Paloalto TAC support

[dtran]

Anyone here using Paloalto products happy with TAC support?

I do not use TAC often but it seems like there are not enough TAC engineers to provide support to customers.  For example, every time I call into PAN phone support, the average wait time is 25 minutes.  As for a specific example,

I called into Paloalto TAC support this morning, and I've been on hold for over 1 hour and 45 minutes without actually talking to anyone from PAN. 

anyone here experiencing similar?

[Brandon_Wertz]

I think there are multiple things going on which would be leading to a longer hold time.  First is probably COVID, I really don't know of a single company that hasn't seen an impact, and I would guess Palo has gotten even busier during the pandemic.

I'm also not sure of your support agreement level, but it's possible for your support level all other engineers were tied up with higher priority cases.

One thing you could also try in the interim is look through the LiveCommunity here and see if potentially there's a solve that you could find without needing a support case.

[dtran]

I have premium level support.  Waiting on the phone for that long is not a good thing, regardless of Covid-19.

My situation is unique and I couldn't find a solution in the forum. 

[Brandon_Wertz]

---

@dtran wrote:

I have premium level support.  Waiting on the phone for that long is not a good thing, regardless of Covid-19.

My situation is unique and I couldn't find a solution in the forum. 

---

I wasn't trying to suggest an elongated wait time is ever appropriate, I was just trying to offer an outside perspective of why that situation could occur.

I've been told that Palo's had huge growth and I think they're trying best they can to staff appropriately.  That said I've had situations where I've also ran into a wait time that was longer than I would have expected.

[dtran]

I gave up this morning after waiting for two hours.  I called back 40 minutes ago to check on an RMA and am still waiting for an actual human being.

[jdelio]

@dtran 

I am sorry to hear that you have had to wait for such long times to get anyone on the phone that could help.

I will assume that you have tried to provide web or email updates, but not heard anything back that way either?

Our TAC support is taken seriously, and when this happens to anyone, we want to help the best way possible. 

I will talk with the TAC Management about this and see what we can do to assist you.

[MikeC]

@dtran 

Yes, this has been going on for months (pre-covid).  Every time I have to call, wait times are over 1 hour and engineers too many times have been sub-par 

I have premium support, so my support level is not the issue

[BPry]

If you haven't already, I really do recommend opening a ticket prior to calling into TAC on the support portal. The ticket queue is one in the same, and you aren't going to get a call back any sooner by calling in instead of opening a support ticket and categorizing it properly in my experience. 

One of the biggest issues that TAC is running into at the moment is simply call volume, and sadly a lot of those calls are extremely low level configuration assistance by fellow PAN customers. Things that really should be researched before deployment and have countless KB articles and community posts describing the process and the steps that need to be taken are ending up as a TAC ticket which requires an engineer to do a lot of hand holding. A lot of people are being asked to do new things with everyone making changes to support remote work or spinning up cloud resources to replace shuttered offices, and that means a whole bucket load of configuration support tickets. 

[dtran]

Had a failed HD on the Paloalto this morning.  Opened a ticket via the web portal at 10:30am... Got some responses back from TAC support but as of 2:39pm ET, over 4 hours, haven't gotten confirmation from TAC support that the HD replacement has been sent.  Therefore, we can't schedule anything with our on-site support for replacement of the failed HD.

Meanwhile, my colleague has been on hold by PAN support over over an hour now, with premium support.

I am not impressed with TAC support from PAN so far.  It is what it is I guess.

[RichardObille]

What is happening with your support lines? Are they broken? A high severity waiting in queue for almost 4 hours waiting in the call?  Its a huge concern if I were to recommend a product to a client 

[dtran]

@jdelio:  I am not sure what you meant by "Our TAC support is taken seriously, and when this happens to anyone, we want to help the best way possible.". 

I have a ticket opened this morning with PAN support.  I asked the TAC engineer to call me back.  He didn't and put some links in the ticket and I am not sure he knows about it himself.  I called into TAC support three hours later, spoke to another engineer and asked that the original engineer call me back to discuss the case that I opened I opened this morning.  The second engineer assured me that the original engineer will call me back in 15 minutes.  I am still waiting for that call more than three hours later.

Btw, I have premium support with PAN.

[MikeC]

It is undeniable at this point.  Support is not the same anymore.  The wait times are much longer, the responses take days to weeks.  At times, the only way to get a response is by escalating the ticket in the support portal.

That's not to say its all bad, some of the engineers are very good

[dtran]

Been waiting on the call for over 80 minutes, and still waiting.  Talked to the TAC engineer and went over the issue with her.  Before ending zoom, I asked her if she fully understood the issue.  She responded yes.  Today she emailed back asking me the same question that I thought she understood.  I am speechless.  I called TAC support and been waiting for over 80 minutes. 

[securehops]

I know the feeling.  I can only suggest sending your account team the ticket numbers to escalate.

Also, in the support portal, you can go to your ticket and escalate.  The engineer's manager will be notified

[dtran]

@securehops:  Thank you for your support, from one IT person to another.

Yes, I did escalate in the support portal.  That was almost three hours ago.  It is like fighting a losing battle, LOL....

I really don't want to bother the account team every time I have an issue.  They are nice people but escalating every little issue is not the way to go.

By the way, I am not taking any pleasure of bashing PAN TAC support.  I would not open tickets if I can resolve the issue myself.  I get this from all the PAN TAC engineers "I am sorry for your convenience.  I do understand your frustrations".  Well, if you understand my frustrations, then do something about it, just don't repeat the same line everytime, LOL....