Customer Service Series, Part 5: Exceeding Customer Expectations is Stupid
I just got done reading an excellent blog post by Dan Palotta on the Harvard Business Review site. It’s called “I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore,” and if you’re a lover of words — by which I mean, if you love words enough to care about them and hate seeing them being abused — you’ll definitely want to give it a read.
There was a lot of gold in Dan’s post, but the section that resonated most with me was the following:
Another term that has lost its meaning is “Let’s exceed the customer’s expectations.” Employees who hear it just leave the pep rally, inhabit some kind of temporary dazed intensity, and then go back to doing things exactly the way they did before the speech. Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer’s expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a Hilton a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.” The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do. My expectation is not to have signs around that tell me you want to exceed my expectations.
I admit that the marketing function, of which I am the titular head around these parts, only has a tangential relationship with the process of delivering “customer service.” But there is one area where we have a measurable impact on the customer experience, and that’s in the area of the things we say and the words we use to say them. Read more
Running out of CPU: Troubleshooting Slow Servers and Knowing When to Upgrade
Choosing the right size server package—and choosing a package that can be scaled easily—are important decisions in any hosting purchase. Simply buying a server with enough CPU, RAM, I/O and disk space may not be enough for customers anticipating future growth or spikes in traffic. And upping the size and cost of a server package during (or even before) a traffic spike may not always be the smartest use of a company’s money and time.
A website on a fast server on a fast network is going to be fast until the server runs out of something: CPU, RAM or I/O, or something at the software resource level like inodes. The places within your hosting infrastructure where resources are depleted first are your “bottlenecks.”
But server specifications don’t cause the bottleneck. They are simply the place where a theoretical limit collides with a real-world application. The following is a list of the five areas of interaction that can lead to a slow-down in service:
Read more
Customer Service Series, Part 4: Customer Service as Customer Outreach
Most customer service in web hosting is a reactive business. Departments train up staff and wait for the calls and tickets to come in. But as our Director of Managed Services, Jim Tricarico, said in a recent blog post, there is more to customer service than simply customer support. At ServInt, we believe that proactive customer outreach is an integral part of customer service.
Excellent customer service doesn’t just cover technical issues or sales inquiries. It extends out to billing questions, partner programs, product information inquiries, and all points in between. And the only way to accomplish this is with a proactive customer outreach program.
As ServInt’s Customer Relationship Manager, it’s my job to oversee the customer interactions beyond sales and tech support. My goal is simple: to let customers know we care about them and their quality of service, and to let them know that we’re here to listen.
In order to create a warm, family-like environment in my interaction with customers, I make sure to keep a few things in mind:
Lauren’s Guide to Customer Outreach
- Create an open door feeling for customers. No question is a dumb question! Establishing that with our customers is very important. I want them to feel like they can pick up the phone or shoot me an email any time, regardless of the issue. Making sure our customers feel comfortable allows us to quickly open the lines of communication and create an open dialogue.
- Stay away from canned or generic responses. Customer outreach, by its very nature, deals with highly specific concerns. Crafting an organic response for each concern shows customers that you made time for them, you care about getting them the correct information, and that you will touch on every single point of their question.
- Pick up the phone vs. replying by email. A phone call goes a long way. Of course, not all circumstances warrant a phone call. And technical issues are typically better communicated through written means. But when building customer relationships, a phone call sure is a nice gesture and should be used on more difficult issues. Picking up the phone shows the customer that we really are human and don’t just exist in cyber world. Also, talking on the phone can help clear up any confusion that could arise from emailing messages back and forth.
- Recognize the customer as a person. They should never just be looked at as a billable unit. Customer appreciation results in customer satisfaction.
- Don’t be afraid to ask the customer for help. I’ve had many conversations with our customers where I’ve actually turned the tables and asked them questions. Ask them about their industry, about their specific needs for your products. More often than not, people love to share insights into their areas of expertise.
- Always show compassion towards the customer. Showing them that you care will go a long way. Being able to understand and relate to the customer will build trust and loyalty.
- Customer outreach is a means of increasing customer “stickiness”, but it is not a Sales or Marketing Function. Focus on building relationships, not on an endgame.
Customer Service in Hosting, Part 3: Customer Support From the Inside
As part of my role in Engineering, I’m the guy who ends up with all the next-to-impossible support requests. It may surprise you to learn that what makes these problems hard to fix often has little to do with the actual situation at hand. The biggest “technical challenge” I find is almost always insufficient data. And insufficient data usually stems from not being able to clearly understand from the customer what the problem is.
On behalf of customer support technicians everywhere, here are some tips to make sure that you always get the best possible help from your support team, in any company: Read more
The Power of Social Media, or Do You Give a $#!% About Your Web Host?
If you follow ServInt on Twitter, you may have noticed a strange surge in profanity-laced tweeting coming from us and many of your fellow customers—and you may have wondered, what the $%#@! is going on here?
The honest answer is, we’re not entirely sure yet.
Let me explain. About a month ago, I was in a meeting with the ServInt Marketing team, discussing the fact that—while we have a relatively high proportion of customers who will shout from the mountaintops about how much they love us (thanks, guys!)—the vast majority of our customers are silent throughout the length of their stay with us as customers.
This topic was top of mind for us because we were in the process of designing a full-time staff position dedicated to customer outreach and relationship management, and we were frankly wondering how useful such a position would be if, in fact, people didn’t really want to engage with their web host unless something went wrong.
In any case, as we sat there contemplating the depressing possibility that our customers might actually see hosting like they see the electric company (i.e.: the only time you think about the electric company is when the lights go out) somebody blurted out: “What we really need to know is, does anybody actually give a $#!% about their web host?” There was a burst of laughter, but in the silence that followed somebody said, “We should just ask them.”
Customer Service in Hosting, Part 2: The Scope of “Support”
In the world of hosting customer support, “supported software and applications” is a phrase on the minds of many potential—and current—customers. Does my host support the software I am running on my server? Will they help me if it’s not working?
Truly supporting applications doesn’t simply mean supporting the software itself, though. It means managing the complex interaction between disparate software. This is way more important than any simple list of software that a web host can back away from in a pinch.
Let me give you an example: A lot of our customers use WordPress. At our suggestion, many of them install a caching plugin such as WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache. Caching engines basically optimize server requests—decreasing the time it takes a page to load—on websites high in dynamic content by serving up flat data that looks dynamic. In our example, the client is running WordPress with WP Super Cache installed. So far, so good!
A few months after initial setup, the customer sees his traffic increasing, slowing down the server. He reads independently about the benefits of the PHP caching software APC and installs it himself. Not only does the site not get any faster, but it is now throwing up fatal errors left and right. So what happened?
In this case, the client didn’t realize that the default configuration for WP Super Cache does not interact with APC. He needed to configure both of these caching engines to work together. Also, months ago, he was worried about his PHP code being stolen so he installed Zend Optimizer, not knowing that APC and Zend Optimizer are completely incompatible. We’re now talking about the interaction of four pieces of software and how they work together and against one another on a server.
So: what’s ServInt’s responsibility here? Who “owns” the problem?
Customer Service in Hosting, Part 1: the Expectation of Service
Editor’s Note: With this post, our Director of Managed Services, Jim Tricarico, kicks off a three-part series on customer service in the hosting industry with a post about customer service from the hosting side. Check back in coming weeks for posts on the meaning of “supported” software and applications and the five things to always remember when submitting a support ticket.
Customer service is a tricky thing. Customers often judge the quality of care they receive based on how little they interact with a service representative. They often think that the quicker their problem is resolved, the better care they must be receiving—and, conversely, that they must be experiencing bad customer service when it takes more than a few hours to bring up a site that has gone down.
The truth may surprise you: often it’s the calls that take hours—or even days—that show you when your customer service team is giving you the best they possibly can. Let me explain, and in the process maybe shed a little light on how customer service in the hosting industry works.
To begin with, here’s a hard truth: sometimes our customers’ problems are so far outside the scope of our normal activities that there’s nothing we can do but say sorry and point them someplace else. For example, as odd as it may seem, more than once we’ve gotten requests from customers to help them troubleshoot the speed of their home Internet connection!
Pointing those customers in a different direction for their answers is easy because it’s clearly the best way to get them a quick solution. The gray area is when customers ask us to troubleshoot third-party software they’ve installed themselves, but can’t get adequate support for from the manufacturer. When these situations come up we try our best, but — well, maybe an example will help illustrate the difficulty of the situation.
I remember a customer whose site kept crashing. He was using a piece of software we didn’t officially support—and the sum total of the help he received from the software manufacturer was, “It’s not our fault, call your host.” We didn’t see the cause right away, but we agreed to work with the customer to troubleshoot the issue and spent a week peeling back one symptom at a time until the root cause was identified. In the end, this ticket took seven days to close out and had a total of 147 comments in it between our MST and the customer and from one tech to another. And yet, because this customer’s foremost concern was simply how long it was taking to fix the problem, he complained loudly about the customer support he had received.
Now, in this example we could have—and maybe we should have—spent more time explaining the causes of his site crashes and all the incremental steps we were taking to solve each one, but this is a delicate balancing act. Some customers want to know everything that is going on all the time, while others just want it fixed. Knowing how much a customer wants to hear when the problem is not yet solved can be tricky in the heat of the moment.
Make no mistake, there are incompetent and lazy hosts out there who run slipshod customer service operations. But you won’t find them by simply looking at how long it takes for them to “fix” your problem. If they’re continually trying new solutions and eliminating possible causes, they are doing exactly what they should be doing.
If you want to know if your hosts’ customer service is superior, ask yourself these questions:
- How many questions do they ask me when I have a problem? (The more the better.)
- Am I asking them to fix something that is completely out of their scope of support: unsupported software, issues with connectivity outside of the host’s network, etc? (Have realistic expectations about what your host can and will help you with.)
- Are they willing to at least look at my problem whether or not all of my applications are “supported software?” (A good host will acknowledge that there’s often no way to know the cause unless they’re willing to at least take a look.)
- If I ask, do they try to explain why something happened so that I can prevent it myself in the future? (A wise and valuable trait in superior customer service operations.)
- Have they ever simply told me they can’t figure it out and I’m on my own? (If they said this regarding “supported” software, it’s time to look for a new host.)
Photo by Jeremiah Ro
Help Us Help You
As Director of Network Compliance, one of my less enjoyable jobs is to explain to a customer whose server has just been hacked exactly what damage has been done and what data can and cannot be saved.
All competent webhosts should provide customers with hosting solutions that are secure out of the box. Managed hosting providers work hard to make sure that what we provided customers remains secure on an ongoing basis. But most people can’t make much use of a hosting solution without taking it and making it their own–adding what they need to make their business work. Unfortunately, start adding anything to the solution you’ve been provided and it changes the security profile of the box.
It is not always obvious when a server is hacked. A malicious piece of code may lie buried in a random directory for weeks or even months before it activates and begins doing harm to the server or to other machines.
Unfortunately, this means it is usually not possible to simply restore a customer server from backups. Though we keep a daily, weekly and monthly backup of every VPS customer server, there is no way of knowing if the corruption occurred before the earliest backup was made. All too often, this means a customer is left rebuilding his or her server from scratch. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence. ServInt, as well as most reputable software providers take active steps to deter and prevent malicious attacks.
In the 1990s websites were largely static html pages. The bulk of the work was in designing the pages. Once they went live, they changed little and needed updating only as often as the owner wished to update the content. But two things have occurred over the last 15 years that have dramatically changed the way webmasters interact with their sites.
The first change has been the development and implementation of server-side software such as PHP, ASP, and even WordPress and Magento. Most websites are no longer simply pages of static text, they are highly interactive and highly customizable. These new software developments open up a world of new things you can do, but they also open up all kinds of security pitfalls that need to be carefully avoided.
The second change is that the hardware that hosts these sites has become far more powerful. Advances in technology have not only increased the processing power and memory of host machines, but they have brought the price of this technology down so far that these machines are available for even entry-level hosting packages.
The keys to the Ferrari.
What this all means in terms of customer experience is that where at one time signing up for a web hosting account meant getting to borrow a bicycle to ride down the block, now it means getting the keys to the Ferrari.
Over the past five years especially, this combination of increasingly complex software and more powerful hardware has led to a dramatic increase in hacked servers on the web. Good managed web hosts routinely monitor their clients’ servers looking for any suspicious spikes in usage that might indicate unauthorized access. Companies should—and many do—try to work with customers to ensure that their server is ‘hardened’ (a pretty loaded term) and when circumstances dictate, that they have firewalls in place. But even with these steps and many others—forgive me if I must be intentionally vague here—at some point there is little even the most proactive host can do to anticipate a hack.
This is where customers come in.
One of the single best ways to prevent hacked servers is to keep all server-side software up to date. Vendors are constantly learning about and correcting weaknesses in their software code, releasing free updates to their users.
It would be great if a hosting company could magically update all of the third-party software customers have installed on their servers, but with literally thousands of different pieces of software for web designers to choose from, this is impossible on a practical level. A managed host does its part by upgrading operating systems and kernels as needed, but without consulting each customer personally and maintaining extensive lists, there isn’t even a way to determine all the software that is running on a customer’s server, let alone individually updating each customer’s products.
So what can customers do to protect themselves? Here are a few steps:
First, only install the software you need. Each application installed on a server opens that server up to any security risks the software has. The fewer pieces of software running on your system, the lower the chance of our server security being compromised.
Second, keep track of your installed software so you know what you’ve set up. I can’t tell you how many times I have traced the source of a security compromise for a customer only to have them say, “I didn’t even know that was still on my server.”
Third, keep the software you are running on your server up to date. There are options you can enable in cPanel and some other control panels to inform you when any software you downloaded directly from your control panel has been updated. Also, many places such as The Symantec Security Focus Bugtraq list allow you to sign up for emails that will send you information on software updates.
For all other software, there should be a page on the designer’s site which lists current versions and where to download updates. Keeping a folder of bookmarks of these sites can be a real life saver. Simply surf to the pages you have marked a couple times a month and check for software updates.
Fourth, ensure that the computer you are accessing your website from is properly protected. Keeping your server locked down against attacks and completely up to date is only so helpful if a piece of malware on your desktop tracks your keystrokes and finds out your server’s password when you log in. Having your server’s root access compromised (getting “rooted”) makes for a very bad day.
Finally, it sounds simple, but it is very important. Change your password, and change it often.
A few simple steps can put the power of security in your hands and go a long way to ensuring your server doesn’t fall victim to attack. A good managed host will work tirelessly to make sure that your business always stays up. But if you keep a close eye on what you put on your server and keep it updated, it’ll go a long way in helping us help you.
Photo by jonworth-eu
What exactly is “Managed Hosting”?
Sometimes, as industries evolve, they spawn new jargon that only means something if you’re inside the industry. To outsiders — even potential customers — these turns of phrase can seem confusing at best, and downright mysterious at worst.
So it is with the term “managed hosting.” Search the web for a definition, and you’ll get 10 different answers from 10 different companies. As ServInt’s Director of Managed Services, I want to take a minute to explain what managed hosting means to us. You may find that our definition is more expansive than those offered by our competitors.
Let me start with a pet peeve of mine. It really bugs me when web hosting companies use the terms “support” and “management” as though they were the same thing. They are not.
Support is reactive. It’s what you provide when things go wrong. It’s important, but if your goal is to achieve maximum uptime, support alone doesn’t help much — because it doesn’t avert catastrophe; it simply restores order when things go wrong.
Management — and, by extension, managed hosting — is proactive. It avoids problems. Here are some specifics from our to-do list at ServInt: we provide compatibility checks; custom requirement analyses and one-on-one product and platform consultations; custom software installations; port, service and system monitoring; OS system patches and upgrades; and personalized technical advice and assistance. In other words, we don’t just support our customers when things go wrong; we manage the hosting of their sites to try and prevent things from going wrong in the first place.
Web hosting is a service industry. There may be lots of technology behind the solutions hosting companies offer, but the service they provide is what really differentiates their solutions. That’s why you see company after company touting their level of customer service as “heroic,” “fanatical,” “stupendous,” and so forth. Service sells! All I can say is: ask questions. Make sure that when they say “service,” they mean proactive management — not just support — of your online business.
One last thing: to get the most out of your relationship with your managed hosting service provider, stay close to them. Let them know when you’re expecting spikes or surges in traffic, or when you plan to launch a new app on your site. Inform them when you roll out a killer marketing plan, or when your site’s “high season” is about to begin. That kind of information will help them help you.
Photo by Karen Eliot
Explaining ServInt’s New KickStart Team
When I started at ServInt more than six years ago, one of the first lessons I learned was just how critical first impressions were to the customer experience. ServInt’s new Kickstart Team, a division of our Managed Services Team, is committed to making hosting a website as painless a process as possible. Here’s a little background on who we are and why we do what we do.
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