Enterprise Support Policies
This document aims to clearly define the standard support service level that Bitdefender will deliver to its world-wide enterprise customers by describing the processes that are performed when a request is submitted to Bitdefender technical support teams.
Roles and Responsibilities
There are currently two levels of technical support engineers working in Bitdefender Enterprise Support organization. Understanding which group you are talking to and what are their responsibilities will help you prioritize and choose the right level of support that you need.
Support Engineers Tier 1 are your first technical support while submitting a support ticket by phone or email.Their responsibilities include:
- Accurately understand your issue and log it in our ticketing tracking system with your contact details
- Offer a first resolution if the situation you are reporting is a known-issue or a how-to issue
- Create a support case with all the above information for troubleshooting tracking purposes
- Clearly communicate the support ticket id used to identify your case
- Update your account profile history and contact details (if required)
Support Engineers Tier 2 are the individuals who will offer technical support and guidance if the issue has been escalated from Tier 1. Their responsibilities include:
- Assess the reported technical support case from the customers’ environment perspective
- Analyze and resolve support cases, primarily using the e-mail, remote assistance and phone
- When needed, collaborates with the escalation engineer for bug fixing and outstanding product issues
Contact Information
Once you contact our support engineers, you will be assigned with a case id number which will be kept for the entire troubleshooting process. Note that our support engineers might request this ticket number (case ID) or any other previous case ID assigned.
The severity of the reported issue and the service levels of the support package that you purchase determine the speed and method of our response.
We provide direct technical support 24 hours per day and 7 days per week using English language for our customers and ensure that every customer gets the technical expertise they need, on-demand, by qualified technology and security experts.
Supported languages:
English, German, French and Romanian.
Main email address: [email protected]
Main phone numbers for Bitdefender Enterprise Support:
Australia (Monday-Sunday, 8:00 – 20:00 excluding bank holidays):
+61 1300 888 829
+61 3976 008 89
Canada (24/7 service):
+1 647 977 5827
+1 647 367 1846
Deutschland, Osterreich, Schweiz (Deutsch, Montag – Freitag 8:30 – 17:30 Uhr)
+49 2304 9993004
24/7 emergency line (English only): +49 2319 892 8011
France (Lundi – Jeudi de 9:30 à 12:30 et de 13:30 à 17:30, le vendredi de 9:30 à 12:30 et de 14:00 à 17:30)
+33 (0)1 84 07 06 60
United States (24/7 service):
+1 954 414 9621
+1 954 281 4669
United Kingdom (24/7):
+44 2036 080 456
+44 2080 991 687
World-wide (24/7 service):
+40 31 620 4235
+40 37 430 3035
Self Service
Bitdefender provides a variety of resources that can help you answer product questions and resolve some support issues without opening a support case. These resources include:
- Support Center:
- Documentação do Produto
- Troubleshooting and How-To Articles
Release Notes: Technical documentation of new product version features
Help & Support page. Click the Help & Support link from the product management console to access the documentation: installation & administration guides.
Bitdefender forum. Join Bitdefender community to connect with other customers and share solutions about Bitdefender products, post discussion and more at forum.bitdefender.com
E-learning portal. Bitdefender can provide on-demand enrolment to the Enterprise product technical training.
- Computer/Virtualization Security blogs:
Products covered, severity definitions and response time
Bitdefender Enterprise Support Products Coverage
Our engineers will offer assistance for following Bitdefender Enterprise Products (major and minor versions):
- Bitdefender GravityZone Enterprise
Bitdefender GravityZone Advanced Business Security (Cloud) – Security for AWS Module
For the above products, Enterprise Support will offer assistance on:
- Product overview
- Setup and deployment
- Maintenance and Malware
- Fixes and troubleshooting
- Reporting and monitoring
- Implementation of feature requests
Bitdefender Enterprise Support Severity Definitions
Severity level is a measure of the relative impact of an issue on your systems or business, depending of the Bitdefender installed product. Accurately defining the severity of your issue ensures a timely response and helps Bitdefender to understand the nature of your issue. Bitdefender Enterprise Support is defining the following severities:
Severity 1, Critical Business Impact (your business has stopped due to a Bitdefender product):
- System hangs or crash situations (BSOD, kernel panic)
- Most of your infrastructure is unprotected
- Management console fails to start
- The network is inoperative or the email flow has stopped
Severity 2, Major Business Impact (your business is severely impacted, but it can continue to operate)
- Product failure resulting in a significant loss of protection
- Loss of management to a significant portion of your infrastructure
- Product is not updated on a significant portion of your infrastructure
Severity 3, Minimal Business Impact (your business is not affected)
- Minor function/feature failure that you can easily circumvent or avoid.
- Symptoms affect isolated parts of your environment.
- Minor function/feature failure that you can easily circumvent or avoid.
- Symptoms affect isolated parts of your environment.
Severity 4, Trivial (your business is not affected)
- General requests for advice on product usage
- Clarification on product documentation or release notes
- Product enhancement request
Bitdefender Enterprise Support - Target Response Times
Bitdefender Enterprise support team evaluates each subimitted ticket based on ticket severity and technical support package. Based on this evaluation, the Bitdefender Enterprise support engineers will provide a response within the target service times outlined in the table below.
|
Bitdefender Support Entitlement |
Severity 1 (Critical) |
Severity 2 (Major) |
Severity 3 (Minor) |
Severity 4 (Trivial) |
|
Standard support* |
Within 4 hours |
Within 12 hours |
Within 24 hours |
Within 24 hours |
|
Silver support** |
Direct phone line, |
Within 8 hours |
Within 12 hours |
Within 12 hours |
|
Gold support** |
Direct phone line, |
Within 3 hours |
Within 4 hours |
Within 4 hours |
|
Custom support *** |
As defined in contract |
As defined in contract |
As defined in contract |
As defined in contract |
* Standard Support Package is included for Bitdefender customers who purchase a valid license for Bitdefender GravityZone Enterprise product or Bitdefender GravityZone Advanced Business Security (Cloud) – Security for AWS Module
** Premium support packages are currently available for purchase in Romania, Germany and US.
*** Custom Support Packages are currently available world-wide for purchase based on customer request.
Malware assistance
If you are experiencing strange behavior on your system or you find a suspicious file that may be malware, follow the steps from this KB article in order to submit to our engineers a BDSyslog from the affected machine. Make sure to provide us with the following information, so that we can fully understand the cause and provide you with a quick solution.
NOTE: This information will be used for malware analysis only and will be treated accordingly.
- Describe the suspicious behavior that led you to believe that your system is infected
- Upload a screenshot displaying the malware or the effects of the malware (if applicable)
- Update your Bitdefender software, run a Full System scan, and attach the scan log to your e-mail
Provide us with the BDSyslog report.
You can also now submit samples potentially infected samples by attaching the file(s) in an email to Bitdefender Enterprise Support team. The samples must be archived in a password-protected ZIP file with the password “infected”.
Customer eligibility criteria
- Have a valid Bitdefender Enterprise Product license or Enterprise Support Subscription.
Have the case ID and all the necessary information for a quick case submittal
Ticket Handling Policy
When a technical issue with a Bitdefender product arises, the Bitdefender Enterprise Support team is there to assist and offer the needed technical guidance. Whether you contact Bitdefender by phone or the web/product contact form, your support case will be promptly logged and your issue quickly assigned to the appropriate support level. The following sections detail the stages of a support ticket and explain general processes and procedures, during different ticket stages, after you have engaged in the troubleshooting process.
In order to have access to the Bitdefender Enterprise Support services you will need to:
Stage 0. Before you escalate a ticket to Bitdefender Enterprise Support Center
You should make sure that you own the following information before escalating or contacting Bitdefender engineers:
- Contact details for your IT staff (phone number, e-mail, preferred contact method)
- If you have another ticket opened with Bitdefender Support Center, include that number in your escalation
- Issue summary containing:
- Installed Bitdefender product version and number of affected endpoints
- Hypervisor type and version or Hypervisor-related products installed (if exists)
- Gathered support tools
- Detailed issue description and questions asked during the troubleshooting
- Steps taken to resolve the issue
- Estimated Business Impact
- End-user temperature (hot, warm, cold)
- The severity of the issue
- Suggestions as to the source of the issue
Stage 1. Escalating a ticket to Bitdefender Enterprise Support Center
Once stage 0 has been checked, you will need to proceed with the escalation process by registering a support ticket on the desired channel.
Submitting a support ticket via phone, chat or web-form
a) Submit a support ticket by phone: The Bitdefender Enterprise Support Tier 1 are staffed to answer phone support tickets live.
The Bitdefender Support Engineers Representatives are staffed to answer phone support tickets live .
On rare occasions, where the staff may be involved serving other customers, we might ask that you leave a detailed message including:
O Seu Nome
Your company name and Bitdefender affiliate level
Phone number where you can be reached or your pager number
Support Ticket ID (if the call is regarding an existing issue)
A brief description of the problem
After you work with our representatives to open a new support ticket, your request is assigned a support ticket id. The support ticket will be given to you over the phone or sent to you within one hour in a computer-generated message acknowledging receipt of your support ticket. Use this support ticket id number when communicating with Bitdefender about that specific issue. Initial response times by the TSP for critical, Severity 1 issues are less than 4 hours.
b) Submit a support ticket by chat: Bitdefender Support Engineers Representatives are available for our full range of products with qualified support training. Our engineers will try to assist you with the latest information available on our website if it’s a known issue. If the issue needs to be escalated, they will gather the necessary information accurately in order to make sure that the issue is well defined and assign it to a Bitdefender Enterprise Support Engineer Tier 2.
c) Submit a support ticket via Bitdefender website/product contact form: You will be able to submit a ticket directly to Bitdefender Enterprise Support by using the contact form from the support area of the website, and choose Contact Customer Care link. Or product management console, Help & Support section. The information submitted here has the same importance as per email or phone interaction for an efficient and fast resolution
In order to submit this ticket correctly, you will need to choose the following information from the drop-down menus:
The Bitdefender product that you or your customer is using
The troubleshooting category on which you want to integrate the reported issue
The operating system on which you or your customer encounter the situation
Your full name
Your contact / business email
Your country of residence
Issue summary containing:
Installed Bitdefender product version and number of affected endpoints
Hypervisor type and version or Hypervisor-related products installed (if exists)
Gathered support tools
Detailed issue description and questions asked during the troubleshooting
Steps taken to resolve the issue
Estimated Business Impact
End-user temperature (hot, warm, cold)
The severity of the issue
Suggestions as to the source of the issue
Bitdefender Support Tools / Print screens attached
After you submit this form to open a new support ticket, your request is assigned a support ticket id. The support ticket will be sent to you within one hour in a computer-generated message acknowledging receipt of your support ticket. Use this support ticket id number when communicating with Bitdefender about that specific issue. Initial response times by the TSP for critical, Severity 1 issues are less than 4 hours.
Stage 2. Working with the support tickets
A specific Bitdefender Enterprise Support engineer is assigned to your support ticket and owns your issue until it is mutually agreed that the support ticket can be closed. He or she will contact you by email and/or phone as appropriate during the resolution process. Your responsibility is to have the appropriate people and resources available to work with the Bitdefender Enterprise Support Tier 1 during the service hours defined in your support agreement. Typically, this would be during business hours, but could be 24/7 given the severity of the situation.
Occasionally, your support ticket may be reassigned from one engineer to another due to differences in time zones or if different product expertise is required. You will be informed if your support ticket needs to be reassigned.
A Bitdefender engineer works with you to try to resolve the issue, taking whatever steps are necessary to first fully diagnose the problem and then to find a solution. This may involve:
Asking you for more information regarding the ticket
Asking you to install specific software and/or patches
Asking for specific debug/investigation data from your system and, if necessary, conducting tests to generate this data.
Trying to reproduce the scenario on one of your available machines during a remote session.
Asking for your specific software to help reproduce the problem.
Verifying software bugs with our engineering staff.
Asking you to implement and test workaround suggestions that may avoid the problem.
Asking you to involve networking, database or other technology specific administrators to help troubleshoot.
Working with you to involve relevant third-party software or hardware vendors (for example, your operating system and database vendors) if a problem is suspected in their product)
Stage 3. Escalating a support ticket
Bitdefender support team always works to ensure that the appropriate resources and level of technical knowledge are applied to your ticket to assure a timely resolution. If you are not satisfied with the progress of your support ticket, you are encouraged to request an escalation. By invoking the escalation process, additional levels of Bitdefender management attention, procedure reinforcement, and resource prioritization are brought to bear on resolving your support ticket.
When and how do I escalate a Support Ticket?
You can escalate a support ticket at any time either by speaking directly with the technician assigned or by requesting to speak with an Escalation Engineer. It is highly recommend that you contact Bitdefender Support by phone for escalations. This will ensure that your request is directed to the appropriate resources as soon as possible to achieve a successful resolution.
NOTE: The severity level of a support ticket can be increased without an escalation if the business impact of a support ticket has changed or was not correctly recorded initially.
What steps do I take to escalate?
First, please review the details of your support ticket and verify the following:
Is the issue described correctly?
Does the support ticket accurately describe the business impact?
If you have received a workaround, is it impractical or inappropriate?
Is there a critical milestone date identified in the support ticket?
Once you have completed this review, contact the assigned technician for your support ticket, or call the above regional phone number and ask for the Escalation Engineer to trigger an escalation.
What happens once I request an escalation?
Once an escalation request has been made, the appropriate Escalation Engineer will evaluate the situation and determine the appropriate resources to assign and/or process correction to be made. A specialize Escalation Professional will be assigned as the primary point of contact for the issue and will coordinate with all parties involved to ensure an expedited resolution. The Escalation Engineer will set up a call with the appropriate parties to begin outlining the action plan and troubleshooting the situation. The Escalation Engineer will work with the primary Escalation Professional to ensure the appropriate resources, communication, and action plans are in place to expedite resolution.
How often can I expect updates on an escalation?
As the escalation is initiated, the Escalation Engineer will work with you to determine the appropriate
communication plan for this escalation. During this phase, agreements will be made on communication
mode (email, phone call, conference call), frequency, and required attendees for all updates.
How do I cancel the escalation process for a Support Ticket?
Once the support ticket is back on track and making acceptable progress toward resolution, it can be de-escalated. Before the support ticket is de-escalated, the Escalation Engineer will complete the following tasks:
Confirm the action plan is acceptable
Ensure the troubleshooting or root cause analysis process is on track
Stage 4. Support Ticket Closure
A support ticket is typically closed when you confirm that a resolution is reached, or if Bitdefender does not hear back from you after three attempts to contact you over a five-day period. Bitdefender may also close support tickets if they cannot be resolved, or are chosen not to be resolved, with acknowledgement and agreement from you or your end-user.
Customer Survey Policy
The support that Bitdefender currently offers and future of department quality are mostly based on feedback from customers around the world. In addition, your satisfaction with Bitdefender Enterprise support services is the only way our success is measured. As such, you are invited to complete a satisfaction survey after a support ticket or a remote session is closed. Each short survey sent by email will ask for your feedback in the following areas:
Customer service
Professional effectiveness, responsiveness and knowledge
Resolution time
Overall impression