Webhost, Answer Me NOW
My webhost is jacking me today. I’ve been trying to transfer a client’s site to some new nameservers since last night and for some odd reason, the domain name doesn’t resolve. OK, fine. Email support. Email support five times (from two different email addresses, just in case) over then span of six hours and not hear a peep out of them. OK, swallow hard, ask self “WTF?”, and go on webhosts’ forums to try and find a helpful soul to help solve the issue. Find helpful soul who concludes that I need to contact Customer Support, which I’d already done four times at that point. I just sent the fifth email 45 minutes ago and am tempted to send another one. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? Not this time.
If it isn’t apparent, I AM PISSED. I am hunt-for-a-new-webhost pissed. I really like(d) the host I’m with now, and thought I might have actually found one I could stick with for more than a year. But my client’s site has been down for the better part of a friggin’ DAY. I’m sweating bullets. I’m considering changing the nameservers back. Your business is my business. Trust me, client, I’m tearing my hair out.
Webhost, with 24/7 service you HAVE to email me back. I’ve been waiting for a response for over 6 hours. To some folks, that might not seem very long, and that might be true for you if you have a host that promises responses in 24 hours or something. But this host has traditionally gotten back to me within minutes. Certainly within an hour. So I’m used to a certain level of responsiveness.
I’m not sure what else to do at this point. I feel utterly helpless. I’ve NEVER had a problem with their support until this issue came up. It’s totally within their power not to email me back at all today. In which case, if that happens, I will not only leave the host, but I will raise such a stink that I’m sure with the modest readership I have will kill SOME future business for the host. I feel like swearing. I just did. The kicker will be that (I’m sure) this was something so simple to fix. I’m also sure that if someone had responded to the email I sent at 9:30 this morning, it could have been fixed by now. Oops, I just swore again.
Please, webhost, before I do something stupid, answer me NOW.
I’ve run into similar situations myself in the past year with a few web hosts. Currently I’ve got hosting accounts with two different hosts.
My MediaTemple shared server holds all my mission critical sites and applications. I’ve also got a Dreamhost account that holds my non-critical stuff (personal sites, SVN repository) and also acts as my test server.
I would definitely recommend (mt), I’ve been with them since the start of 2006 and have seen no downtime at all since then. Not to mention their support is great, and they also offer 24/7 telephone support. They’re a little more expensive than a lot of web hosts, but the quality of the product and service definitely makes it worth the extra cash.
# Thu, June 15 2006 @ 4:43 pm (2 years, 5 months ago)
Thanks for the note, Jeff. They finally got the issue taken care of. I had a particular site that needed a dedicated IP, and so that had to propagate like any new site would. I wasn’t exactly aware that was the issue and I was going out of my mind. They finally got back to me - but if they would have gotten back to me about 4-6 hours sooner than they, did, I wouldn’t have had to write the above post!
And I have heard good things about (mt), but I’m not sure they offer shell access and/or working with Subversion.
# Wed, June 21 2006 @ 8:57 pm (2 years, 5 months ago)
(mt) does offer shell access, but no Subversion, which is really the only reason I’m holding onto my Dreamhost account (well that and the storage/bandwidth).
# Wed, June 21 2006 @ 9:20 pm (2 years, 5 months ago)