Does Your Hosting Suck? Couple Lessions I've Recently Learned!
Hello Warriors, (the names will be left out to protect the innocent 
)
So this morning I woke up again to another dead server. Let me get one thing clear.. there is nothing that pisses me off more than having my sites offline. Seriously, it just enrages me.. secondly bad customer service, thirdly (if that is a word) customer service that has no clue what the hell is going on, and lastly customer service that you can not understand and beats around the bush!
If this thread helps just one person, i've done my job.
About me. We own a hosting co. with very high end dedicated servers and hundreds of sites. All names will be left out because im not here to sell anybody. This one server costs us around $3600/yr.
We recently changed from one hosting co. to another hosting co. for one of our dedicated servers. The hosting co. we were with was perfect for 3 years, but the new server that we bought from new co.#2 was far superior. Basically comparing a ferrari to an old ford truck so we went with it.
First 2 months, no real problems, we did all the optimizing and management on the server so again alot of techy stuff, but no biggie. This week server has been down 2 times in 3 days. Our contact via live chat with the hosting guy the other day basically took about an hour to have the guy reset the server after all the B>S> beating around the bush. Login, reset server, done... not hard Mr. Customer Support Guy.
Next day... Fine.. No problems..
Today, again server down. Customer support guy tries all the same B>S> chit chat crap that the guy the other day did. We just got straight to the point and told him, we went through this the other day, Customer service rep. XX just reset it for us.
He still wants to beat around the bush, put in a support ticket, you need to do this and that.... final comment (ok, what ever guy) thinking he basically had no clue what was going on.
Next step: Call the company. Well, we should have seen this coming when we could barely understand the automated voice on the phone telling us to push #9 for english.. (Oh no here we go)
Customer Service rep answers: (Again we have no problem with a person who speaks broken english, but WTF was this guy talking about)::
and I "quote" and type to the best of my ability on what this guy said:
Us: Hello our servers are down again, can you reset them, a ticket is already open, we talked to your online support with no avail, can you get it reset for us?"
Rep: "uuummm.....sssiiirrr.. uummm....yezzzz.. I see... umm... they are on yrrr... ummm.... yessss.... umm..... No... You have to... yesszzz... we are working on it."
Us: Can you just reboot the server or smart layer so the server can get back online and we can get our 270 sites back online.
Rep: "well........ uumm....... hhmmm........"
Us: We would just do it in our back office but our back office has been going to just a grey screen when we login. Has anything been changed in the last few days. We have had no problems for months now it is down and we can not see anything or have any control on rebooting.
Rep: Well I can assure you sir, ....ummm... nothing has been changed in along time... it is your servers.
Us: It is on your hub page on your server for your co. that we can not access it has nothing to do with our servers. It is your site.
Rep: "Umm.....No .. I Not sure why ...hhmm...."
Us: Hang up... (sorry we hate stupidity) especially on a multimillion dollar company. (Your reps are a direct impression on your company people. Spend a few bucks and train them!!)
So we are now waiting for the server to get back online because they think they have to do some major investigation on the server in which they are probably going to try to charge us a $75/hr service charge which they can stick right up their rumps...
We checked their blog and yes, the back office has been having problems on their site and has been fixed and debugged around 11 times in the last 7 weeks (which their customer rep had no clue about) and we told them there was a problem 12 weeks ago and they told us to update our browser.
Remember warriors It is always your fault, never the companies :confused:
Even a 20 year vet like myself with literally thousands of sites under my belt is no match for a rep. of these companies. It is always our fault. (giving a little compassion I understand what these people have to deal with also)
SO:::::::::::::::::::: What are we going to learn out of all of this:
#1 - If you have a good hosting company. Stick with them.
#2 - If you have multiple sites. Diversify. Stick your main ones on 1, 2, or 3 different server plans from multiple hosting co.'s if necessary. That way they all can not all go down at the same time.
#3 - Call the hosting co. in advance before you buy any services to see what kind of person is on the other end. Ask a few simple questions.
#4 - Do your research before buying any hosting plan. Search the Warrior forum threads to see what other people have experienced.
#5 - If you own a hosting co. or any business - My gosh people spend a few bucks to train your reps. Your reps are a direct reflection of you and your business.
Hopefully this helps a few people. Sorry to rant and rave.
Why not tell other warriors about your experiences below on this thread and let us know what your experience has been - Good and Bad.
Have a wonderful day:rolleyes:
Thanks
)So this morning I woke up again to another dead server. Let me get one thing clear.. there is nothing that pisses me off more than having my sites offline. Seriously, it just enrages me.. secondly bad customer service, thirdly (if that is a word) customer service that has no clue what the hell is going on, and lastly customer service that you can not understand and beats around the bush!
If this thread helps just one person, i've done my job.
About me. We own a hosting co. with very high end dedicated servers and hundreds of sites. All names will be left out because im not here to sell anybody. This one server costs us around $3600/yr.
We recently changed from one hosting co. to another hosting co. for one of our dedicated servers. The hosting co. we were with was perfect for 3 years, but the new server that we bought from new co.#2 was far superior. Basically comparing a ferrari to an old ford truck so we went with it.
First 2 months, no real problems, we did all the optimizing and management on the server so again alot of techy stuff, but no biggie. This week server has been down 2 times in 3 days. Our contact via live chat with the hosting guy the other day basically took about an hour to have the guy reset the server after all the B>S> beating around the bush. Login, reset server, done... not hard Mr. Customer Support Guy.
Next day... Fine.. No problems..
Today, again server down. Customer support guy tries all the same B>S> chit chat crap that the guy the other day did. We just got straight to the point and told him, we went through this the other day, Customer service rep. XX just reset it for us.
He still wants to beat around the bush, put in a support ticket, you need to do this and that.... final comment (ok, what ever guy) thinking he basically had no clue what was going on.
Next step: Call the company. Well, we should have seen this coming when we could barely understand the automated voice on the phone telling us to push #9 for english.. (Oh no here we go)
Customer Service rep answers: (Again we have no problem with a person who speaks broken english, but WTF was this guy talking about)::
and I "quote" and type to the best of my ability on what this guy said:
Us: Hello our servers are down again, can you reset them, a ticket is already open, we talked to your online support with no avail, can you get it reset for us?"
Rep: "uuummm.....sssiiirrr.. uummm....yezzzz.. I see... umm... they are on yrrr... ummm.... yessss.... umm..... No... You have to... yesszzz... we are working on it."
Us: Can you just reboot the server or smart layer so the server can get back online and we can get our 270 sites back online.
Rep: "well........ uumm....... hhmmm........"
Us: We would just do it in our back office but our back office has been going to just a grey screen when we login. Has anything been changed in the last few days. We have had no problems for months now it is down and we can not see anything or have any control on rebooting.
Rep: Well I can assure you sir, ....ummm... nothing has been changed in along time... it is your servers.
Us: It is on your hub page on your server for your co. that we can not access it has nothing to do with our servers. It is your site.
Rep: "Umm.....No .. I Not sure why ...hhmm...."
Us: Hang up... (sorry we hate stupidity) especially on a multimillion dollar company. (Your reps are a direct impression on your company people. Spend a few bucks and train them!!)
So we are now waiting for the server to get back online because they think they have to do some major investigation on the server in which they are probably going to try to charge us a $75/hr service charge which they can stick right up their rumps...
We checked their blog and yes, the back office has been having problems on their site and has been fixed and debugged around 11 times in the last 7 weeks (which their customer rep had no clue about) and we told them there was a problem 12 weeks ago and they told us to update our browser.
Remember warriors It is always your fault, never the companies :confused:
Even a 20 year vet like myself with literally thousands of sites under my belt is no match for a rep. of these companies. It is always our fault. (giving a little compassion I understand what these people have to deal with also)
SO:::::::::::::::::::: What are we going to learn out of all of this:
#1 - If you have a good hosting company. Stick with them.
#2 - If you have multiple sites. Diversify. Stick your main ones on 1, 2, or 3 different server plans from multiple hosting co.'s if necessary. That way they all can not all go down at the same time.
#3 - Call the hosting co. in advance before you buy any services to see what kind of person is on the other end. Ask a few simple questions.
#4 - Do your research before buying any hosting plan. Search the Warrior forum threads to see what other people have experienced.
#5 - If you own a hosting co. or any business - My gosh people spend a few bucks to train your reps. Your reps are a direct reflection of you and your business.
Hopefully this helps a few people. Sorry to rant and rave.
Why not tell other warriors about your experiences below on this thread and let us know what your experience has been - Good and Bad.
Have a wonderful day:rolleyes:
Thanks
You don't want to click here --> Richard Arblaster
Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.