Much as I hate to bring this up in a public forum, I must ask: has anyone heard from Site5 over the past few days? What I mean is, have they responded to support issues, general inquiries, anything like that, in depth? Their support forum has now vanished (or at least at this time gives a mySQL error when trying to connect). Responses to ICQs, email, and tickets have been slim to none, etc.

Any word from them or from anyone else who might have an idea just what is going on with them would be appreciated. At Host Coalition, I have already withdrawn my recommendation of Site5 until I can get some answers on things, and I am also now doing that here. If you were looking to Site5, and included in your consideration things I may have posted here, please keep this in mind.

I got a response yesterday from their sales department. But, I sent 3 e-mails and 2 bounced but they did respond to the 1 message after 24 hours.

I never had many support requests, but they usually take around 24 hours to reply :)

We typically don't have many support requests either, once we're up and running on things, but this has nothing to do with support and everything to do with delays in getting two more boxes from them. Unfortunately, due to the total lack of responsiveness and lack of status reports on where things were, we've had to cancel this order with them today and are seeking other options unless they can show they're cleaning up their act. Lack of communication is something I can get anywhere.

It took Site5 about a week longer to set-up our box than they promised; but then again ...we were not really in a rush.

A couple weeks ago, I submitted a sales inquiry. It was responded to in 24 hours.

I submitted another request for more info last Saturday, and have yet to hear anything. I am beginning to wonder if they really want my business.

They seem to be having some temporary email problems. Emails I sent them 2 or 3 days ago to their sales address bounced back to me today as undeliverable.

Give 'em a chance, I believe they may be experiencing email difficulties. Thanks.

A lot of complaints I've seen about probably every single company that is mentioned here or posts here that offers dedicated servers or collocation, it seems the most frequent issue people have, is delays in setting up servers. Just a friendly note here, I haven't seen _any_ web host ever meet every single dead line when it comes to setting up servers. Not because they are lazy, don't care and ignore people or try and pull something, but just for many reasons (some good and some bad). Personally, if I was getting a server set up, I wouldn't count on anyone having it set up on time. If they do, great, if not, I expected it, since this seemed all too common.

I think we all know and agree that Site5 wouldn't do anything to delay or ignore it's client's and I obviously have no reason or way to know or guess what the issue(s) are/is, but I simply wouldn't expect a server to be set up the day it comes (not that you did, but people often do) or the next day even. I've seen urgent things come up that delay any possibility to set up a server (or a few) and it's not always the most important or reasonable thing to email all the people that need things done to tell them you can't get to it, when you're busy dealing with some problem or something.

Of course, I'm also not saying that expecting to wait is the best or most reasonable thing, nor am I trying to insinuate that anyone's impatient by any means. I'd just simply expect it. At least, I can pretty confidently say that out of the reasons why some hosts delay so long in setting up servers, that Site5 doesn't appear to have it being due to lack of knowledge or competence like some of the hosts out there. Anyway, just my thoughts on this issue, since it seems to be the most (or one of the most) frequent I see posted here in regards to complaints.

Tim,

If promised a 7-10 day turnaround on servers set-ups, what would you consider a reasonable wait? Answer this while assuming your credit card is charged for the first lease payment on the day of the order, and not on the day the server goes live. I am genuinely curious here. I have never ordered or ran a dedicated box, yet. Most Alabanza hosts say that the answer to my question is that Alabanza promises a 7-10 day turnaround on new boxes and that, despite all the other issues they may have, they generally meet this deadline.

My biggest problem with most of the complaints I see about dedicated setups is that there seems to be a common thread: Host orders, box not setup, provider doesn't contact host to tell why, provider doesn't respond to hosts questions, etc. Personally, I feel that if you make a commitment that you cannot meet, you owe it to the client to call them up and give them a detail explanation of why that commitment will not be honored. A little communication for the dedicated server providers to these customers.

Just a friendly note here, I haven't seen _any_ web host ever meet every single dead line when it comes to setting up servers.

This is the stupidist comment I have ever read on these forums.

Plenty of hosts can deploy within deadline. Those that can't should not be used.

Actually a 7-10 day turn around is completely reasonable time to expect your box to be set up. With build time, ship time, and setup the 7-10 day mark should be easy to hit every time. I say should becuase there may be a delay in build time if:
lets say racksaver (thats where we purchase most servers from) has a high workload and many orders to process before yours adding a few days to your build time.

Originally posted by DaveC#


This is the stupidist comment I have ever read on these forums.

Plenty of hosts can deploy within deadline. Those that can't should not be used.

But is it as dumb as someone using a word like "stupidist"? :-) Okay, cheap shot... but, seriously now, I clearly said that I didn't state that is reasonable or acceptable, just that it's common (all too common!) and that people should come to expect it. I didn't say anything about it being understandable. I clearly said that "every host that I've seen posted about here or that posts here that offers collocation and/or dedicated servers". That's not to say that no one meets the deadline or can't. You misunderstood what I said, it seems. I didn't want to get "in trouble" here for someone thinking I was promoting JaguarPC or trying to get this person's business or something (because Jaguar has always met deadline's with dedicated/collocation servers -- but I wasn't here to advertise Jag, so I mentioned the other hosts I've seen mentioned here only), so I was vague about a lot of it. I was also not trying to insult some of the good hosts that do post here and some that have had delays, I simply said that all of them I know of, have had at least one person complain about delays.

As for Marty, yes, I think that's more than enough time. It might depend on the schedule and amount of employee's they have too and what's happening at their data center, etc. A lot of people offering collocation/dedicated servers have little or nothing to do with the data center/NOC they are hosted at/on, other than to sell (or resell) these servers to people and often have to wait for someone far away to set them up. Depending on those people (often not employed with their company and someone they pay (or that gets paid for this task) to set up someone's server), it can take a while and things happen. This isn't a good or bad thing per se, as it certainly depends. Most employee's of data centers/NOC's are far more qualified to set up a server than most people that run web hosts, as most of them aren't physically at the NOC/data center -- and if a lot of them were, most don't have the knowledge in that aspect.

What I mainly meant about coming to expect this, isn't to accept it and be okay with it or just lay down and say "Well, that's the way it is, I'll have to live with it". I wasn't saying that at all, just that people should expect it to take a while and this also isn't something you should expect to happen quickly in all cases and definitely nothing to get in a hurry about -- something that would hopefully be pre-planned, but that's usually not possible anyway. I obviously fully understand this from both sides. I don't think it's fun or fair or reflects well on any host if they delay getting a task done, especially something like setting up a system. I wasn't making excuses or anything and I clearly stated otherwise.

I wasn't going to come in here and bitch about how long it takes for people to set up servers. There was no need for me to do that, we all know how it is and how much it sucks. I agree with that, and I think in my vague comments in responds to/about it, I came off the wrong way... that's not at all what I meant. It's not okay, it's just common, I'd expect it from most any of the smaller web hosts that post here. I simply added that most of us know that Site5 are good guy's and at least don't have any ill intentions. I'm not at all saying people don't have a right or shouldn't complain, I guess it came out the wrong way. I'd say you should just expect the prices of fuel to go up every Summer, but that doesn't mean I like the idea. I wouldn't think it was the "stupidest" thing I've ever heard someone comment about, if they simply pointed that out. I see a lot of people complain about a lot of providers that aren't very big, because they don't have things done like a lot of the larger providers do. Other provider's have staff on hand, physically at the NOC/data center, very few hosts here do. This can create the potential problems and it's common. I'm just saying that sometimes, given this fact, I'd expect it, or I'd not try and get the best deal from the same 20 hosts that frequent this site and a few other's and go back and forth and get pretty much the same thing. (And no, that's not to say Site5 is one of those type). I'll stop now, because I'm not making a lot of sense, as it's almost 5 AM here... Cheers!

This may have been addressed already in one of tim's posts (sorry tim their too long for me to read :)

A 6 month waiting period is fine, the question is are the companys that are making the customers wait this long fulling advertising this waiting period so their customers arent stuck waiting for a server they thought would be setup in 2 days.

Let me explain a little bit what happened here, and why this disturbs me so much. The problem I have is not necessarily with waiting a little extra time for a box to be set up. It happens, and sometimes it's just out of the provider's control. My problem is a) being told one thing and having another materialize and b) when that happens, really not getting any sort of true feedback as to what exactly is going on. Anyone who knows me knows that I tell it like it is. Anyone who has ever done business with us knows that I don't hide things, either. If there's a problem, I say so. If we screw up, I say so. These are the things that I expect - no, demand - from the people with whom I do business.

I like Site5. I like Matt and Vince. I think they do tons better work than the tech support of late from Alabanza. I like the NOC they chose. I like BillAdmin, and the fact that Vince volunteered to upgrade the kernel on one of our machines to eliminate one potential source of a problem we were having. I would like to continue doing business with them, but cannot see that happening if they leave people to guess at what's going on over there. I'm not asking about their intimate business details. I just want to get the status on things and know if there's something happening that prohibits them from taking care of certain issues.

The first box we ordered took about a week to get in and get set up. The second box took about two.
We ordered a third box on the 4th, and had to chase it down to make sure it actually got ordered. Billed on the 7th. Waited. About a week later, we started wondering where the box was, so asked about it. Kept asking. Were told that it would ship "anytime", that it had shipped and we would be sent a tracking number when it did ship. Finally the other day, we sent a note asking just where the heck the box was. No response. ICQs to Matt and Vince, asking the same thing. No response. Note that we have not received any bounced mail from our attempts to contact them. The next day, we were forced to open an emergency ticket asking the same thing. Bear in mind that this box would have been for one client alone. Vince (poor guy) told us that the box had been "commited" on the 13th, and would be shipped and arrive within 10 business days. Since that amounts to two weeks, expect it to arrive on or around the 27th. My concern is that it would then be necessary to install WHM and cPanel, resulting in more delays of actually putting this client on the box. He then said he would have Matt or Deborah get back to us. They never did.

This is the crux of my problem: 7-10 days is reasonable. Two weeks, while annoying, is also reasonable. However, being billed a month in advance for a server is ridiculous. What is even more ridiculous is having to chase down the answer to "Where is it?" ourselves, instead of having our selected provider tell us where the thing is. We finally wound up cancelling both this box and another that we had ordered. Site5 did refund the fees we've paid.

We had also sent a note just asking them what was going on, because we don't want to be angry with them. We'd like to continue doing business with them, in fact. However, we have had no communication from them regarding the very valid concerns that we have about followup times and response times, or what happened with this order, or anything. That's a bit distressing. They have made zero effort to try to keep my business, which is also distressing, as we tend to fill up servers pretty quickly, so it would benefit both of our companies. Add to that the fact that I often recommend companies for certain things when I'm very pleased with their performance, and you have an all-around win-win situation. I cannot fathom why this spun out like it did, but since I have no contact from Site5, it simply leaves me guessing. Initial responsiveness from them was quite good - good communication, and I even commented on that to Matt. However, starting with the second box setup, things degraded.

If they read this, and would like to contact me, I would welcome it. We have to set up another box here very shortly, and while I would prefer it to be at Site5 to avoid having things spread around even more than they are now, if I can't be sure that my selected provider will not be responsive, I cannot in good conscience continue to utilize their services. It would be unfair to our clients and unfair to us to knowingly do so.


(Sorry this is so long - I'm not trying to usurp Tim's title or anything. Just trying to be thorough.)

That makes sense, my first impression was this post was about the initial setup time but now I see its a matter or keeping in touch with said provider. I think Tim was also thinking the same thing, but I could be wrong. I hope it works out for you Anette ;)

Originally posted by cbaker17
A 6 month waiting period is fine

I'm sure you meant "days" instead of "months". Heh. :-)

Originally posted by Annette
(Sorry this is so long - I'm not trying to usurp Tim's title or anything. Just trying to be thorough.)

Ha! That's how it starts, next thing you know, you're sitting in a prison cell wondering what happened. Accept your addiction before it's too late! :-)

And, Jag is correct, I basically assumed that was the issue. Obviously I can't explain or guess the reasons for the delay. However, as I said in another thread (where someone was complaining about another provider not having their server set up anywhere near on the promised deadline) about this issue, was that I think the most important thing any provider can do, is give the client news. Even if it's bad news, the same news, etc.

The main thing to keep client's happy, is to let them know you're there, you care about their welfare and business and you're on top of it and doing what you can. Annette knows this and I've seen her posts and thoughts (on technogirl) about TH and a lot of that madness, etc. and she is a reasonable person, but does tell it like it is. We all know you (Annette) wouldn't go off on some 1/2 baked rant and you'd have a reason. I didn't dare question that. Anyway, we can understand the frustration and I too am surprised as per the lack of response. Hopefully things work out for you both, I think you and Site5 are both good people, so whatever is the issue, I'm sure will work out. :-)

Hi Annette,

Sorry about the trouble you've been having here as of late. As per the explanation email you should have received, this is not common, and we don't feel that it is acceptable either.

Site5 values your business very much, and want to do everything in our power to ensure that you are happy here. We are actually in the process of developing a client account interface which will allow you (and all other customers) to track the status of your orders - dedicated and shared, as well as billing history, upcoming charges, and so on. Once this is complete, it should help quite a bit (at least on the communication end of things). Of course, that does little good if the server still takes a couple weeks to get here.

This problem is actually the result of a miscommunication between Site5 and our hardware vendor (which, for the time being, is Penguin Computing). We have waived the setup fee on this server, as well as your next server as a token of our good faith. We certainly don't want you to think that we don't value your business - and if we have done anything to give you that impression, we are genuinely sorry. That is the polar opposite of what we're about here at Site5.

This one server seems to have caused quite a bit of tension - for both Site5 and Host Matters. Unfortunately delays and miscommunications can and do happen. In this case, we certainly could have been much more clear regarding the status of the order. For this we apologize, and in the future will make every effort to see that you (and all of our other customers) are kept informed on the status of your server orders.

Once again, we offer our sincere apologies for the delay and this whole altercation that ensued. Without going into any gory details, you should be aware that we are already looking into solutions that will help us streamline our server setup process and allow us to keep our customers better informed in the interim.

We look forward to a continued business relationship with Host Matters. Should you have any further questions, feel free to send them directly to me.

To better communication from here on out. :beer:

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

I've had some email from Matt, and spoke to Vince via ICQ. Unfortunately, it appears there were some things going on that we had no idea about, and both have taken pains to explain the situation now. So we are going to lay this issue aside and start over from scratch, because personally, I feel Site5 has been one of the better ones out there thus far. Crapola happens, no doubt.

Here's to better communications (would that all companies would heed this instead of paying lip service to it!).

:beer:

Originally posted by Annette
I've had some email from Matt, and spoke to Vince via ICQ.

You're lucky you have their ICQ numbers! Is their ICQ posted somewhere on the website and/or can be disclosed? (Or do I have no choice but to just bug them through the helpdesk? :( )

Sorry, I didn't see this post before.

I don't know if they let their ICQ numbers roam in public, but I don't really care any more. Based on an email I received this evening from Matt, the previous situation, and total lack of response to various inquiries during that situation, we're not placing any new orders with Site5.

We also have two open tickets with them, one of which has been open for a bit now and is grievously affecting our clients' ability to send mail to certain ISPs, and the other which is a more minor issue. So, I can't help you with your question, because we're in the pretty much the same boat waiting on ticket responses.

We have a server with Site5 too and i really can't complain. We haven't had many problems, basically none ...just a few questions, etc. and response times have always been fast :)

I'm happy that you've gotten the service for which you've paid. However, we are not happy with the past couple of weeks, and tonight's little blast, and we are moving on.

Annette: where do you have your other servers? Alabanza?

We have servers at Alabanza, NAC, and a single Raq elsewhere. We are soon to have at least three more servers, but certainly not with Site5 at NAC (maybe in NAC, maybe elsewhere, who knows - we're currently getting quotes from people). While I would prefer to keep everything kind of restrained to as few locations as possible, it just seems to be next to impossible to get people to understand that we require our providers to be as responsive to us as we are to our own clients.

Originally posted by Annette
We also have two open tickets with them, one of which has been open for a bit now and is grievously affecting our clients' ability to send mail to certain ISPs, and the other which is a more minor issue. So, I can't help you with your question, because we're in the pretty much the same boat waiting on ticket responses.
After searching our ticket databse, I was unable to locate the mail ticket that you spoke of. If you email me the reference number I will gladly take a look at it. As for your second ticket, it was entered today and you should have a response shortly.

Chette: I thought I had your ICQ number here, but apparently I was wrong. Drop me an email and I will contact you. ;)

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Well, since we only have two tickets open currently, it should be rather easy to find. I'll dig it up and send it to you (MAPS & dul should be the subject).

Annette,

We are disappointed that we have not been able to resolve the current misunderstanding to your satisfaction. We have always valued your business and feel that we have given it the extra attention that you have come to expect from Site5. The past two weeks have, indeed, been trying and unusual. We have attempted to address all of your concerns and issues expeditiously and to the best of our ability, even though in the end it did not seem to meet your expectations.

We are truly sorry that in this case we have been unable to come to an arrangement that is acceptable to both parties. If you feel that as a result of this, you need to take your business elsewhere, we can certainly understand, but are nonetheless disappointed at the potential loss of such a valued customer.

The fact that we have been unable to reach a mutual understanding does not mean that either of the parties did not use their best efforts to find a solution. We, too, have had our fair share of differences with our previous upstream providers; the fact that we chose to leave them does not mean that they don't have many satisfied customers (because they do), it simply means that we were not one of them.

It is our understanding that prior to this incident you recommended Site5 on a regular basis. In fact, we received a new server order from you the day that the above posts were made (yesterday) - which leads me to believe that your newfound disappointment with Site5 is based on a single communication wherein I explained that since you cancelled and then reinstated your original two server orders, we may not be able to have the servers online by the time that they would have been ready originally.

Our response is an accurate representation of the limitations we have experienced as a result of the cancelled orders. The difficulty you experienced in processing time has motivated us to investigate potential new hardware providers who can respond to the needs of our customers more efficiently, thereby allowing us to be more responsive. It has always been our goal to deliver a level of customer service that is exemplary in the industry.

We still value your business. Our objective is to retain your business and work to closely define your expectations. Our commitment is to provide the level of service your business requires. In future dealings it will benefit both of us if we spell out specifically, up front, what the expectations are and plan for any unusual contingencies that may possibly occur (e.g. our provider cannot supply the server as expected).

Use of these forums to publicly air our differences is not our preferred arena for resolving such issues and we hope that it does not represent your normal practice. Surely you can understand our concerns. As a premier provider in this industry we have a reputation to uphold, and would like to attempt private resolution before bringing this kind of issues into a public environment. If we are unresponsive or unreasonable then we certainly understand the use of a forum to air your concerns in public. However as we were in contact at the time of these postings, we simply don't feel that this was the point we had reached. If this turns out to be your solution, we respect that - we do however take issue with public airing before all other options have been exhausted.

Regardless of the outcome of our business relationship, we would like to thank you for your continuing efforts to work with us to resolve this situation. As a result of the past two weeks, we have started an intensive internal review of our communication policies to ensure that they remain at the top-end of the spectrum (which has always been our goal). Even if we are unable to retain your business, you have helped us to improve ours.

If your ultimate decision is to discontinue your business relationship with Site5, we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, and sincerely hope that you are able to find a provider whom is able to meet your expectations. We still, however, believe we are that provider.

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Nicely said Matt :) :claps:


By the way, I sent you an email around Sunday evening. Did you by any chance get it?

Originally posted by teck
Nicely said Matt :) :claps:


By the way, I sent you an email around Sunday evening. Did you by any chance get it?
Thanks.

Regarding your email - Yeah, I sure did get it. We're quite honored. ;) I just got back from out of town, so I should get to it soon here. Sorry for the delay.

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Hey, what's this?

The time I adressed you publicly you told me to stop doing that and use email or a ticket for that. And other people were dissing me on that too.

Now I see handclaps and thank you's and smilies.
:angry:

Domenico,

Not to take this thread off post but which thread are you referring to? Feel free to PM me and I'll sort it out.

Other than that, I had to aplaud Matt because he handled the situation very professionally. Like he said, he really didn't want to take it publically but since everything was out in the open already, he might as well reply to the thread and let everyone know what is going on and what Site5 is doing to remedy the situation. Weinbar did the same exact thing and everything understood what was going on in his company and then relaxed a little. I believe Matt is doing the same thing by letting everyone know that they are aware of the problems customers are having and they are doing their best. It was also in Matt's good faith to waive the setup fees of the servers. If Matt had not replied, everyone who has opened this post would have been left hanging. Since he did reply, everything is understood and everyone is happy.. right?

Please Teck, don't take it as an attack because I'm the one that doesn't find it disturbing but it was just that many people were falling over me and others about it.

There are more than one threads that discuss this. I will try to find it and PM them to you.

Oh well, it was just something I wanted to say. just ignore it... if you can... ;)

I, too, have no desire to thrash things like this out in public forums. However, given the complete silence in regard to our various inquiries over the course of this issue, there was no other avenue left to us. This situation, and the email I received from you last night, simply means we have elected to move on. Since you insist on posting things like this in a public place, you leave me no choice but to respond here, as otherwise, the wrong impression might be given as to why we have made our decision as we have. At the time the initial post was made, we had no contact with Site5 until the post I made where I indicated such.

I will say that this has nothing to do with the situation that has brought us here, nor does it have anything to do with setup times - this just happens to be the situation that has clearly illuminated some things for us. The crux of this issue is about the complete lack of communication from you to us and about the insult (intended or not) directed toward us in your email of last night whereby this entire issue is laid at our feet, as if there is something wrong with a customer (us) wanting to get a straight answer out a provider (you) and then taking the only avenue open to us (cancelling an order) when no responses are received, despite repeated inquiries. If we treated our clients the same way, they would be justifiably angry as well. That you chose to further aggravate this already volatile issue by demanding an alternate payment method arrangement quite honestly infuriated me, as it has no basis other than the only thing that seems to have worked in getting a response from Site5 on this issue.

This is not a case where we ordered a server, it shipped, was set up, was online, and then we cancelled it. At the time we finally received any word on what the true status of this order was, too much time had gone by (and the box hadn't even shipped!), and quite frankly, we were tired of chasing down answers that should have been provided up front in the first place.

You say you're working on streamlining communications - good for you. I wish you luck. However, the numerous emails we sent without response (even emails to sales, which went completely unanswered, period) indicates to us that at this time, Site5 is not prepared to handle the business we bring where we travel.

Annette...that's quite harsh there.

As you know, there is not one web presence provider out in the world who has not had a problem. Some have had worse problems than others, like Site5 for example.

Also, anyone will tell you that communication usually breaks down in critical situations regardless of training, etc. That's just a fact that we are human. :)

You shouldn't be quick to judge a provider because of one incident. All providers have little incidents, etc. That's just life....and business.

I'm sure Site5 did there best to remedy the situation to the best of their ability.

Put yourself in their shoes and situation...


Cheers.

Annette,

We apologize that our communication offended you. The spirit and intent of this information was to try to rectify our differences and continue a meaningful business relationship. Obviously, we were not successful.

We're sorry to hear that your decision has been made final. We would like to thank you for the business that you have given us thus far, and wish you the best of luck elsewhere. As always, we are available to serve you and your customers, or to aide you in your transition.

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Hosting Companies take notice!
I completely agree with Annette here.

Customers don't care about the problems their hoster has and most of all shouldn't bothered with it ever.

Besides there servers or vhosting setup there are some things that customers also want and think it is one of the most important things;

1, communication! Really, waiting days for an answer, whatever the question is (and should be) funest. If you can't handle this then choose another business. Some Companies have one man doing helpdesk and 200 doing sales. Yeah right. Some companies don't have anyone at the sales side either :-(
I have waisted two weeks because of this not so long ago. Questions should be answered asap within a day. PERIOD!

2, communication!
3, communication!
4, communication!
5, communication!
6, communication!
7, communication!
8, communication!
9, communication!
and so on...

Originally posted by TradeViceroy
Annette...that's quite harsh there.
[...]
You shouldn't be quick to judge a provider because of one incident.
[...]
All providers have little incidents, etc. That's just life....and business.

I'm sure Site5 did there best to remedy the situation to the best of their ability.

Put yourself in their shoes and situation...
Well, I have no more stake in this than you do, TradeViceroy; we're both just sitting in the stands watching but from my side of the stands the view apparently is completely different!

I don't see anything harsh in Annette's message; it's direct and professional. As have been Matt's messages directed to her in this thread.

Assuming the facts have been laid out accurately here, personally I wouldn't consider this to be "one incident." If it's a couple of support tickets and a number of emails that have gone without response, that's several incidents in my book.

"Just life and just business" is a good approach to avoid getting overstressed and burning out, but it doesn't pay the bills. And neither does good intentions, and neither does trying your best. When you're relying on your upstream provider to enable you to server your own clients, there's not room for much less than perfection.

Finally, Annette's been in the business for a long time. I'm sure she's often been in their shoes and the same situation -- striving to stay on top of heavy demands and maintain communication with clients.

And finally finally, Site5 does have a very good reputation, and as a spectator here this splash of negative feedback won't really discourage me from investigating their offerings -- as I'll be doing in the next week or so in anticipation of leasing another server. But it's not my business that has been affected here; I certainly think Annette's reaction is understandable.

I don't see anything harsh in Annette's message; it's direct and professional. As have been Matt's messages directed to her in this thread.


It's harsh in tone is what I was trying to say. You can tell she is quite angered and displeased and it shows it in the post. It just seems hostile to me that's all. Talking about an "insult (intended or not)" and aggravation...just seems a little hostile to me.

Assuming the facts have been laid out accurately here, personally I wouldn't consider this to be "one incident." If it's a couple of support tickets and a number of emails that have gone without response, that's several incidents in my book.

This entire thread seems to be related to one incident and not mutiple ones. There was a rather large communication incident which hampered her support tickets and e-mails. In my opinion, that is one incident. It's not separate incidents spanning out in a certain time period, but several failed communication attempts about the same incident.

"Just life and just business" is a good approach to avoid getting overstressed and burning out, but it doesn't pay the bills. And neither does good intentions, and neither does trying your best. When you're relying on your upstream provider to enable you to server your own clients, there's not room for much less than perfection.

I disagree with you there. When you run a business, you should know the risks involved. Business could be going very good one day, and be slow the next day. That's just life. You have to handle one day at a time. Asking perfection is almost impossible on the internet in my opinion. Downtimes and incidents do happen.

The other day, MAE-WEST was down for serveral hours causing the entire North American Internet Infastructure to slow down. I'm sure this caused a lot of people frustration, but even the "big boys" have problems too.

Finally, Annette's been in the business for a long time. I'm sure she's often been in their shoes and the same situation -- striving to stay on top of heavy demands and maintain communication with clients.

I agree. I myself have been in the web hosting business for several years. We are in fact remodeling our company and upgrading our web servers.

And finally finally, Site5 does have a very good reputation, and as a spectator here this splash of negative feedback won't really discourage me from investigating their offerings -- as I'll be doing in the next week or so in anticipation of leasing another server. But it's not my business that has been affected here; I certainly think Annette's reaction is understandable.

Reaction is understandable yes, but one should realize the everyone can (and will) have problems. One must be patient during these trying times. I'm sure Site5 tried their best to resolve the matter and I'm sure Annette tried all available means to communicate with them. However, if their communication structure is down or hampered, then I would understand why support, etc. is slow to non-existant.

Just my opinion, now I'm just going to leave this thread. :P

I am not being harsh. But I take your comments for what they are: sideline quarterbacking in a game you know nothing about. My posts do not bend the rules of good taste or civility, nor have I stated anything untrue. Anyone who knows me knows that I am as forthright and honest with people as I expect them to be with me.

What you are failing to grasp here is that it is not a single incident of slow/nonresponsiveness. It is also not a matter of delays that may hamper something. It IS a matter of not being kept informed of things, despite repeated requests about status.

If you are a company whose communications "break down in critical situations" then you are a company who will find yourself in trouble. I have never made a claim that there was any provider out there that never had any problems, nor have I ever demanded perfection from anyone. The difference between the best of them and the worst of them is that the best of them never lose sight of the fact that you do not leave your clients in the dark, period. There have been times when I've stayed up 24 hours (or longer) straight to make sure that we've addressed everything that came our way. If we have a problem, I say so. We don't make our clients continually contact us and never respond to them. We don't hem and haw with them or try to evade the issue. We make it a point to let them know what's going on at every step of the way. If any of our resellers pass this way, why don't you try asking them about the information they received when we started setting up servers outside Alabanza and the information we gave them as progress was made during migrations?

You don't seem to understand the entire point of this: this has nothing to do with anything other than communication. Period. It's not about problems a provider has. Not about delays with vendors. It's about the communication that you should keep with your clients. Period. If there are problems, then your clients should know about them if they are directly affected by those problems. If there are delays, why not just say so? People understand delays. They do not understand, nor do they like, being left in the dark when they have made every attempt to find out what is going on.

[Edited to insert this comment: I, for one, will not be addressing this particular issue further in this forum. If anyone wants to discuss the relative merits of good communication or how to improve on what they have or something a bit more along philosphical lines, I'd be delighted to participate in that. This thread, however, might as well be locked before it degenerates.]