If you're a web hosting reseller and your clients can't access their accounts at 1AM on a Sunday morning, what do you do? You're at the mercy of your web host and if they're like many other hosting companies, your only way of contacting them is through some type of web based ticketing system. But what about your customers? Can they really afford to wait up to 24 hours for a response from your hosting company? Unfortunately, that's just the way it is with many web hosting companies these days. Even if you've signed up for a reseller hosting plan with your host, the only means of contact they provide is through some type of web based ticketing system or through email.
Sure it's a lot cheaper to simply provide some type of web based solution. And without a doubt these types of systems are critical to any web hosting business and in many cases are even a preferred way of providing technical support.
In some instances, a customer will have a simple login and password issue that would best be resolved by sending text directly to the customer. In other cases, the support request may not be an urgent one and the customer's request does not carry the urgency that phone support might require. Some type of email and web based support system is always a necessary part of any serious hosting operation.
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 do you do now? Sure, you can go ahead and submit a support ticket to your host and hope that someone will beat their 24 hour response time guarantee, but there you are dead in the water and at the mercy of some queue based ticketing system. Your hopes of a productive evening are out the window.
Or how about this example. What if one one of your clients is having some strange intermittent email issue that you're unable to diagnose and resolve on your own. You need to contact your host to figure this one out. So you submit a ticket describing the issue as best you can. Even in a best case scenario, where your host guarantees a response in under an hour, you get a reply back from the tech asking for the name of the POP account in question. You reply back with that info and 45 minutes later, the tech replies back asking for the IP address that your client is connecting from. You get the picture. Hours going back and forth with some overworked tech who's trying to resolve a dozen issues all at once right now. It could take all night before your issue finally gets resolved.
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.
Sure it's a lot cheaper to simply provide some type of web based solution. And without a doubt these types of systems are critical to any web hosting business and in many cases are even a preferred way of providing technical support.
In some instances, a customer will have a simple login and password issue that would best be resolved by sending text directly to the customer. In other cases, the support request may not be an urgent one and the customer's request does not carry the urgency that phone support might require. Some type of email and web based support system is always a necessary part of any serious hosting operation.
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 do you do now? Sure, you can go ahead and submit a support ticket to your host and hope that someone will beat their 24 hour response time guarantee, but there you are dead in the water and at the mercy of some queue based ticketing system. Your hopes of a productive evening are out the window.
Or how about this example. What if one one of your clients is having some strange intermittent email issue that you're unable to diagnose and resolve on your own. You need to contact your host to figure this one out. So you submit a ticket describing the issue as best you can. Even in a best case scenario, where your host guarantees a response in under an hour, you get a reply back from the tech asking for the name of the POP account in question. You reply back with that info and 45 minutes later, the tech replies back asking for the IP address that your client is connecting from. You get the picture. Hours going back and forth with some overworked tech who's trying to resolve a dozen issues all at once right now. It could take all night before your issue finally gets resolved.
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 since 1996, provides unlimited reseller hosting plans with toll free telephone tech support 24 hours a day.
