This is a new series of articles I’m going to be writing about buying web hosting from the inside. I have worked in the hosting industry for over 4 years and I have a lot to share with other webmasters when it comes to buying web hosting. I have primarily worked in sales, billing, and the abuse departments but I’ve always ended up doing a lot of technical work as well. If you have any questions about buying web hosting, you can leave comments or contact me directly and I’ll be happy to give you my insiders view on your questions.

The fist topic I’m going to cover is customer service. Customer service for a web hosting company covers a lot of areas including sales, billing, technical, and abuse departments. They also provide customer service through a lot of different mediums such as e-mail, tickets, live chat, and telephones. From the inside, customer service is the #1 thing to investigate and be 100% comfortable with. No matter who you host with, you will always need to contact your hosting company at one time or another. Get familiar with the methods on contacting your host and which departments will help you out the quickest.

Reliable customer service

A lot of articles on finding a web hosting company will tell you that server reliability is the main feature to look for in a hosting company. But I disagree coming from the inside. All servers, no matter who – even Google – will and do go down. The most important thing when this happens is being able to contact your technical support team and to have them actually respond to you. What is even better is if they are actively monitoring their servers and responding to any issues without you having to notify them.

Before signing up, ask them directly how to contact them when your server is down and what their response will be like. If a hosting company says, “Our servers don’t go down”, than you know you don’t want to host with them. If they don’t have a plan of action already in place and as I already pointed out, all servers go down, you might be in trouble when it happens.

Of course there is a level of server reliability that not even excellent customer service reliability can fix. If your servers are down more often than not, no matter their monitoring skills and ability to bring it back up, there is always a ratio between these 2 aspects that will help you determine if the service is worth staying with. I will discuss this in more detail in the next insiders guide.

How to test out their customer service

Another cliché in buying web hosting guides is to test the speed of the sales department. I can tell you this, that they are not the same thing. Answering a sales or billing question is not that complicated, probably why I love working in this department! The questions do not usually have multiple problems to troubleshoot in order to formulate an answer, as does a technical question.

The best way to test out the technical support team is to see if they have forums where their team members respond to or even inquiring with the sales department themselves about the technical support teams response guarantee. A lot of hosting companies have issued support team response guarantees outlining how long support should take to get back to you and who to contact if you are not getting helped.

Lets remember that technical minded folk are generally not as friendly as the sales department. This is not a knock on the tech guys, you know I love you. But they have a much more analytical mind and want to solve your problem, not necessarily get chatty with you.

What are the different contact options

Each hosting company offers you different types of contact methods and for each department, and may have a different schedule for each department too. This is certainly the biggest assumption that I have seen customers have, to assume that everything is 24 hours and that all options are available. Check directly with your new hosts to inquire what options they have and make sure they are the ones you need. If you want technical support phone assistance at 2 am in the morning, make sure it’s provided.

I want to point out that companies with no phone or live chat, are not necessarily less reliable than ones that do. E-mail and ticket support is all you need if they are responding to you in a timely and professional matter, as we covered this under “Reliable customer service”. You should only require phone or live chat options if that is what you need because these options are easier for you to communicate. I have had companies that offer the whole 9 yards in contact options, but did not answer their phone or live chat when I needed them to assist me.

Questions to ask your new hosting company

Before you buy web hosting with any company, it is best to contact them directly to get your questions answered especially if you can’t locate the answers on their website. Make sure to ask questions about anything you are unsure about, don’t assume the answers are the same as your last web host. Here are a few example questions you can ask them:

• What time are your sales, billing, and tech departments open?
• What type of support do you offer for your different departments – live chat, phone, e-mail?
• Do you have a support response guarantee?
• How long does it take for your support team to get back to me?
• How can I contact you when my server is down?
• Who can I contact if I am not receiving the support I need or want to provide feedback?
• Do you monitor your servers regularly and respond to issues in a timely matter?
• Do you have community customer forums?

The customer service options they provide should be one of the most important deciding factors for you. You need a line of communication between you and your hosting company in order to effectively run your website. Making sure they provide the right customer service for you will help you when there are problems and other issues that need to be resolved.

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