polycom Distributor to get this brought to the attention of Polycom Support.

If above all fails the End User may contact Polycom Support directly and they will advise who the distributor is and the customer can then work with the distributor but may be asked to pay a PPI (Pay per Incident) Fee. 

Details on this can be found => here <=

Question: Why am I being asked to contact my Polycom Reseller?

Answer: Polycom certified Resellers should be aware and trained on the Polycom Product Portfolio and therefore able to provide Tier 1 support to their Customers. If the level of required support is outside their scope of troubleshooting ability's they can raise tickets with Polycom Support directly and work on these issues with Polycom Tier 2 Support and escalate within Polycom.

Question: Can I still post questions in the community even if I am aware that I will not receive a Level of Support that may be needed to troubleshoot my issue?

Answer: Yes, any community Member can post questions but should not expect a prompt reply from any other community members. A Moderator may reply to a post highlight the correct escalation / support path that should be taken. Please do not "bump" your posts via re-posting as mentioned in the Read First. 

A issue reported within the community, that can only be fixed by Polycom support, therefore needs to be reported to Polycom.

Question: Why does Polycom not simply open a support ticket when I post in the community?

Answer: Please check above replies explaining why Polycom does not work with End Users directly.

Question: Why is all this necessary?

Answer: Like any other professional organization Polycom requires to prioritize their resources in order to provide the most efficient support to their customers. Based on the issue a Customer is facing they may require updates weekly or even multiple times a day. This cannot be ensured via the community. This also enables us to verify the entitlement using the hardware or software.

Question:Why am I being asked to to provide my products MAC address and/or Serial Number?

Resolution: Polycom only sells to qualified resellers and these may sell via dealers who may not be trained on these products. In order to identify the reseller the unit was sold via we need the MAC address and/or Serial Number to provide their details so they can open a support ticket as explained within this post. In addition Polycom reserves the right to audit your deployment to verify that you have sufficient licenses to match the number of devices being used.

Question: How can I contact or find this quoted reseller?

Answer: Please check the following form => here <=

Question: A Polycom employee quoted a case that sounds like my issue so why does Polycom not deal with my issue via the community?

Answer: A issue may sound the same but the Polycom employee can only assume it is the same but may require additional logs etc. This cannot be done via the medium of a community forum as sensitive data or accounts may need to be shared.

Question: Why can a Polycom employee not help me via the Communitys Private message system?

Answer: Like any other professional organization Polycom requires to prioritize their resources in order to provide the most efficient support to their customers. Based on the issue a Customer is facing they may require updates weekly or even multiple times a day. This cannot be ensured via the free community. 

Question: I still demand that a Polycom employee answers my question or deals with my issue within the community for free

Answer: Please bear in mind that Community participation is a voluntary act and the Polycom employees do this during their working hours in their spare time.

Many also work on the community outside their working hours, on weekends or even during their holidays.

Issues that arise and cannot be solved in an easy manner can either get dealt with if within warranty via the Polycom reseller or outside of warranty via PPI / Pay Per Incident.

Working with support ensures timely replies and the security of any provided customer data. In addition Polycom employees can identify the requirement of a case having to be dealt with by their Support team.

Service Offerings: 

• More details on Polycom Support offerings for End Customers can be found => here <=