Web Hosting Customer Service

What kind of customer service can you expect from your web hosting company?

Almost every web hosting company will offer some form of email support system, a FAQ (frequently asked question), help pages, and some form of online tutorial program.  Even the FREE web hosting companies offer these types of service.  Keep in mind when using an email support system that it can take 24 hours to get your answer.  Most web hosting companies try to respond in much less than that but be prepared if they do not.  Most FREE services will not provide telephone service at all and if they do chances are it will be a long distance call and you may be on hold for a while, after all you are getting it for FREE, right? 

Once you start paying for web hosting services you should see a significant difference in customer service options.  Even many of the cheap web hosting companies will offer 24/7 toll free telephone support.  Not all of these companies use an in-house telephone support system which means your calls may be going to a paid call support center anywhere in the world.  But it is still a great help for a web hosting beginner.  Many companies are also finding 24/7 live chat support to be a very effective support method, and it saves them time and money as well.  Most people are becoming computer literate enough to make this a very viable solution.  Even my 70 yr. old mother loves to “chat” on instant message programs (granted I’m not sure I’d like to be the tech support on the other end…wink wink).

Knowledgebase and  ”open ticket” or “trouble ticket” are also popular forms of customer support.  Knowledge base is just like it sounds it is a compilation of useful web hosting knowledge that will hopefully help you resolve any issue you are having without needing to call someone.  Ticket systems allow you to send a message to customer support and typically you will get an auto-response email letting you know it has been received and a tracking number for you to refer to until your problem or issue is resolved. 

Several of the web hosting companies I have seen lately also offer “forums” and “blogs” to assist you.  The forums are not usually “official support” but they are a great place for customers to go for help from other users.  The web hosting company will usually have some of their staff also participate in forums to insure proper information is being exchanged.  The blog is typically a place where the web hosting company will post information on anything that may be going on with the company such as scheduled down times, hardware replacement, or network operations maintenance. 

Keep in mind, you usually get what you pay for.  Business web hosting is much different than a personal website.   If you are planning to build a complete retail business web site, complete with merchant services, shopping carts, shipping, and catalogs, I would recommend you use a larger web hosting company that offers  your own dedicated server and that has web designers you can pay a nominal fee to set up your store for you.  Unless you are really savvy to web design you are in for a real project without assistance from someone who is familiar with retail business web sites.

I must say that web hosting companies have many more customer service options than most industries I am aware of.  If you are thinking about building a web site or are maintaining a website you will want to consider what kind of customer service you can expect from your web hosting company.  There is little I find more frustrating than having computer issues and problems and feeling like I have no one to turn to for resolution to the problem.

Internet Success in 3 Steps

There are 3 basic things you need to remember when looking to build a successful website.

First is choose a domain name.  Not just any name though.  One that is unique to you or your company.  The easier it is to identify you with this site the more traffic you are going to get so keep it simple and make it easy to remember.  You can use all 26 letters of the alphabet, numbers0-9, and a hyphen (-) or a period (.).  No other symbols or characters are allowed.  You will also choose a top domain level for this address such as  .com, .net, .org, .info, .us, .biz, etc. 

Second, you will need to find a web hosting company.  There is a huge number of companies and packages available.  The secret is finding one that suites your needs.  Some of the things you can look at are:

Free Web Hosting

Shared Web Hosting

Dedicated Hosting

or Virtual Dedicated Server Hosting

If you are not sure what you need by researching some of these web hosting terms you should be able to determine which will work best for you.

And third, is to build and maintain your website.  Most web hosting companies will provide you with web site building tools or templates that will simplify this process. You will not have to be a webmaster or know all the HTML coding to make your site.  However, by going through some of the demo pages these web hosting companies have to offer you can educate your self a bit and know a little more about what to expect when building your site.  How much time and effort it takes to maintain your web site depends a lot on what type of site you build.  If you just have a personal site to keep friends and relatives informed on what you are doing or to upload pictures to share then it won’t be to difficult to maintain.  But, if you are going to set up a business web site with an on-line store, merchant services, product inventories, credit card services, and shipping it may take time and effort on your part. or you may want to pay someone to help you.  Many  of the web hosting companies have webmasters that will help you or will design it for you for a fee.

Best Free Web Hosting

A few tips on finding the best free web hosting company:

Customer Support.  At initial glance it would appear most web hosting companies offer 24/7 customer support.  But is that service free?  And is that via online communication, email, chat, telephone (but you pay for the call), or a toll free number? 

Capacity.  Depending on whether you are just building a small personal site or need a website to accommodate a retail business will depend on how important capacity is.  Some cheap web hosting companies offer unlimited where most free web hosting companies will have limits.

Extensibility.  Take a look at the possibility of growth.  If you see yourself adding or expanding to your website you will want to know if your web host company has the capability and if they have offers to suit your growing needs.

Functionality.  Uploading, downloading, maintenance, and features.  Find out what capabilities you will have in uploading and downloading files, how the maintenance works and how difficult it is to use, and what features will help you build and maintain your site ie.  site builders, templates, and/or control panels etc…

Downtime.  There is no such thing as a server that is 100% reliable and will never ever be down but most reputable web hosts will be in the upper 90%’s in uptime.

Disadvantages of Free Web Hosting

You should never want to “look a gift horse in the mouth” (as my mother would say) but let’s face it, when you are considering putting up a website certainly you want it to do something for you.  If are considering using a free web hosting service then you should know what you are getting for free, right? You need to know if your website is going to be able to provide for your individual needs. 

So, with that being said let’s take a look at a few of the disadvantages of free web hosting.  First, you may get little to no support.  If you need assistance with your website you may need to call them on your dime.  Second, you will be using a shared server with many other free users, which are not always the most reliable.  Third, you will not be given as many options in your package.  And at last, you will have ad banners on your website.  This is the way free web hosting companies are able to do this for thier customers for FREE.

Benefits of a Free Web hosting Company

I have often wondered how I could benefit from a free web hosting service so I recently did some checking.

#1 IT’S FREE!!!  There is really truly no cost to you.  Most of them will provide you with a subdomain for your website at zero cost.  A few of them even allow you FTP access which allows you to upload pages you have already created in another program straight to that page.

You have heard the old adage “nothing in life is free” and be questioning how on earth free web hosting companies are able to provide truly free web space.  I mean really, they have to be making money somewhere, right? Nobody can stay in business for free.  Because of the skeptic I am, I recently checked into this and found out that by placing ads within their websites as well as your they are able to get their money from the advertisements attached to the sites.  So other advertisers that you never have to contact or deal with are allowing you the opportunity to have a free website on their dime. Sweet!  They even have sites that will review the different web hosting companies for you.

The great thing is you can have a website for yourself or your company without knowing a thing about HTML coding, web design, domain names, or even how your site is created.  They will provide you with free tools called “sitebuiders” that are very easy to use.  There are many great free web hosting companies to choose from.  All you have to do is sign up with one of them, gather up your information, put that information into a sitebuilder and badabing badaboom you now have a free website!!