Web Hosting Support

A lot of the time on web hosting sites – you’re seeing almost the same thing everytime.  Same plans, same prices, same features, and the same control panel. What’s the difference between web hosts these days? Well…it’s pretty simple – Customer Support and Service.

So many web hosts are running cpanel web hosting control panel these days. It’s a great tool that makes it easy to run one of the best web hosting services for the lowest cost.  In fact, BlueHost and HostMonster use it exclusively. As does LunarPages, Globat, and many other top web hosting companies.  Free web hosting companies are also starting to use them.

What can you expect from a web hosting provider? Where is the customer support bar set? Well…it depends…most hosts are very large and do experience some wait times.  We have heard that some of the largest web hosting companies have up to 5000 customers for 1 support staff.  Then there were some newer companies that started in the last 3 years or so that are trying to lower that to the 2000-2500 customers per support staff member. 

These numbers may seem crazy, but it really is a numbers game. A lot depends on how fast the company is growing in users per day terms. If they are growing really fast they will need more support staff because most people call customer support in the first couple weeks a lot. Then they have their site up and don’t make too many changes once they have done so.  It’s all front loaded.

If you’re worried about hold times – a good idea might be to make sure your host will have toll free customer support lines and 24 hour support. These two items are good to have when you have a problem. It’s nice to get someone on the phone if you can’t sleep in the middle of the night and you decide to work on your website. 

Before you signup it might be a good idea to call the support lines and see what kind of system they have. They don’t ask any information upfront usually except where to direct your call – tech, billing, or sales. So you can choose the tech support and see just how long the wait time is once or twice before signing up. Then when they answer – ask yourself – Is this an acceptable amount of time to wait to get someone on the phone for potential questions?  Some hosts can wait times in excess of 30 minutes. 

Also – check around to see what kind of trouble ticket system and knowledgebase they have online. If it appears to be a high quality system they have probably invested a lot of time and money.  Then go to web hosting review sites and see what other users are saying about the host.

Good luck in finding your new web host.