We Are Held To A Higher Standard
Sometimes a "quick fix" won't cut it
The iMac I use for work died a fiery death yesterday afternoon. I got a ‘grey screen of death‘ and that was the end of that. After some tests, all signs were pointing to hardware failure so I grabbed the machine and headed up the road to the local Apple Store.
I showed up without an appointment and waited for about 40 minutes to sit with somebody. He was friendly and helpful. He told me that indeed it did appear to be hardware failure, and that they could take the computer and get it back to me, fixed, in 2 to 4 days. I was out of the store within an hour and a half, and I was thrilled with my overall customer experience.
And then I started thinking about the hosting industry, and how that perfectly acceptable customer experience would be utterly unacceptable in this environment.
Waiting for 40 minutes to talk to a tech? A solution in 2-4 days?!?!
Our customers wouldn’t stand for it!
This is in no way a criticism of Apple, who I am still pleased with. I simply want to acknowledge that the hosting Industry is held to a completely different standard than the rest of the computing Industry. We’re expected to have quick responses and even quicker solutions. We’re expected to have anything and everything at the ready to solve any problem, and to not make our customers wait.
Just like in the personal computing Industry, hosting hardware fails. Software fails. Things go wrong. Those of us who do hosting right are prepared to deal with that. We’ve proven it over the years. We compete against kids in their basements trying to undercut us on price, and a lot of them gain traction for awhile and then fall off the map when met with the challenges of real problems, because they are unprepared to be held to the high standard that is required from the stars of this Industry.
I regularly read a couple of the more popular hosting forums out there, and I have had fun over the years watching people list their ideas of who the ‘top hosting providers’ are. I am honored that we often get placed on that list. I have also noticed that every couple of years the people we share the list with tend to change. It’s hard to sustain great service in an Industry that expects you to be able to respond to anything in an instant. I’m proud we’ve been able to meet that higher standard for almost 15 years now, and I wouldn’t ask our clients to ask any less of us. These are people’s businesses we are managing – their livelihoods. We SHOULD be held to a higher standard.
I promise we’ll continue to rise to that challenge year after year, as other ‘top hosting providers’ come and go.
-Christian
Photo by netream.
Comments
3 Responses to “We Are Held To A Higher Standard”Speak Your Mind
Tell us what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!
Mara,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful post, and to be honest I agree with you that it’s not an apples to apples comparison. But my experience with Apple got me thinking about the idea of quick, responsive service, so I used my experience with them as a jumping off point to discuss the challenges of hosting, which you made some great additional points about. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the point where there is enough consumer education to allow people to regularly make wise decisions about who they host with, but as more people enter the industry my hope is that if they get burned by deals that are too good to be true they will pick themselves up and educate themselves about the differences between, as you said, the “shiny” and the “substance”. Thanks again for your contributions to this discussion!
With all due respect, it’s apples to oranges. I’m definitely a loyal and satisfied with ServInt as my NOC/Data Center/server provider, but providing web hosting has different needs than having a PC (or in this case an iMac) repaired, so I don’t feel it’s a valid comparison.
Not that I disagree with the point you”re making here, not by a long shot.
I try to let my own customers know that things do happen, nothing is 100%, so they can be prepared if/when there are issues. It’s always bothered me to see so many companies (some big companies, some fly-by-nighters) who claim 100% uptime, etc.
I’ve had things happen with ServInt. I’ve had techs make mistakes that caused 12 hours of downtime. I’ve had hardware fail and had 1.5 hours of downtime when I had 3 prospective clients trying to access the site. Some lesser experienced hosting providers might have cut-n-run at that point.
The thing is, though I wasn’t happy by any stretch, I know things happen. I’ve been providing hosting since 2003, and have more technical experience than many of your level I and II techs. Not bragging by any means, just stating a fact. This means that I could tell everything that could be done rectify the situation(s) was being done. And even your level I techs are a cut above the rest, on average.
Things happen with hardware (and cPanel/OS upgrades), there’s just no way around that. I always try to look at the big picture, and the customer support *overall* is aces.
The problem all of us in this industry have is, as you pointed out, competing with kids running servers in their basements, promising the moon. Those are the same “hosting providers” I see in the various tech support forums who ask “What is shell access?”
The problem is and perhaps always will be…many people don’t know what to look for in choosing a hosting provider. I try to educate my clients as much as possible, but some are always going to go for the “shiny” and not the “substance.” I try to impress on our clients the true test of any hosting provider is not if or when there’s a problem…it’s how it’s handled when a problem does arise.
In a “WE OFFER 100% UPTIME AND 100GB OF DISK SPACE FOR $2 A MONTH!” kind of world…it’s very refreshing to see you say “things happen, hardware fails”, out loud and in public, even. :) It’s that kind of honesty that keeps me a loyal ServInt client.
Great post, Christian. You’re right – we wouldn’t accept 40 minute wait times – and I guess that’s good news for you guys. I’ve left hosting companies for many reasons – but poor support was always involved in some way.
Thanks for being way above the rim! ;-)