I'm currently with surpasshosting, but I'm definitely looking to get out. They're not the worst company ever, but I find the support to be fairly unhelpful: the responses are rude, and my questions often not really answered. The response time is usually fairly fast, but when they don't actually answer your questions it makes it easy. Most importantly I've had a completely unreasonable amount of downtime, lost files, missing emails, etc. They've been in the process of moving to new servers and it's been a giant pain.

So, my question is, does anyone actually know of an affordable reliable host that isn't run by childish simpletons? Has anyone actually gotten a non-rude, attitude free response from tech support? This seems to be a giant problem amongst web hosting companies and I'm getting very very tired of this.

Sorry for the tone but I'm sure most people here have felt this at one time or another! :)

I've worked with several not_so_good companies. What would you suggest for good but fairly priced hosting?

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences guys - but don't lose faith, there are still some good guys out there. When you contact a prospective host, try to ask plenty of questions, and establish a dialogue with them - hopefully you'll get a feel of the ones trying to really be helpful over those just looking for a sale :)

Good luck, and let us all know how you get on!

Well, I've been very happy with Bluewho.com for almost ten months now. Their support is very friendly and fast - and professional.

GDO

I've been with clook.net for over a year and they are great - very professional, reasonably priced, near 100% uptime, very responsive, servers in UK and US. Check them out.

wow, i almost sign up for surpasshosting :)
i've been with echelonwebhosting for a couple of months, nothing unusual happened. its all normal. no complains :)

Originally posted by KodJejagt

Has anyone actually gotten a non-rude, attitude free response from tech support? This seems to be a giant problem amongst web hosting companies and I'm getting very very tired of this.


The frequency with which I hear this complaint is simply alarming...

There are professional companies out there - some of which have been mentioned in this thread - take a good look around and shop on people vs price &/or specs...

As previously mentioned - send some emails back and forth and start a conversation - get to know the general "character" of companies you are considering...

I'd sure hope there are people happy with their host. :)

Don't get discouraged, there are some good hosts out there. Good luck in your search. :)

The problem is with people in their everlasting attempt to save a $. If you are paying $1.50/month for hosting, I assure you that your support will be bad. You can't squeeze blood out of an orange...but 90% of the hosting sales calls I talk to, the people have their orange squeezer out.

Originally posted by Truth_or_justice
You can't squeeze blood out of an orange...
You've obviously not heard of 'blood oranges' :D

Seriously though, your statement is very much 'spot on'. Too often people look for the price-cutting option, and still expect the same level of service they would get by paying a little more.

That's not to say that all budget host's are bad at support, at all, but the general consensus is obvious; pay nothing, get nothing.

Simon

Originally posted by IHSL
You've obviously not heard of 'blood oranges' :D

I love them...but when you squeeze them you get red orange juice and not the blood your promised by the name at the store. ;)

The simple fact is (and I believe i've read this elsewhere on WHT) a bad host will always get more publicity than a good host.

It's the same philosophy with the media - the world seems like a much more awful place, but that's because news travels like lighting today - More news is reported, and more information travels in a shorter amount of time. And no one wants to hear of the good stuff - bad news always gets ratings. Just as bad hosting reviews seem to blow up into huge threads while good ones end with a couple comments.

I can say i'm happy with my host 101SiteHosting.com - got a reseller account there for the space offered - couldn't be happier with the service.

There are diamonds out there among the fools gold - it just takes time, common sense and little bit of research to find the right provider.....maybe a bit of luck too ;)

im very very satisfied... but i manage my own server

The simple fact is (and I believe i've read this elsewhere on WHT) a bad host will always get more publicity than a good host.

You could call that a WHT maxim - couldn't agree more.

You probably won't find too many people actually running hosting companies from a reseller account that would share information on their provider, especially if it incites more competition ;)

Hence the mysterious shortage of "good review" threads in the Reseller forum.

Originally posted by Truth_or_justice
The problem is with people in their everlasting attempt to save a $. If you are paying $1.50/month for hosting, I assure you that your support will be bad. You can't squeeze blood out of an orange...but 90% of the hosting sales calls I talk to, the people have their orange squeezer out.

I don't necessarily disagree, but there is a big difference between extensive support and simple politeness. It doesn't cost a host any extra time or money to lose the attitude.

Heck, back in the day when I made $4.25/ hr working retail I was still reasonably polite to the customers.

Plus, if these budget hosts wanted to move beyond being "budget" and possibly make more money for themselves in the process, they're going to have to cut-out the illiterate thug act. Perhaps before going into the hosting business they should've reseached what the business actually entailed. It's not the consumer's fault that the host can't handle (emotionally, intellectually, technically, etc) what was promised.

You probably won't find too many people actually running hosting companies from a reseller account that would share information on their provider, especially if it incites more competition ;)That makes a lot of sense. :)

The big problem with most hosts, even the 'better' ones, in my experience seems to be the first level of support.
Generally you get a mindless 'droid who either doesn't even read your support message properly and gets it completely wrong; or tries the 'first say there isn't a problem, then tell the customer it's their fault, if that fails then bull5hit' technique.

I don't understand why thes people are employed as support staff, they just cost their employers business. They are completely unable to handle serious problems, yet strangely reluctant to escalate them.

Chris Light

I'm very very happy with myacen

I have been with BlueWho for approx 8 months I couldn't be happier , I recently had a family emergency my little boy was hospitalized. BlueWho was right there to lend a hand if needed , the professional support and the real care for their clients means the world.

Wow.. you mean they even help with the hospitalisation??

Hope he is better now.

Anyway.. I have been with Matrix reseller so far and they have a great support team.


Originally posted by Laci
I have been with BlueWho for approx 8 months I couldn't be happier , I recently had a family emergency my little boy was hospitalized. BlueWho was right there to lend a hand if needed , the professional support and the real care for their clients means the world.

Greetings:

“So, my question is, does anyone actually know of an affordable reliable host that isn't run by childish simpletons?”

I guess it goes by your definition of affordable.

From our experience and perspective:

There are approximately 15,000 or so hosting providers in the U.S. alone.

No single hosting provider has over 2% of the global market share (let alone U.S. market share).

Most of those 15,000 or so providers are recent start ups.

There are one to several new hosting start ups per week. I don’t know how many go out of business per week.

I would venture to state that 14,000 or more of the total providers either do not have a business plan or who’s operational and financial aspect of the plan base costs only on the pure technology side of a business (i.e. this server costs $50 per month therefore our ONLY cost is $50 per server per month).

And as such most of those hosts appear to be extremely affordable. Gas for $0.10 per gallon instead of the going rate of $1.95 to $2.25.

Yet, you get what you pay for in the end.

If your version of affordable is based on what the fast majority of providers are offering, then chances are high you will get bad gas after bad gas after bad gas (so to speak).

If your version of affordable fits into the spectrum of the long term, reliable, solid providers then there are hosting providers out there that offer reliable hosting and are run by business professionals.

Thank you.

Originally posted by nightfall_sg
Wow.. you mean they even help with the hospitalisation??

Hope he is better now.

Anyway.. I have been with Matrix reseller so far and they have a great support team.


They helped in personal ways during a time of crisis , thats something you dont find everyday.

Thank you my son is improving.

One of my customers has been very happy with futurequest. Good support, have been in business for many years.

On another note, have had personally very poor experiences with Interland.

Originally posted by webcentral
One of my customers has been very happy with futurequest. Good support, have been in business for many years.

I can second that.

I think it kind of depends on what you are looking for out of the host and what you are willing to spend.
We have a couple levels of clients and support options. What I am getting at is this, if you are expecting to get a fully managed server at RS then you are not going to be happy.
We have semi dedicated clients that only have the 1 domain and rely on us to make sure the thing is always up.

If you are a reseller looking for disk space, bandwidth AND client support, then you are chasing a pretty large fish, Most of the resellers I have met that were even remotely successful provided their OWN support system for the client. IMO that is the best reason to be a reseller. Get a host that KNOWS how to keep the equipment reliable and secure and you provide the tech support to the client. I think RESELLER = CLIENT SUPPORT for resold space.

I'm hearing really good things about rshosting.net.

I love my webhost. I have had nothing but great experiences with them. I have a question, and they respond to it immediately, couldn't ask for better service. My last host was www.amhosting.com. Worst host I've ever had.

I would 110% recommend Infinity Web Services.
www.infinityws.com

I try to get all my webdesign clients to use them too, make it easier on everyone.

Take care, and if you have any questions about them, feel free to PM me.

Jon Marus

Originally posted by Hostkookster
You could call that a WHT maxim - couldn't agree more.

You probably won't find too many people actually running hosting companies from a reseller account that would share information on their provider, especially if it incites more competition ;)

Hence the mysterious shortage of "good review" threads in the Reseller forum.

Not true in my case. I don't come to WHT to try to drum up business like many people, I mostly come here to learn. I would be happy if I never got a customer from WHT because WHT is a million miles away from our target market and business model.

Therefore I am always happy to recommend the company we get our reseller account from (SRLNet.com) because they have been really good to us over the last year.

Reselling makes sense to me because I don't have to worry about doing the admin work on the server, don't have to respond to 2am calls when the server goes down, don't have to upgrade PHP/Apache/MySQL/cPanel every time there is a security reason to do so, and I can concentrate on other things. Finding a good company to get your reseller account from is the key, and it took us about a year to find SRLNet.com I think we went through 3 or 4 other providers in the 12 months leading up to moving to SRLNet.com, at first we made the mistake of going for the cheapest, but eventually learned our lesson the hard way. Ever since then, we have been very happy.

I was going to write up a review on them and post it here, but I think I have done half of it in this thread already! ;)

Originally posted by CPW-Carl
I don't come to WHT to try to drum up business like many people, I mostly come here to learn.

:gthumb: You'd be one of the few :D Glad to hear of your successful choice.

don't have to respond to 2am calls when the server goes down,

Who does your customers call, directly to your resell account provider?

I am happy with my hosts:
www.simpli.biz - Erica is always there at awkward hours (well for her) and I can bother her about the most ridiculous things and she hasn't killed me yet :D I've been with simpli about 6 months and have enjoyed it a lot. No complaints. Had a small issue of downtime which I was refunded for.

www.dathorn.com - been with them over a year now, rarely need support, but they fix it quickly when I ask. I had a dns zone problem today and it was fixed in minutes. Andrew and his crew (hey that rhymes!) do a great job keeping the servers up. They sometimes aren't the most friendly people, but the are courteous and get the job done.

I absolutely love Kualo. They have been wonderful to me for over a year. They have 24/7 support via web and they have decent prices especially considering the level of support you get. They've set the standard very high for me. Tickets are usually answered within minutes, sometimes as much as a couple hours. Tickets are either FIXED and closed or they are commented and left open. I hate hosts that comment then close. Bottom line, Kualo Rocks.

Hostrocket has also been very good to me. I've been with them for over 2 years. I like the 100mb of email space available (in addition to webspace) and that tickets actually get answered as opposed to most other hosts I've dealt with. Sometimes they comment then close but they are usually pretty good.

Rating | Bottom Line
------------------------------------
95% | Kualo - Like a family, very nice, awesome support.
85% | Hostrocket - Like a corporate linux factory. Always on top of keeping hackers out, network smooth and thousands of customers happy. They own their own datacenter, have a goldmine of an operation and generally know what they're doing because they do it well. Unfortunately, because of the large amount of newbies that find them, there's a lot of negative talk from uninformed users that blame HostRocket for their own stupid mistakes.

Links:
http://www.kualo.com
http://www.hostrocket.com

Just my 3 cents.
crazyj

Edited verbage

The key to making your clients happy is support, backup, backup and backup!

Tried and tested. The backups should never be needed though if you have a realy good tech!

Stuart

I was happy until today. My sites are down. I can't access my email. I can't work. :mad:

Mulder

Originally posted by mulder
I was happy until today. My sites are down. I can't access my email. I can't work. :mad:

Mulder Boy it is down hard, almost 8PM here and still no site..... bummer

Who's your host?

I'll tell you after it reaches 6 hours. It's currently 5!

Thanks but I don't plan to move... yet.

Edit: I responded to a post that has since been deleted. :-)

He was a bit premature with recommendation on a host he had only been with for a month or 2........

Had been watching and communicating with integrityhost for months before that. Have been in direct contact with the owner. Also researched back to the upstream host, thePlanet.

Have had about 15 different questions answered, only one having to do with an account error, which was fixed in about 10 minutes.

This thread certainly has plenty of replies now, but as Gargoyle stated early on, it is a great idea to contact a person at the company before you buy from them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with emailing a company's support and asking them a technical question about something they are offering. When I was on a reseller plan, and after having a nightmare of support with HostElite, I was sure to speak with technical support first. Although I didn't go with them, I exchanged a couple emails with BlueWho, and they had a very good, helpful response team. (The plans/pricing wasn't a turn-off either.. it was just time for me to have more control over my server.) Anyway, best of luck with your new host.

Cheers,

Doug Mayer

serverunion, I believe that you deleted the previous post, it kills the thread a bit when you do that then come back and post additional comments to the same thread.... I have had many prospective customers contact me 2,3 maybe 10 times prior to moving an account.

HOWEVER that is not much an indicator of service. Administrator ability can not be determined by response times. Only time and experience with problems can determine that. That might occur in a month or 6 months or even longer. I have servers that have never had a problem in 2 years of service. Makes me look like a hero. On the other hand and I am only speaking from my business, most client problems are self induced, A quality host is going to help out clients with these problems when they can and in a timely manner.

I am not a reseller but did start out as one a few years back.

Any host you resell for I think MUST be available on very short notice, and I mean in minutes, not hours. You must respond to client problems and most resellers do not have root access and therefore are somewhat limited on what they can actually do in the case of a real problem. I was lucky I guess, I resold for just 1 company in 2 years and had no real problems in all that time. They responded to messages in under 10 minutes on every occasion I needed a response. I got a great education in customer service and have upheld that model to this day. It is really sad when a guy spends 40 or more buck a month on hosting only to sit for hours or even days waiting for response from a host.

After a total of 4 years hosting (2 as a reseller) our average ticket response time is 34 minutes. I think that is not good enough but we are working on it. It is only 1 part of running a hosting business and not necessarily an indicator of how "Good" we are.

Any host you resell for I think MUST be available on very short notice, and I mean in minutes, not hours. You must respond to client problems and most resellers do not have root access and therefore are somewhat limited on what they can actually do in the case of a real problem.

This is key. If it takes you an hour to be notified of a problem, then it takes your host a couple hours, your resold space customers are out 2 hours longer than they should be.

I have found that the way a good host handles the small things is usually the same as how it handles the big ones. They don't get worked up, they are patient and they are thorough.

EXAMPLE: I just signed up with a host a couple days ago that had an error in their custom code and they triple billed, then double refunded me immediately. I got the runaround from their staff, emailed the "manager / owner" and 6 hours later I still had no explanation as to why this happened and if it will stop happening. When I finally logged into an AIM support option and threatened to talk to PayPal about the incorrect billing the AIM rep suddenly said he was the manager. He blamed the problem on PayPal. (I was on the phone with PayPal and they said it wasn't them). I caught him in a lie about something that was no big deal and I only needed some communication to calm my nerves.

Bottom line, He LIED, was caught, and still acted like a worm when I asked him about it.

If this had been a major hardware outage, he probably would have acted the same way. Unfortunately for him he will never get the chance to host enough of my business for that to ever be an option.

BTW, If anyone was wondering, I still do love Kualo and Hostrocket, but from time to time I try out new hosts just to see what else is out there. All those GB space and bandwidth seem worth the Customer Service risk. Time and time again, I see it isn't.

CrazyJ

Curious RandyO,

How soon could you bring a server back up if the hard drive crashed?

Mulder

I am misearble, everyday we go down, I am new to the reseller opporunity, the current host states they have their own datacenter, but i' m not so sure, if I had my own server(s), i would at least have a fail over or stackables or something in the event one server goes down the other will kick in.

This has been the worse experience as a newcomer, I'd wish I had paid monthly instead of the entire year. 99% of my business rely on mysql that goes down, heck everything goes down daily. They blame on bad switches but yet when we come back up there are some kind of upgrade added. I beg to move my clients and me to a new server, they just send back a note everything is fixed now. I am beginning to suspect they too are resellers. How do you find out the parent hosts. I just think if a hosting company decides to do any upgrades, to notify the resellers that has clients to put at least a news warning on their panels.

Just venting

Originally posted by mulder
Curious RandyO,

How soon could you bring a server back up if the hard drive crashed?

Mulder takes about 2 hours to fully install the OS and patches with grsecurity/and full security setup. Add on that the time to reload the backups, I find that takes about 1 hour per 10 gigs of compressed data.
I run both RAID and Non Raid setups. Non Raids are dual drive setup 40G main and 80G backup drive with all client backups, (daily, weekly, monthly) These are shared environments and I do not allow them to load over 50%. So total about 4 hours to rebuild from scratch on a full server. ( had this happen twice in 4 years)

My RAID setups are all dedicated or semi dedicated boxes (4 or less clients) they do not need to go down if a drive fails, just plug a new one in and let it rebuild. So no down time for those. (have replaced 2 drives like this with no problems)
My key has been to keep the servers under 100 clients. Some will argue with that but I can point you to a number of 200,000 hit a day sites I host (shared servers) that will swear by it. I keep them on 100mbs pipes also. I could increase profits by 28% by loading them up but then again my problems would most likely go up too.

Originally posted by s2shost
I am misearble, everyday we go down, I am new to the reseller opporunity, the current host states they have their own datacenter............ I am glad I did not go thru that so am unable to completely empathize with your problem. However the biggest dilema is this to you, if you are reselling and the problem continues, you will end up wishing you had moved on and taken your losses early. The loss of reputation or current clients is a bad pill to swallow as you will never get them back. I know it sounds kind of silly but you need to take this into account and think about the big picture.

I have, I got my first client, and sweating bullets now, think what if I had xxx many... The system goes down too much for me to get any sales. I use modernbill, which is a very very sensitive billing system which require mysql, when our servers go down at my current host, modernbill is down, which means my orderwizard is down, and me, down, lol


I have been shopping in these forums for my next home, until I can afford to buy a couple servers of my own and house them at a datacenter..

I'm new to this and it's not painting a pretty picture for me...

I have been with seraphex.com for 6 weeks now and SO FAR am very happy. Very little down time, and always forewarned. Prices are also good and awesome customer service.

I also have an account that is almost a month old with hostentric.com. There prices are VERY low so I was skeptical. So far everything has been smooth though. Only 15 min of downtime that I noticed. There communication could be better but is still better then most.

rockethosts.net are also very good! Great customer service, very knowledgeable.

Stay far away from

frozenhosting.com
thehostingspecialist.com

Unforunately I learned the hard way with these two :angry:

Mark

My host had 2 drive failures within 2 months, on different servers. (I still think they must have gotten a deal on western digital drives. :) )

I'm not ready to give up on them yet but I do have my ear on the ground. ;)

Mulder

I would be cautious of any "Good" or "Bad" reports of ANY host here. Not saying that they are not true, just that there are usually 2 sides to a problem. I find also that 98% of "Good" reports come from Noobs to the company (under a year). I would also say this (and to some protests I am sure) that many if not most resellers are not going to admit that they are resellers OR who they resell for. I certainly did not, and today will not say who this company I resold for is. They are really good and I do my best to emulate them. I did not want 100 other guys selling for the same host giving my even more competition than there already is.

As far as getting your "Own" servers, most of the small guys like myself will caution you to make sure you have either an outstanding knowledge of your OS or a great "Administrator" to save your bacon. Believe me this is absolutely the best advice I could think to give you.

Thank you. for the advise, i'm learning..and I have found that most resellers will not list that they are. I stated because I'm new and testing to determine if this is actually something I want to pursue.

I think I like web designing and programming better.

i'm playing around with designing with nuke but mostly freelancing, so I will see how this web host reseller thing goes. I think my friend talked me into it to see how it is, through me before they decide wether they want to pursue the webhosting industry.

I hopes to someday have a forum like this though, right now it's empty:(

So i want you guys/gals to come list with me also over at ambition2success.com

But I can say this forum is a one stop shopping for me for hosting, servers, programming, help, you name it, I love it.

I dont buy or sell here, but I do get a kick out of it at times :D

I've been with 3-4 reseller hosting companies and I have to say that IIS-Networks is the BEST I have seen in a long time - I've been with them for 6 months or so now and I have nothing but positive comments- uptime, support, reliability - all there -

Tell them that Scott from kei-telecom.com sent you!

there url is- http://iisnet-networks.com/


Good luck!

Kappler the problem is a lot of resellers offer very little room, I guess I don't understand the space quota, I have been seeing most resellers avg about 5 gig space for about 50 bucks, my reseller pkgs are 10 and 20 gig space for 39 and 49 bucks

and comes with whm for the resellers.

If I can find a host that allows that and more for that price, that's who I’m going with, I found one so far on this board that is approaching their first year offering 60 gig,

don't know too much about them though

have anyone heard of http://e-z-hosting.com/reseller.htm (http://)

I just don't want another host that offers that much space and have so many server problems like my current host.

the packages I offer at http://www.s2shost.com (http://) http://www.s2shost.com are similar pkgs my current host sold to me. I love everything that offered to me except the downtime. Hopefully they will get past this, but would like to see at least one week, just one with no problems.

At first it was modernbill dilemma, got past that, not server problems.

So my initial question is, when resellers offer avg 5 gig space, is that max space to each reseller you resell to? or is that the max you as a reseller get to resell smaller pkgs to web host ie. 500 meg hosting pkgs? if so, that's not much. ie. my current pkg 20 gig, and say I split that up of at least 500 mg space, that avg about 2000 a month if I were to fill that space quota.

Also, does anyone know how the whm pkg panel works? Because when I go to setup a new client, I see different pkgs within my whm panel to choose form besides mine. Does that mean those are all the clients that my current host has signed up, of which we are all sharing the same ip address? if so, they are not doing bad at all, and the list is steady climbing, needless to say.

If I’m having this many problems, I’m sure they are too, and that is not good...

>>Anyone actually happy with their host?

I'm very happy with my current host:)

Originally posted by s2shost

Also, does anyone know how the whm pkg panel works? Because when I go to setup a new client, I see different pkgs within my whm panel to choose form besides mine. Does that mean those are all the clients that my current host has signed up, of which we are all sharing the same ip address?

Many hosts set up their WHM / Cpanel reseller accounts in such a way that the reseller's hosting packages are visible to other resellers. I think you can even select one of their packages to check out their size / bandwidth restrictions... If you want to troll a little farther there are services on the web that will let you look up your server's ip address to see all the domains that are using it.

I would not swear to it but I dont think there is a way around that. When I resold I was not allowed to create custom packages even, I sold what my host created.

60Gigs for 49$?? I dont think I can comment on an offer like that but if they have been around for a year, I would sure like to see how they are doing that and making money. A managed server for that price seems ....

Originally posted by RandyO
60Gigs for 49$?? I dont think I can comment on an offer like that but if they have been around for a year, I would sure like to see how they are doing that and making money. A managed server for that price seems ....

Where did you see info about 60 gigs for $49 RandyO? I can't find it. I, like you, would love to find it just to check it out.

I suppose, if someone puts a few 200gb IDE harddrives in a machine they could do prices like that, but even then... it is IDE...

Jeremy

s2Host/ about 6 posts up. said something about the 60 Gigs.

It costs me $250 or more a month for a half decent server. Selling space at or under $1 per gig? I pity the client as you now have to sell no less than 500 Gigs on box to turn a profit. I can see it now, "Yea I got a website, you want to see it? You gotta make an appointment to see it is all.

Quality of service is pretty directly related to load, If you have a customer that has to wait 30 seconds or more for a page to load, they are NOT going to wait.

I would just love to see the "aborted clients" figures on a server like that

I am
www.webgemshosting.com
I have a reseller acct with them and a dedicated server. GREAT support and prices.

I'm perfectly happy thanks, have had a few im not so happy with though

I have yet to find a good one - I have found that a very great many resellers put on a very big show and give the impression that you are dealing with a number of staff within an organised company. WTF are they on????? :D You can't beat common all garden honesty.

I have also found that each time I realise that I am with the wrong host is when there is a genuine support issue and 'support' wont respond the same day at the very least.

Anyway, DIY hosting seem to be pretty good - but I have only had an account there for about 2 months so far, so I could not recommend them quite yet. The DNS set up is quite good though, I mean if I ran my own mail server, they would be pretty much transparent. The only complaint is that you have to ask to see the uptime stats and 'have a good reason' to do so. ??

I have been with many hosts in my 4 yrs in business, and I have certainly experienced the rude responses from support, and those who do not even answer the questions. I mean, come on! I always love when they turn around and blame the outage on me. I always liked that one.

As for reseller companies, I have been with two during my reselling days, and I have been satisfied with both.

Now, things do change, and from time to time a great host decides to sell his operation... and the new company or the previous owner does not tell the client. This host I have, is killing me. They have a ClientExec panel, but never answer tickets. I have to wait to find someone on an IM client and kill them wth IM's to show them I have an issue. Plus, not use to having issues... they keep getting a server load issue, and this is apparently the upgraded one.

Basically what I am saying is, we are all satisfied at one time or another, the industry changes each and every day, and that makes it difficult to keep up.

I provide the 1st line of support for my customers, as we all do, and I am as polite as I can be, I take the attitude I cannot afford to lose them, just wish some of the BIGGER web hosts would feel the same way about us little guys!

Originally posted by KodJejagt
I don't necessarily disagree, but there is a big difference between extensive support and simple politeness. It doesn't cost a host any extra time or money to lose the attitude.

Heck, back in the day when I made $4.25/ hr working retail I was still reasonably polite to the customers.

Plus, if these budget hosts wanted to move beyond being "budget" and possibly make more money for themselves in the process, they're going to have to cut-out the illiterate thug act. Perhaps before going into the hosting business they should've reseached what the business actually entailed. It's not the consumer's fault that the host can't handle (emotionally, intellectually, technically, etc) what was promised.

A great deal of the problem stems from the tech support being paid with free hosting rather than a regular rate of pay. What real incentive do they have to be nice? They don't actually lose anything directly if you are not satisfied.

1st level of support in most peoples mind should be unskilled people who can simply glorified FAQ automation robots, anything outside of the FAQs is passed off to someone who can (probably) help.

The way i see it there should be very few things that pass the 1st level support tier, they should be empowered and skilled enough to deal with any issue that pops up. After all this is your clients 1st impression or your support and well you only get one chance to make that a good memorable experience.