Episode Transcript:
John:
Hello PANCasters and welcome back. Today we have Daniel to talk to us about the Customer Service Team and the support they provide. Welcome Daniel, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Daniel: 
Daniel is an Expert Customer Service Representative at Palo Alto Networks. He believes in the importance of understanding the customers’ issues. He possesses the ability to interpret customers’ concerns accurately and then deliver the most effective solutions for customers. As one of the SMEs for the CSR Loop page, he is responsible for revamping the CSR loop page as well as keeping abreast with all licensing matters, in order to deliver training and share with fellow CSRs.
Hi John and Everyone listening to this PANCast™, I am Daniel and I have been with the Customer Service team since May 2018. Today, I will give an introduction about the Customer Service team which is part of the Global Customer Support teams.
John:
OK, so you wanted to let us know about the issues that your team helps with right?
Daniel:
Yes John. To start off, let me give you an overview of our support: Palo Alto Networks Support provides timely access to the expertise needed to protect your business. Digital resources such as knowledge base, LIVEcommunity, Beacon, TechDocs, and other self-service tools are available 24/7, year-round.
For customers with valid support entitlements, the Global Customer Support teams, composed of Technical Support, Customer Service, and Hardware Services, provide around-the-clock web or phone support.
As part of the Customer Service team, the team that I'm in, we assist with non-technical administrative cases, which we will discuss in this episode of PANCast™.
John:
So what kind of issues should we engage the Customer Service team for?
Customer Service Resolves the Issues
Daniel:
There are actually many issues that can be classified as non-technical, but I am only going to talk about the 2 most common non-technical issues:
The first type is about Personal user account login issues.
Such as Request for membership access to the Customer Support Portal
Let me give you a scenario: a new customer has registered a user account for himself, but he still gets an error when he tries to log in to the CSP. This is usually due to a pending membership request that is required to be approved by an existing member in the portal.
This is when my team comes into place, to check if there is an existing member who can help to approve this new customer’s membership, or if the existing member has already left the organization and there is another member who can assist, we will then guide the customer to reach out to the remaining members.
Another user account log in issue:
- Password resets, MFA reset and email address changes
This is pretty straightforward, when the customer forgot their credentials or changed his handset or simply wants to change to another authentication method, we will reset for them upon requests.
Now Moving on to the second most common type of issue which is Licensing issue and this may affect the firewall production. For example:
- Product registration and license activation
Let me give you a scenario: Customer has this brand new device on hand and does not know how to start.
This is when We can provide a step by step guide on how to register a support portal user account, then upon him logging in to the portal, we will guide him on how to register the device, as well as activating the licenses to the device in the support portal.
By the way, registering a product and activating its license usually require activation emails and a purchase order. If the customer misplaced these documents, we can retrieve this information from our available tools and re-send it to them.
After activating the licenses, if the customer sees that the license expiration date on their firewalls differs from the support coverage period on their order, they can seek our help to correct this.
OR if the customer realizes there is a discrepancy pertaining to the active licenses showing on the firewall versus what they had purchased, they can also seek our help to verify what was included in their purchase order.
- another licensing issue is the Product and license transfers
Example of a scenario is If the customer needs to transfer a registered device from an account to another account, or if the customer needs help in transferring licenses from a device to another device. They can create a case with us and we will review their request and validate their justification, to ensure their request is compliant with our privacy terms and conditions.
John:
Looks like your team can help on a range of non technical issues. So how can customers get help from your team?
Get Help from the Customer Service Team
Daniel:
Yes, I will now briefly talk about How to Open a Case
Web cases may be created by authorized users from the CSP or through LIVEcommunity for technical (Tech Support) and non-technical (Admin) issues.
These options are available to customers with Platinum, Premium, or Standard Support. Customers with Partner Enabled Premium Support will contact their Authorized Support Center.
To create a support case, customers with a support portal user account can log into the CSP: At the main page, click on Create a Case or the Get Help button.
Select Admin in the Type field when creating a web case or when prompted by the automated phone system. (Please Note: for product login administration issues, select Tech Support in the Type field.)
For Customers who want their problems solved promptly and feel that searching for the answer themselves is quicker than contacting support, there will be prompts on suggested knowledge base articles, throughout the case creation process, based on the case subject and description.
The link to our support portal will be provided at the end of the transcript.
John:
OK, so let’s say I’ve got a full outage because all of my licenses have expired, what should I do?
Expired Licenses?
Daniel:
Well there are 2 scenarios that come to mind-
First expired license on firewall but not CSP.
Second expired license on both firewall and the CSP.
Let me elaborate on Scenario 1:
- If the licenses are showing as expired in the Firewall dashboard, but in the Customer Support Portal the licenses are still showing as active and valid. This is usually due to license key files are not being updated. My suggestion is to delete all license keys and then retrieve them again. In most cases this helps to see all valid licenses on the firewall.
The customer can go ahead to Retrieve license key if the firewall has internet connection
Also, after the customer has deleted the previous license key, go to Software on the Device tab and click Check Now in the lower left of the screen. This will initiate a new SSL session with the update server and should sync the license information with the firewall.
Alternatively the customer can re-Upload the license key manually if the firewall does not have an internet connection. If the firewall does not have internet connection, manually download the license key from Customer Support Portal and then upload it on the firewall
Moving on to the Second Scenario:
If the licenses are ALSO showing as expired in the Customer Support Portal, then the above methods do not apply. Customer will then have to check their support coverage period against their purchase order, whether it is time for a license renewal, this is when they have to reach out to their reseller or account manager for assistance.
John:
Good to know we can help customers through these scenarios. But what if a customer can't even open a case? How can we help them?
Can't Open a Case?
Daniel:
If you are experiencing network outage, Create a web case through the CSP. Set the severity as critical.
If you’d like to speak with the case owner, contact Support and enter the case number in the automated system.
If you are unable to create a login or access the Support Cases section of the CSP, you can create a case through the login assistance link which is accessible to everyone who has no support portal membership.
If you are unable to locate the product serial number, select the option to have Customer Service submit the technical case. Customer Service will then investigate and resolve the issue with the serial number.
Please note that New cases are not accepted via email, but once a case is created, email may be used to view and reply to case updates.
John:
Great Daniel, so can you summarize in a few key takeaways?
Episode Key Takeaways
Daniel:
To Sum up: The customer support team handles Administrative issues pertaining to license and the support portal.
There are a few ways to reach out to us for help (phone support, create a case via the support portal, and if the customer cannot log in to the portal, fret not, we have a login assistance form for them to fill in their concerns, without having to log in, a case will be created and routed to us).
For customers who prefer to have their queries resolved at any time of the day, I wish to remind again that we have an extensive knowledge base that comprises thousands of updated articles and technical knowledge contributed by our Technical Experts.
Simply input key words of your query into the search bar, located at the top right of the Customer Support Portal’s main page, and our intelligent search engine will provide you with articles and answers to your queries.
In our knowledge base, we have reader friendly articles that address some of the most common administrative issues that I have mentioned earlier such as:
- How To Create your Customer Support Portal User Account,
- How to Manage Users in Your Account (this is for super users when they want to edit the membership user roles for existing account members)
- How to Register a Palo Alto Networks Device and activate its licenses,
- How to reset your password and MFA (if you forget your credentials or have a change of handset.)
Basically, the turnaround time to resolve your query will definitely be reduced if you choose the self-help method by utilizing our knowledge base search engine.
John:
Daniel:
Thank you John! With that, I have come to the end of my first ever PANCast™. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or create a case and say Hi! NAHHHH I’m just kidding! Please do not do that! Otherwise it will hinder other customers from getting urgent support from us!
John:
Haha! Thanks again Daniel. PANCasters, as always, the transcript can be found at live.paloaltonetworks.com. Until next time …
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