subject: What to Look For in Customer Service For Web Hosting [print this page] So many times when people look for web hosting the first thing they will consider is the monthly price of the web hosting service and they often overlook how good the customer service of that web hosting company is. This can be a costly mistake as a poor customer service department will have you pulling your hair out if your website experiences any problems; which it inevitably will. With so many web hosting companies vying for your business these days, what exactly should you look for in the customer service department?
Just the fact that the web hosting company you are considering has a customer service department does not mean it will be a good one. Here is what to look for in a customer service department no matter what company you are considering:
Availability: There are many web hosting companies that will only have their customer service department open from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday. While that is great for a bank, it is lousy for a web hosting service. Websites can go down at any time, day or night, and they can also go down on the weekends as well. If your website goes down at 5:45 pm on Friday, it will be down all weekend if you can't reach customer service. This will obviously cost you money as you can't make money when your website is down and the savings you may have on a monthly basis suddenly aren't so great.
Type: Even if the web hosting company advertises 24/7 support you need to know what that support entails. If it is e-mail support then you are not likely to get a response for a day or two and again your site will have to live with any problems it is experiencing in the interim. You will want to go with a web hosting company that has 24/7 support and actually uses live people. Automated phone services are better than e-mail, but can be just as frustrating. At the very least you will want to be sure that the web hosting company you are looking at has 24/7 live chat with customer service representatives.
Knowledge: You should try to determine how knowledgeable the customer service team is for the web hosting company you are considering. If the customer support people simply read from a script and then pass you from department to department then you will have many frustrations ahead. Make sure you find a web hosting company that has a tech savvy customer support team.
No matter what you pay for web hosting your website will run into snags every now and then. If you are working with a web hosting company that is sub-par at best in the customer service department then you will constantly lose money every time your site encounters problems. But, if you take the time to do your homework you will be able to find a web hosting company with service that is second to none and has a price that will still fit well into your budget.
What to Look For in Customer Service For Web Hosting
