Web Hosting Customer Service
Posted by lilsis2 on December 31, 2008
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.
