Introduction

This customer handbook, comprising customer support information, policies, procedures and contact details, is a reference guide for all
customers. This booklet describes how to contact Intershop Customer Support when you need assistance, what will happen when you do and
what information you need to provide so that we can resolve your issue as quickly as possible.

Contact Customer Support

The following section lists the contact points you can use to get in touch with Intershop Customer Support.

Main Support Contact / Partner Administrator

You need to identify the main support contact / partner administrator in your company. The main support contact / partner administrator functions as the key contact point for issues you have logged with Intershop. Contact management of the company's own contacts in the Intershop Service Portal is a major area of responsibility.

Service Desk at Intershop Customer Support

The Intershop Service Desk receives all inquiries and can already answer some of them. In all other cases, requests are forwarded internally by the Service Desk to Technical Support or the TechOps team, where they are answered as quickly as possible. Problems/incidents with the standard software are directed to TechSupport, which is standard practice for regular customers and partners. If Intershop operates your website in a platform or managed service model, the TechOPS team may come into play.
You can submit your requests via our Intershop Service Portal or by phone:

https://service.intershop.com/

Customer Support Center, Europe

Monday-Friday from 09:00 to 17:00 CET/CEST
Phone number: +49 (3641) 501600

Feedback & Feature Wishes

For general feedback about the support department, the Intershop Service Portal or the Knowledge Base you can use our feedback form on https://knowledge.intershop.com/kb/. For support articles and tickets in the Service Portal, feedback can be submitted directly on the article. Every feedback is appreciated to constantly improve our services.

For a feature request please use the "contact support" button and open a case.

Support Newsletter

Intershop Communicatios AG offers a customer newsletter including a technical part called "TechTalk". It is published monthly and on special occasions. You are automatically registered for this unless you unsubscribe. The newsletter has important product information that may be necessary for your Intershop software.

The newsletter informs about:

1. Newly released Intershop product patches, updates and upgrades
2. New Intershop products, their functions, features, and additional modules
3. Intershop product life cycle status changes ("End of Life" or "End of Support" announcements)
4. Intershop Customer Support organizational news
5. Customer alerts whenever a security issue requires swift communication

Intershop Service Portal 

The Intershop Service Portal is your primary support tool and your personalized gateway to the case management system and the support article area used by our support staff. To access the Intershop Service Portal, you must first register at the site https://service.intershop.com/ with your individual AAD account.
Every registered user of the Service Portal has a dedicated login, consisting of an email address and a password. There are different types of users which get access to an increasing scope of content. Each contract may combine different users, and each of them may belong to one of the types:

For customers

Named contacts – can open cases

To ensure smooth technical communication, authorized contacts must be trained or certified by Intershop, meaning that each contact person has attended an Intershop standard training or has successfully passed a certification exam. Intershop allows to register up to 5 Named contacts. Additional contacts can be purchased.

Main contacts – can do the same as Named contacts plus to administrate Named and Verified contacts and the emergency contact list. In addition to Named contacts two Main contacts should be named. If you would like to change your Main contact list, please send your request to supportadmin@intershop.com.

Verified contacts – can read and comment cases and access to the knowledge portal. There is no limitation to the number of Verified contacts.

For Partners

Partner contacts – can open cases

To ensure smooth technical communication, authorized contacts must be trained or certified by Intershop, meaning that each contact person has attended an Intershop standard training or has successfully passed a certification exam.

Partner Administrators – can do the same as Partner contacts plus to administrate Partner contacts. In addition to Partner contacts two Partner Administrators should be named. If you would like to change your list of Partner Administrators, please send your request to supportadmin@intershop.com.

More information about using the Intershop service management portal can be read here: FAQ´s.

Customer Emergency Contact - Platform Customer only

Please name recipients for System Emergency information from your Operations Team at your contract page: https://service.intershop.com/ 

Registrations and updates can be made by a main contact, only. Please review and update the list of Emergency Contacts at your contract regularly.

Authorization of a development partner to access support cases of the end customer

All support requests are stored as a case in the end customer's context, regardless of the requester. In order for the partner to access the end customer's support cases, the end customer must authorize the partner. Authorization and deauthorization can be carried out by the end customer by opening a case via the "Contact support" button. The partner then has full access to the end customer's support cases. Please check the partner - end customer - relationship regularly.

Processing Support Requests

When a customer submits a request via the Intershop Service Portal, a case is automatically created including a case ID. Depending on which category was selected for the request (Database Service Request, DevOps Request, General, User Administration), the case is either classified as an incident (for technical problems) or a service request (for operational tasks or general questions about the ICM product) and you will receive a qualified response within one hour. For incidents, a support technician will attempt to reproduce the reported problem problem within a reasonable period of time. If Intershop can confirm the problem, Intershop will make reasonable efforts to find a solution.
Follow-up actions or additional information will always be sent by the customer as a "reply" to the corresponding case with case ID in order not to create another case. In case of queries about the problem, the status of the case can be retrieved using the case ID.

Irrespective of other agreements, incidents remain open until an Intershop support employee has finally resolved the case and the customer has closed the case. In case of inactivity (no response from the customer), the case will be closed after 4 weeks, unless there is an escalation. Here you will find a checklist for opening an Intershop customer support case. The elimination or rectification of a problem confirmed by Intershop is carried out at Intershop's discretion by supplying a fault-free software version, hotfix, patch or by determining a workaround (hereinafter referred to as "remedy"). If Intershop offers hotfixes to eliminate defects, the customer must accept them and install them in accordance with Intershop's installation instructions.

Submitting a request to the Operations team

The Operations team is responsible for topics like deployments, user management, IP whitelisting, mail configuration etc. or for general issues with the shop like the website being down or being slow (see also different webforms). Keep in mind that topics like Customization or the analysis of storefront functionality issues or backoffice errors are not within the responsibility of the Operations team and should be addressed to the Development Team instead (see also different webforms).
Before submitting a request please make sure to follow the specified process. For IP whitelisting or User management requests the request must come from an authorized person from the customer who has to document the changes on the respective confluence page before submitting the request. For managing your confluence access the responsive Service Manager should be consulted. For deployment requests the release manager should create an initial case, which includes the type of deployment, the desired date and time and expected special activities (ICM upgrade, new channel, etc.) within the lead time (1 week for full deployment, 3 days for Code deployment). There is a related Deployment Request form. Upon receiving confirmation of the date the release manager sends detailed instructions in a new case at least one day before the deployment.

As already mentioned, we have predefined webforms for above mentioned requests in our Service Portal tool:

Database Service Request

• Database Change: Direct changes at database level are only allowed in case of emergencies (for example, as a workaround until a critical bug can be fixed). 
• Database Data: Data requests are meant as means of selecting data from a database that cannot otherwise be retrieved on application level. Not suitable for repetitive requests. It is meant for emergency situations in which there exists no other way to get the needed data.

DevOps Request

• Deployment Request: Use this form to schedule deployments during Intershop's standard operating hours if Intershop's involvement is required. Apart from ICM deployments without additional steps for PWA and/or IOM, most deployment scenarios require the involvement of Intershop.
• Infrastructure Change: Use this form to submit a change request for your hosted systems. 

General

• Technical Support: Use this for every request which does not fit into any of the other categories.

Submitting a request to the TechSupport Team

Issues with the standard software can be submitted by using the webform "General". Those issues can be about assistance with configuration, maintenance or
software development or about the use of software features according to the documentation, use of the development tools offered by Intershop or use of the software application programming interfaces. Topics that standard support does not cover however are help using the software of third parties and developing new functions or adjustments within the software. Furthermore there is no support regarding problems that have been caused by using obsolete or unsupported software versions or by third systems or infrastructure as well as by using software without following the relevant documentation, system requirements, guidelines or recommended actions that were brought to the customer’s attention as part of the support services.
For submitting technical requests please make sure to provide the following information to ensure an efficient solution of the issue:

1. Intershop product and version
   2. Has this problem occurred before?
   3. What are the steps you went through before the problem occurred?
   4. Has the process for using the software changed?
   5. Did you get an error message? If yes, please include the exact error message.

Reaction Time

Generally, all inquiries and requests are processed during business hours in the order received and responded to within eight (8) business hours.
The reaction time is based on the relevant service level and starts once the question has been received by Intershop. The reaction time at Intershop
Customer Support is usually 8 business hours. The reaction time has been observed if Intershop has sent a qualified
response to the customer and begun working on the case within the reaction time. If the customer has opted for the additional service of “Response Time
Plus” or “Premium”, Intershop ensures an initial response as described in the following depending on the priority level. The following severity levels and reaction times have been defined:

Severity level 1 – Live system unavailable Server failure, live system unavailable Intershop reaction time: Less than one (1) business hour

Severity level 2 – Critical Error or problem that has caused a substantial disadvantage to business or could lead to server failure Intershop reaction time: Less than two (2) business hours

Severity level 3 – Normal Problem during production that is definitively caused by malfunction; a problem that negatively affects production in the long run, but does not lead to an immediate failure Intershop reaction time: Less than four (8) business hours

After-hours emergency support is available for cases with severity level 1: Live system unavailable.

Escalation Matrix

Customer escalations are linked to problems which cannot be solved adequately through the standard solution handling and engineering process because of the more demanding nature of the problem in terms
of communication and coordination requirements. Compared to a normal support request, a customer escalation receives more attention. By default, a customer escalation should always be communicated first in
the associated support case. Next, the Account Manager or Service Manager (SM) will take over. He or she takes care of the problem and is in close contact with the
responsible departments. He or she informs the customer transparently and in detail about the next steps. After successfully solving the problem, the customer escalation is closed again.