As I've mentioned in past posts, one of the metrics I track every week at Carbonite is how satisfied our customers are with our customer support. Those of you who have interacted with our customer support team know that each interaction is followed by a short survey — that's how I get the data. Over the last 9 months we have made great strides and our "satisfied/very satisfied" numbers are now well above industry averages and still rising.

These improvements, along with the rock solid performance of our data centers, have lead to Carbonite being listed in the PC Pro Reliability and Service Award in the software category. The awards are judged via an open survey that asks PC users to express their views on hardware and software purchased over the last year. Those who are nominated are encouraged to promote voting with their customers in order to help the judges gain as much feedback as possible.

The PC Pro nomination comes on the heels of winning a Webware 100 award where we were voted up by thousands of readers.

If you'd like to participate, please click here to visit the survey. You can just click Next 4 times to get to the software page. Once you've voted and expressed other relevant feedback, you can either identify yourself or just skip to the end of the survey.

Thanks, we appreciate your support and recognition.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

A few months ago Carbonite introduced a new capability in customer support called "GoToAssist" and I wanted to say a few words about it.

Carbonite has three ways for you to get support: free email, free live chat, and Premium phone support, which costs $19.95 per year. Over the past three months, we have been carefully monitoring all three to determine which solves our customers' problems the fastest. The winner, surprisingly, is not phone, but Live Chat. In many cases, what really makes the difference is our GoToAssist capability. This feature lets our customer support reps actually look at your computer screen remotely, diagnose your problem and fix it. You don't have to sit there on the phone while the rep asks you to describe what you're seeing, and then tells you what buttons to push. He just does it himself.

We've been training all our people to use this capability, and we're now pretty much up to speed. Our objective is to keep wait times under 2 minutes, though it does vary at different times of the day. We're graduating a new class of support reps in May, so times should get even faster. I hope that by this Fall customer support answer times will be almost instantaneous. We've been spending a lot of money on systems that keep all our reps busy either answering emails, chats, or the phone.

Below is a letter that we got from one of our customers concerning her satisfaction with a GoToAssist session. This is the kind of outcome we strive for at all times.

“

Dear Mr. Robison,

I wanted to express my appreciation for Ulysses and his assistance with an ongoing problem in restoring Carbonite to our computer. After emails with clear instructions and then finally using the Citrix GoToAssist program, he was finally able to restore the program. It took him about 30 minutes in order to figure out the source of the problem, and then he remedied the problem.

Thank you for able assistants, and in particular for Ulysses.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Every so often I get a briefing from our operations staff on data center statistics. Last week, I learned one number that startled even me: as of Jan 20th, we had restored over 2 billion files for our customers. I assume that most of these files would have been lost if they had not had Carbonite. Also, Carbonite's restore process has been extremely reliable. You'd think with that many files being restored that there would be some that are lost or corrupt. While these kinds of problems occurred once in a while when we were young, it doesn't seem to happen anymore. The RAID disk arrays that we use to store your data are 36 million times more reliable than the hard drive in your computer. That's one reason that online backup is far more reliable than a cheap external hard drive.

But this reliability has not completely eliminated restore issues. Even though the Carbonite service works flawlessly, data restores are still an issue with Customer Support. There are basically three problems: First, some programs, notably Outlook and Quicken, don't automatically find the restored files. So it's not uncommon for us to get calls complaining that they did a restore and they didn't get their Outlook file back. It is in fact there on your computer, but you have to go into Outlook to connect to it.

The second problem is that Carbonite defaults to backing up your Documents and Settings folder, and all subfolders. If you stick files somewhere else, such as in your Programs folder, they won't get backed up unless you tell Carbonite to do so. This is true of any backup you do, whether online or using an external hard drive or flash drive. If you don't back up the file in the first place, you won't be able to restore it when your computer dies. That's why we put the little green dots on folders and files – it makes it easy to see what is backed up and what is not.

The third problem relates to restoring files that were backed up from an XP computer onto a new Vista computer. Vista and XP don't have the same folders. We came up with a very nice "wizard" that helps you decide how you want to migrate your old XP folders to your new Vista machine. If you have to do this kind of restore, use the wizard! Some people just ignore it and then their folders are all over the place and they can't find them. BTW, Carbonite is still the only backup service that has addressed this problem.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

In Carbonite’s Customer Support department, we answer thousands of questions each week, and many folks want to know the same things. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten questions we receive most often and the best (general) answers we can give. These answers are specific to Carbonite Version 3.5. (If you’re on an earlier version, log into your account and reinstall Carbonite to get the latest version.) Given the length of some of the answers, I have decided to turn this into a multi-part post. And so, without any further ado, here's part 3:

6. Can I back up my USB external drive? How about my network drive?

At present, Carbonite only backs up local, internal hard drives. It will not back up network drives, external drives, and NAS (network accessed storage) drives. In the near future, we will release a version of Carbonite that supports USB external drives.

7. Can I schedule Carbonite to back up just at certain times?

You sure can! Just double-click on the Carbonite Lock icon in your system tray by your computer’s clock) and select Set Options, and then click Backup Schedule. You can then select the desired times that you would like to back up, or the times that you would not like to back up. By default, Carbonite backs up your system automatically when you add or change files, so you don’t need to set up a schedule at all.

8. How can I view the progress of my backup in more detail than just the percent bar?

Carbonite’s History view can show you exactly which files have been backed up or restored. Hold down the right shift key on your keyboard while you click the Carbonite Lock icon, and select View History. Change the display type to Detail, and you can view a complete log of Carbonite’s backup and restore activity.

To be continued...

— Len

In Carbonite’s Customer Support department, we answer thousands of questions each week, and many folks want to know the same things. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten questions we receive most often and the best (general) answers we can give. These answers are specific to Carbonite Version 3.5. (If you’re on an earlier version, log into your account and reinstall Carbonite to get the latest version.) Given the length of some of the answers, I have decided to turn this into a multi-part post. And so, without any further ado, here's part 2:

3. If I delete a file from my computer, how long will Carbonite keep it in my backup?

As a backup program, Carbonite maintains a copy of each of the files that are on your computer. If you delete files, Carbonite marks those files for removal from the backup server. We know that folks sometimes delete the wrong file by accident and don’t notice right away, so we save the files you delete for thirty days before removing them. If you’re a trial customer, we’ll keep the file for 30 days or for 15 days after your trial has ended – whichever is shorter.

4. Is it really unlimited? No, seriously… How much can I back up?

Yes, it really IS unlimited - we don't limit how much data you can back up. Remember, the more you back up, the longer it will take, both to back up and to restore. Ultimately, practicality will determine just how much you should back up. Folks with hundreds of gigabytes of data really should consider a local backup solution, such as an external hard drive, for their less important files and use Carbonite to back up the most important items.

5. How do I restore just one file (or a few files)?

To restore individual items (rather than the entire computer), just open the Carbonite Backup Drive located within My Computer and browse to items you want to restore. Folders in the Carbonite Backup Drive are organized the same way as they were on your computer. Right-click the item or items you want to restore, and then select Restore.

To be continued...

— Len

In Carbonite’s Customer Support department, we answer thousands of questions each week, and many folks want to know the same things. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten questions we receive most often and the best (general) answers we can give. These answers are specific to Carbonite Version 3.5. (If you’re on an earlier version, log into your account and reinstall Carbonite to get the latest version.) Given the length of some of the answers, I have decided to turn this into a multi-part post. And so, without any further ado...

1. What operating systems does Carbonite support, and what new ones are planned for support in the future?

Right now, Carbonite runs on Windows XP and Windows Vista. We’re just a few months away from our Macintosh version’s release. We didn’t develop for nor test on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Small Business Server, but most folks using those operating systems run Carbonite just fine – we just recommend that you first install a trial, back some files up, and test restoring them to make sure that your Windows Server configuration is compatible with Carbonite. We’re working on a small business edition of Carbonite due for release later this year that will support some Windows Server operating systems. Carbonite doesn’t work on Windows 2000, versions of Windows prior to XP (such as Windows 98 or Windows ME), or Linux.

2. What do the different colored dots mean?

• A green dot on a file indicates that the file is selected for backup, and that the backup of that file is up-to-date.
• A yellow dot on a file indicates that the file is selected for backup, but is out-of-date and awaiting backup. (Note: the yellow dots look orange on some screens.)
• A green dot on a folder indicates that everything within that folder is selected for backup, and that the backups are up-to-date for all of the selected items within that folder.
• A yellow dot on a folder indicates that one or more items within that folder are selected for backup, but that the backup for one or more items within that folder is out-of-date and is awaiting backup.
• A green dot with a hole in the center (a "donut") on a folder indicates that not everything within that folder is selected for backup, but that the backups are up to date for all of the items that are selected for backup.
• No dot on a file means that the file is not selected for backup.
• No dot on a folder means that nothing within that folder (nor the folder itself) is selected for backup.

To be continued...

— Len