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Why most hosting providers support ticket systems allow text only (no formatting)? [closed]
Closed as off topic by Alexei on May 15, 2021 at 18:48
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Through the years I have "tasted" several website hosting companies; none of them had Markdown available in their support-ticket-systems (if all any formatting method available).
Why is it? What's so problematic for hosting providers to let their customers comfortably format their support tickets (which is extremely important in cases of complicated problems and can save time and energy for both sides)?
Is there some information security reason for such a support-ticket-system development paradigm?
1 answer
TL;DR Simply not necessary
Markdown, and other methods of formatting (Word or similar documents, HTML/CSS, Latex, etc.) are used where the document is the product. In this case, the support ticket system is purely a means to an end.
- The messages are "just the facts" and meant to be read only one time.
- Formatting to add emphasis is not needed - every support ticket is urgent in the eyes of the sender.
- Formatting to handle long documents is not needed - support tickets are usually, and almost always should be, very short.
- There is no training or long-term usage - a user might submit a ticket a year per web site or even much less than that, so any special formatting would likely get forgotten in between uses.
- Users may be experienced with Markdown, or they may be pure System Administrators who have no experience with it at all.
- While customers may pick a hosting company (or other provider) based on quality of the support, they generally won't know the details of the support ticket system (except to know whether it is primarily phone, email or web form based) before they purchase hosting services, so it is not a selling point. I really can't imagine switching hosting companies because "We support Markdown in our tickets!", when what I really want is a hosting company (and I found one) where the tickets are rarely needed and when they are needed, they are handled quickly.
In short, there is little benefit to users or the support staff, so why add this feature.
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