If you're a web hosting reseller and you've ever had a flood of support requests from your clients at 1AM on a Sunday morning because a server is down, you know how awful that feeling is when you can't reach your hosting company to resolve the issue. Your only recourse is to submit a support ticket and wait (sometimes up to 24 hours) for a response. Meanwhile your customers are growing angrier by the minute and there's nothing you can do. Unfortunately, that's the way a great many web hosting companies function as it has become an acceptable way of providing technical support to web hosting customers, even those who've signed up for reseller hosting plans.
In order to cut costs, many web hosting companies rely only on some type of web based ticketing or email based support system. Don't get me wrong, these types of web based and email based technical support tracking systems are essential and in many cases a preferred method of providing technical support to a web hosting customer.
In some cases, a client may simply need a password reminder or need help with a piece of code that's best served by sending actual text to the client. Also there are some cases where the support request is simply not that urgent and the client can afford to wait up to 24 hours for a reply.
But let's get back to 1Am on Sunday morning again. Let's say like many web designers, coders and programmers, you like to work late into the night and that's the time you finally have to sit down and bang out some much needed work on your new site. You make yourself a cup of coffee and fire up your browser only to see some dreaded error, telling you your site is unreachable.
What recourse do you have? Well. you can submit a support ticket like your supposed to and pray that someone will be there to answer your plea right away. But really, you're at the mercy of your hosting company and their queue based ticketing system. Looks like it's going to be a long and frustrating night.
How about this scenario. One of your clients is intermittently getting booted from the FTP server. You've banged your head against the wall, but you can't seem to resolve it on your own and you need help from your hosting company. You submit a ticket describing the issue as best you can and wait for a reply. Even with a company that guarantees a response in under an hour, you wait. Finally you get a reply asking fro the IP of your client. You send that back to the tech. 45 minutes later he replies asking if your client has any Firewall set up. You reply back that he does not. And so on and so on into the wee hours of the morning it goes. It could be all night before this simple issue is finally resolved for your client.
Imagine now, the same scenario, but instead of using the ticketing system, you can just pick up the phone at any time of the day or night and reach your hosting company's tech support department via a toll free 800 number. Within a matter of minutes, you've explained the situation in detail to the tech and he has offered a solution. Your customer is back in business and you can get on with your life. It's a beautiful thing.
While a web based ticketing system is an important aspect of any hosting company's technical support department, providing 24 hour access to a toll free 800 number is just as important. If your customers rely on you for their online presence, then access to 24 hour toll free phone support is absolutely critical.
In order to cut costs, many web hosting companies rely only on some type of web based ticketing or email based support system. Don't get me wrong, these types of web based and email based technical support tracking systems are essential and in many cases a preferred method of providing technical support to a web hosting customer.
In some cases, a client may simply need a password reminder or need help with a piece of code that's best served by sending actual text to the client. Also there are some cases where the support request is simply not that urgent and the client can afford to wait up to 24 hours for a reply.
But let's get back to 1Am on Sunday morning again. Let's say like many web designers, coders and programmers, you like to work late into the night and that's the time you finally have to sit down and bang out some much needed work on your new site. You make yourself a cup of coffee and fire up your browser only to see some dreaded error, telling you your site is unreachable.
What recourse do you have? Well. you can submit a support ticket like your supposed to and pray that someone will be there to answer your plea right away. But really, you're at the mercy of your hosting company and their queue based ticketing system. Looks like it's going to be a long and frustrating night.
How about this scenario. One of your clients is intermittently getting booted from the FTP server. You've banged your head against the wall, but you can't seem to resolve it on your own and you need help from your hosting company. You submit a ticket describing the issue as best you can and wait for a reply. Even with a company that guarantees a response in under an hour, you wait. Finally you get a reply asking fro the IP of your client. You send that back to the tech. 45 minutes later he replies asking if your client has any Firewall set up. You reply back that he does not. And so on and so on into the wee hours of the morning it goes. It could be all night before this simple issue is finally resolved for your client.
Imagine now, the same scenario, but instead of using the ticketing system, you can just pick up the phone at any time of the day or night and reach your hosting company's tech support department via a toll free 800 number. Within a matter of minutes, you've explained the situation in detail to the tech and he has offered a solution. Your customer is back in business and you can get on with your life. It's a beautiful thing.
While a web based ticketing system is an important aspect of any hosting company's technical support department, providing 24 hour access to a toll free 800 number is just as important. If your customers rely on you for their online presence, then access to 24 hour toll free phone support is absolutely critical.
About the Author:
Rich Brodsky, owner of 1Host Web Hosting for over a decade, offers unlimited reseller hosting packages with toll free phone support 24 hours a day.
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