We have about ~ 200 domains we host. We are looking to automate. We were (are) looking to Alabanza however, they have the WORST phone and e-mail service known! I have called about 20 times and sent just as many e-mails. Never a response. And this was for sales.

Does anyone else have anything good to say or advice on them. We are needing to atumate and provide a good control panel to keep competitive. They seem like the only show in town except for Hostopia (what a joke).

Yes, I know it is a cookie cutter hosting solution and 600 full of crap web host use them (meaning they all say "Our network" "Our control panel" "we host 1000's of domains", etc...

Any advice I would love. Ensim? Ok - that will be a latter question.

Alabanza has had some problems recently. Although this may be a slight setback for you, their servers and automation are second to none.

If you are looking for complete automation and a good control panel, I would still consider them.

If you would like, I can give you the name of our sales agent. He has always been very helpful and returns calls very quickly. Send me an email and I can get you in touch with him.

VDI??

I would recommnend Daneil @ ultraspeedusa.com

I would recommend <<EDIT>>. I know they have a good
e-mail and phone service. When you call there is a human on the other end of the line, not a machine that automatically repeats "leave your message PLEEEEEASE"

Good Luck!



[Edited by Chicken on 11-23-2000 at 11:35 AM]

That answer was not relevant to the topic, iaklobo. They do not offer automation.....

My expirience with Alabanza's support is not that bad.You are probably are asking wrong questions.

Wrong questions? I guess you must have access to the Alabanza batphone to talk to them.

You mean "I have 200 domains I want to automate, can you help?" is a wrong question. Sorry I am such an idiot. What should I ask?

Here is a fact: I sent 20 (yes twenty) different request varying from different users (e-mail addresses - 5 total) testing there level of service. I did not get one response! Via phone or e-mail.

I looked at the threads common to Alabanza. Seems there is an underlying theme. They stink when it comes to support. I guess when you have 600 host (many cookie cutter host) ranging in size from Jumpline to Garagehost.org, you don't need support.

I have made up my mind, and Alabadzupport is not for us.

This is my 2 drachmas:

I don't know about sales, since I had rare contact to them after my sign up and I am very upset after the latest price increase but their tech support is superior to any other I have used (I have used different levels of webhosting services the last 5 years and this is a very long time in this business).

Currently all my requests are solved and closed after 2 working days, initial answer is about 6 hours after email.

Their answers are usually detailed and always very polite and friendly (my last service before Alabanza replied only with a "Done" without even a signature and I think this is somewhat rude).

They did manage to update my server's SMTP 9 days before their schedule because I requested it. They could insist on their plan, couldn't they?

If you can come beyond the sales and if you can afford the servers, then take one. You won't regret it.

kosmo

I would have to say that alabanzas support has gotten alot better over the past few weeks also. We pretty much get any problem we send to them fixed within a day, as long as were detailed in what we need done. If you would like to email me I can put you in contact with my rep there.

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

Well I know a lot of people don't agree that Alabanzas support has goten better, some pople had to wait 3+ days to get a reply for a simple question - even then it wasn't acceptable to them. Personally we haven't had to make any support requests recentyl so I can't comment personally.

Ive made about 1 a day for the past week for various things and they've been handled within a day each time. It could be better but it could be alot worse.

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
You mean "I have 200 domains I want to automate, can you help?" is a wrong question. Sorry I am such an idiot. What should I ask?

Here is a fact: I sent 20 (yes twenty) different request varying from different users (e-mail addresses - 5 total) testing there level of service. I did not get one response! Via phone or e-mail.

I looked at the threads common to Alabanza. Seems there is an underlying theme. They stink when it comes to support.If you've made your decision, I hope you'll be happy. But: you're asking a sales question, not a support question. A non-answer to "I have 200 domains, can you help?" doesn't translate at all to "they stink when it comes to support."

There are plenty of stories of hosts who sound great and are very helpful with pre-sales inquiries, but then after signup the customer finds support lacking. From the consumers point of view, if a host has to prioritize, I'd rather they consider support the more important of the two areas.

Add to that: there's been a lot of speculation lately that Alabanza has decided to slow their own growth, and has cut back (or eliminated) the sales staff. Presumably that could enable more focus on support, and you can add me to the list of people who are happy with their support response time. Actually, we've been with them several months now and have only contacted support a couple of times. Email response has been prompt; one time I called for a problem and it was forwarded to the emergency desk without my prompting, simply because the person on the phone was knowledgeable enough to recognize the problem. That really surprised me, I'd expected the "technical support receptionists," as Alabanza now calls them, to be as clueles as the title implies.

I think you have to excuse the difference between support and sales emails. Often times *all* of us judge support and company response by initial sales inquiries. If the sales questions take 3 days to be answered, or are not answered at all, how many of us would take that to be a good sign? Now, I know no one is defending the sales side of things, but I certainly think the concerns are understandable.

I might have had a server at VDI last year had anyone replied to my questions. 9 months ago, another message, no reply. I now speak with many more people located at VDI, and even Bill himself, so I am more confident in their services, but if you'd have asked me a year ago...

Posting your complaint about Alabanza is not gonna help you in any way.If you wana get an answer e-mail them 10times a day call them start screaming at them do some action and not telling us about it.

If you're looking for automation, there is really nobody that can compare to Alabanza (yet). I have heard rumors (and they are only rumors ;)) regarding VDI's Cpanel 4... and it sounds like the DSM on steroids.

If you are really uncomfortable with Alabanza, then I would recommend signing on with a VDI-based host (or VDI themselves). You can rest assured that they will be improving the system drastically over the next 6 months. There is also a good chance that the support you receive will be much more "personal" when you're at a smaller company. It just depends on what you're looking for really. ;)

Matt
mlightner@site5.com

Google, it seems that in both your posts, you think he's already a customer. He's trying to contact them re: getting a server, and having no luck.

If you have to scream at a provider to supply you with information, then it surely doesn't seem worth it. I'd agree with Site5-Matt.

We have servers both places, and in comparing the two's support, I am signifigantly less impressed with VDI, but both could be better.

-Brendan

Google is it? Is that in short for "Google ga gah'?

Perhaps some people read "Web Hosting Talk" and "web hosting discussion form" and take it that it is a place to come and have intellectual correspondence with your fellow brother and sisters in arms. I can tell you that the people on this *list* are here to acquire knowledge or share their wisdom. My company, like so many out there, are at a crossroads. Alabanza? VDI? (good tip - never heard of them until I came to this list), build your own? That is why I raise concerns and questions. Maybe someone else will do a search and find this thread and see my plight.

PS - I don't recall sending you a notice "Please read"

Originally posted by Chicken
I might have had a server at VDI last year had anyone replied to my questions. You know, Chicken, now that you mention it, same here. We're at Alabanza, but at the time we were shopping around I emailed VDI as well. It took a week to get a reply (the person who answered said it was so long because the person who normally would have answered was on vacation) and that reply was sketchy. Not to mention grammatically ridiculous, but that's less of an issue. :)

So like I said before, maybe Alabanza's sales approach has changed. Certainly in either case sales does not equal customer support. At the same time, though, it's reasonable to draw some conclusions about how support is handled by the way sales inquiries are handled.

Really, thinking back, I don't think I equated the sales response from VDI with how I'd expect post-sale service to be. It was more like if I was going to have to pull teeth to get any real information it just wasn't worth the effort. Email to Alabanza at the time got a respnse basically just recommending a phone call; that call lasted about 20 minutes and answered every question I could think of. A couple of followup emails and calls were answered fully. Voila, an Alabanza client.

Good points everyone.

Also remember that not all VDI-based hosts will provide the same service. Many people are under the impression that to get the best support, you need to go directly to VDI. That is not always the case. Many companies that are co-located with VDI employ their own technical staff (ourselves included). If you check the forums, you will see there are quite a few VDI-based companies that have excellent reputations when it comes to technical support.

Matt
mlightner@site5.com

I hate to see Alabanza getting slammed on this one.

I sent you my reps name and even spoke to him about you contacting him. I spoke to my Alabanza rep today and he states that you didn't call him, or leave a message. Since you wanted to speak to someone there, I made the arrangements for you to do so. Unfortunately, if you do not follow through, the contact cannot be made.

If you would like, my rep said he will call you. Just email me your phone number and I will give it to him.

Scary that he said I did not call or e-mail. Like I said above, I did so as 5! different people thinking maybe it was what I said or maybe it was my e-mail address, etc.. then I did it just to see if I could get any response.

Anyway, as you know I have received your e-mail you sent me and I may contact him. I have a real bad taste in my mouth about Alabnza. Plus it seems like the advice of many is to check with VDI first - which I will do.

To re-iterate what Matt said, most VDI based hosts employ their own technical staff, and we they generally try and offer a different type of service to VDI.

In my own opinion, I see VDI very much as a wholesaler, and frankly, if we did not employ our own techs, I would still be waiting for VDI to do that apache compile, or upgrade ProFTP or whatever.

As I have said previously, we use them for physical space for our servers, bandwidth, cpanel and reboots. Thats it.

I will also just mention, that I just ordered our KVM solution, to be delivered and installed early January. This will allow us to hard reboot, and have actual console access from our offices in London, England and Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

I also believe that other VDI based hosts have similar plans.

If you want to get goos support call them at night and ask for a certain support tech guy.Don't speak with the operater and check the database because it has most of your answers there.He sounded like he was the customer of Alabanza thats why i talled him to scream at them or something.And UmBillyCord if you think my screen name sounds bad look at yours first.

I think Alabanza is an excellent company. We are in different businesses.

If you have any questions feel free to email me.

Thank you.

Franc

"They seem like the only show in town except for Hostopia (what a joke). "

Can you explain what you meant by that comment?

Has any alabanza host ever gotten an itemized invoice for their ridiculously large bill before? I havent been able to get one even through I have requested it many times.

-Brendan

Hello
When I was looking around Alabanza were very slow at coming up with a quote. It took weeks to prize the figures out of them.

VDI were much more accessible. I even got a phone call from Bill.

In the end,I went with Ultraspeed USA because of the additional tech support - and I have needed it.
I don't think I would have had the confidence to jump in at the deep end with VDI.
Ultraspeed have been good at dealing with the minor teething problems, and even doing some basic configuration for me to get the system working properly.

So far - so good.

Gordon