It is 1:18 am on September first and I just received an email from Tripod Support saying that they are making all current clients inactive unless they wish to upgrade to some new tremendous prices. They may be an ok support company for $35/mo but not hundreds a month. That isn't the worst part.

"We have not and do not intend to charge you for the month of September unless you decide to switch to this new pricing. Till then, we will assume your status with us to be inactive."

Keep in mind I received this on September 1st. This means they effectively dropped all clients immediately and without warning. It is only 1am and I bet most hosts won't receive this until morning. What a way to wakup...with no support online!

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't think this is a very good business practice.

I remeber reading recent posts that pre-sales seemed to be good but actual support was a bit iffy. Prehaps raising prices will raise quality of service or lower the number of customers but still keep the bottom line ok

Rus

From talking with TS, I gather that they have discontinued certain services, however they have not dropped all their clients. :rolleyes:

Infact our company like many will not be affected at all by the changes, I suggest you get your facts straight.

I thought the same, but the email really doesn't affirm that. I am sure Roj will let us know on this thread.

Thanks for sticking up for us Webbase.. :-)

I was prepared for this thread to emerge sooner or later - not as soon as it did though. ;-) I better hurry to clarify since it might get as long as the last few threads on our company.

It's sad that Tripod Support has become one popular company in the web hosting industry but in a bad light. Our goal is to *fix* this image and I understand that a lot of current clients are fairly upset that their service has been discontinued and a downpour of wrath in the WHT community is possible. We had to suck it up and inform the clients paying the "old" rates because it turns out that these clients were also, for the most part, the reason why we were facing problems. I could explain this further (and may try to) but that's besides the point right now.

We have *not* dropped all clients - as Webbase mentioned. We have dropped clients that were paying the original prices that were once on our website (which my email says though a bit subtly). This was done swiftly as a way to ensure and focus on serving the clients that have already been paying the new prices (one of which is Webbase - apologies for making this a little public).

In a nutshell, our business strategy has changed so that we are serving the hosting companies that are willing to *invest* in a off-shore support team that will effectively be their answer to an in-house support team. We have a handful of solid customers that have paid both money and attention to our team so that we have what *we* need to provide quality support to their customers.

I can say with much confidence that they were quite upset when they first started working with us. It took a good solid month for them to gain the confidence that we could do what they needed us to. (I recall a thread-poster in another Tripod Support thread that mentioned it taking two months to work effectively with an outsourced support team). Fortunately things worked for the better as we understood our realm of responsibility and now we're confident they will be sticking with us and they're confident that the Tripod Support staff members doing chats and trouble tickets for them will do so as well.

A lot of clients have come and gone with Tripod Support over the past few months and through our short relationships, we have learned a lot about what can be promised and what can be delivered; what is realistic and what is just plain ridiculous. While I would love to claim that we can do all sorts of magic in providing excellent customized support to hosting companies at a price point that is "within budget" (say around $35) for a company that has a few dozen clients, I can honestly say that I've tried and can't.

Those of you who are disappointed that our website is still down and has been for the past ten days, our new website is scheduled to be back up by the end of this week and will reveil our new pricing, new objectives, and evolved commitment to quality. :-)

I respect WHT because while it has forced our company to fix our problems when negative comments emerge (and there are way too many now), it's also responsible for our growth as well. I do not mind answering questions about our company and directions so fire away and I will do my best to respond clearly and honestly.

Provided this thread does get long, I urge readers to read the complete thread and every post between the first and last if possible since a lot of queries may be answered along the way (if I happen to post again).

Thanks for reading. :-)

Roj

See, told you he'd clear it up ;)

Thanks Roj

Hi,

Just a couple of questions Roj;

Firstly when do you suspend the service? Streight away or at the end of the month?

Secondly: "No instant message communication provided at this service level with our techs. All questions/concerns must be sent via email."

Surly if you are trying to improve the service cutting out Instant Messaging will make the process longer and harder for the customer? For example now a customer comes online, the tech is unsure what our normal procedure is, they then simply ask me in MSN and resolve the issue. Why is this being removed?

Thanks

but isn't dropping all clients immediately a bit too sudden? could have given a 2 weeks notice or so. And I think that's where the thread starter come from, you just drop them when you feel like it, moved on, while a lot of your customers are caught unprepared and shocked.

Note that while it is a easy decision for you to drop your customers and jump to a new business focus, your customers need days (or even weeks) to come up with a new solution to provide support to their clients. You decision just risked your customers' businesses to huge losses.

While I do not intend to suspect your determination in providing high quality outsourced support services, but I have to agree with boardr00 that this does not look like a very good business practise.

I don't doubt Roj being a nice guy, but I must say that his implementation of this was extremely poor.

Webbase, just because your company isn't affected doesn't mean others are not.

For instance, as the poster mentioned, this e-mail was received on the 1st of September. I login to LiveChat instantly to see that there are no operators in it. Why weren't we received warning ahead of time? For now, and I assume for other companies who used Tripod (and were on the old payment scale), are now left in the dark to find a new support company (which may also take a while to setup). So in the meantime, thanks for nothing.

I've always been supportive of Tripod, as I understand it to be a budding company with only room for improvement and growth. When we first signed up with Tripod, we had problems with them getting ticket notifications. The e-mail they provided was not receiving our e-mails. This went on for weeks and no solution was found (their techs kept pushing me back and forth between themselves), until an e-mail to Roj finally resulted in him asking me to use their mailing list to notify them of ticket notifications. We were with Tripod for approx. two months and to this day, that ticket notification issue still isn't resolved.

At one point, I wanted to test the Live Chat, in which I entered, under a different name, asking a simple question such as How do I create a MySQL database. While the support person was very friendly, I got nothing but "please hold" which went on for about ten minutes. Finally, he comes up with an answer: a link to the knowledge base of another web host. Great... If i were a customer, I wouldn't know what to think.

I outlined these issues to Roj, and he said he'd get on it, and I thought the services would improve--and to be honest, I have not been able to test it (but it looks like I won't be able to now). When I signed up for Tripod, I was told by "Thomas," that our prices would be locked in even after the changes. I guess this is not the case either. For a company looking to make a new image of itself, it's doing a poor job of leaving its old customers gracefully--as if we would be silent about abhorrent mistreatment. I really found this to be in poor taste.

Roj, the best way to go about this would have been to e-mail us ahead of time--allowing those who choose to discontinue thereafter to move on to something else seamlessly without any visible downtime. Instead, we, and I assume other companies, are left in the dark without any support reps for who knows how long.

For those who choose to no longer use/support Tripod, don't forget to change any passwords that you may have given them.

I see,

I didn't realise all services were being "suspended".

Wow, nice situation

Wow, although I am not a hosting company or used Tripod, from what I read THIS is the way to ruine your image and loosing customers.

My company recently introduced a new pricing-system, but with 1 month ahead notice and giving existing clients transition time (so they can choose from both models) for the next 4 months. And my company is not even a "time-critical" like Tripod.

If I was one of your "clients" (and I doubt the word is right when they get handled this way) who got cutted off with 0-day notice, I would not even think about signing up for your new plan because I would think that can happen anytime again in the future and you do not really care about me.

My 2 cents.

It was definitely sudden for us to fire off an email to our clients and discontinue service for them. I also agree with the notion that it was bad professional practice to do so as well.

It surely is unnerving for a hosting company that has to resort to other methods of providing support when they were doing so with an outsourcing company as their primary operation - and they have to do so in 24 hours. These *same* clients who understand exactly how important support is to their company's image flippantly decide to - usually as a knee-jerk reaction - hop into WHT and post "stay away" threads on our company in hopes that we come e-mail them back and beg them that we'll do better but that they please not post another bad thing about our company. We've had clients actually say things like "don't make a mistake otherwise I'll make sure the whole world knows how bad you are in WHT". Yet they just don't understand that quality support is why their customers stay and they should pay somewhat dearly for it.

While WHT is, in many ways, the Consumer Reports forum for the web hosting industry, I think it's time for our company to grow a spine and say something to the tune of "you got what you paid for". I remember being on hold with the eMachines guy when trying to get a motherboard replaced for a lemon my mom purchased and he effectively said "Get a grip man! It's an E-MACHINE!" I couldn't argue with that other than by saying "you're saying that about your *own* company?"

C'mon now - $35/server for 24x7 live chat and trouble ticket support? That *is* a deal if I ever saw one. You sign up because you're excited about the golden deal you just found, only to be dissapointed to the point of being so POed because you feel like it's a scam, you have to vent your frustration in the good ole WHT. It wasn't my intention to be selling lemons of a deal (believe me) - it also wasn't my intention to be working with a majority of customers who wanted the world but couldn't pay for it (and were ready to rant on WHT).

So having said all the things that you'd never expect me to say, all I can say is...we're starting over.

aixagent, I believe you've posted your complaint in a previous thread. I understand your frustration about not being able to find another company to provide support for your customers at $35/month. Perhaps you should consider doing it yourself until you grow to a point that you can realistically pay for an alternative solution. In light of the possibility of shooting myself in the foot, I frankly don't like customers like you. Further to that, I don't like customers that have quietly been using our services and badmouthing us on forums like this.

T3Hosting, thank you for being commonly courteous in asking your questions. We've had fundamental problems with clients popping in the IM and effectively screaming about tickets that we couldn't solve (ironically because we didn't know what to *do* with them because *they* weren't online). It's interruptive and disruptive. While this is sometimes necessary, it is available at a premium. Otherwise, the passive solution is to send an email to us if you need clarification and vice versa.

Now...for those that need a little grace period, please email Krish and myself at krish@tripodsupport.com and niyogi@tripodsupport.com respectively and I'll see what I can do about getting you folks up and operational for a few more days while you eventually cancel on us anyway. Seeing that I've been extremely unprofessional about all of this, we will not charge you for that time. :-P


Roj

sounds like you are justifying being a completely condescending a-hole to people who were, until very recently, paying customers by raising the price and becoming less of an a-hole because people are paying you more.

If I ever buy a Hyundai or some economy-priced car, I don't expect it to perform like a Lamborghini. However, I don't expect the Service Manager to suddenly stop honoring the warranty early and then, to top it off, come out and take a big dump on the hood and joke about how I got what I paid for.

This is a shocker Roj. I have never posted a complaint prior to this thread. If you look for that outsourcing thread, I actually defended and argued FOR tripod support in light of the things that datapimp was saying.

What's even more of a shocker is that I'm not pissed off about losing a $35 deal (even though we paid more than for pre-sales support as well--but the price is not the issue atm). I'm pissed off at the fact that we got absolutely no forewarning or mention of this. It was an absolute termination of service which came to us as a surprise. The sad thing is, we don't even get heavy traffic nor many trouble tickets. In the time that we did use your services, you answered 0 tickets. The tickets that we did receiev were answered by our own support staff. And for you to say that we rely on Tripod Support PRIMARILY is wrong. Now I'm even more upset. I'm upset that you don't like customers like me (who never nagged except for 1 email to you discussing an issue with the email notification). Is it too much to ask you to do the job and services in which you have offered and sold? Is this not like the overselling debate that happens here quite frequently? You understand now that your services were cheap and were not able to provide the services that you sold and offered--and now you put your blame on your customers? You're telling me that I asked you for a world of services at the $55/mo that we were paying you guys? On top of the money we paid for your server hardening services? Was it too much to ask that you guys fix the problem with the e-mail notification? You guys weren't receiving our ticket notifications--and if you can't receive our ticket notifications, then how can you provide the services that you offer and that we paid for? Is that not the core basis of what we paid you for? I didn't complain too much. I sent one e-mail in total and you're going to come on here and make these false accusations? And not to mention, i was very polite and patient in that e-mail, and when I interacted with your staff.

I'm upset that I defended you and your services, you have now turned it around on me, and have made accusations that are unproven and false. Please find that thread and show me what complaint I've made publicly on these forums up until now.

And please stop beating around the bush and understand that I'm not posting a stay away thread--it is wrong for you to point fingers and shift the subject of this topic elsewhere. All you basically said was, "Well you're a bad hosting company because you used US as your support service." Are you not like that e-machines guy bagging on your own company?

I'm simply just very upset at the unprofessional business practice of shutting down your doors on customers without warning them prior, and you should realize and understand that.

When you decided that you'd terminate us, you could have sent us an e-mail a few days ago, or last week. Or even e-mailed us today and told us that our services would be terminated next week when your new webpage and new prices are released. How many new customers do you expect to get on your reformed new wonderful competitively priced services when your webpage is still down? You could have let companies like ours walk away in good graces, but you chose to burn bridges.

All I can say is wow....

By chosing not to give a simple one month notice you have basically completely lost any shred of credability.

Your reasons are sound your execution sucks.

All you needed to do is simply say $35 a server is just not a viable biz model guys (and I don't think too many people would have disagreed) so I am giving you a one month notice of the new price structure.

You would look good, yes there would be nay-sayers but at least you would have kept your credability. What happens next? You raise the prices again and drop these customers with no notice?????

Bad, bad, bad business practice IMHO.

Just my thouhgts.

Simon

niyogi I am sorry to say this but that sounds very not professional at all. I mean you just drop your clients like that. Now think of what people are going to say when they ask about tripodsupport? "Oh do not use them because they will just drop you when ever they feel like it".

Seems you care more about money then your clients. If you really cared about your clients you would of gave them at lease 1 week notice. No I am not a customer, but I was considering using you as support since I heard great stuff about you, but seems not so great after all.

Hello,

Just thought I would give my two pence on this one. I have been using Tripod for the past 2 months and whilst at first the support was not up to the standard I would have lived I decided that it would only be fair to give them at least 3 months to get the hang of the way we work before posting any reviews.

I had been paying tripod in excess $300 per month and whilst I agree this is not a huge amount, for the amount of tickets they dealt with per month I would have classed it as fairly reasonable.

This has really annoyed me however; I have a vacation booked for the 10th of this month which it looks like I am going to have to cancel as without me our in house team will struggle even more to cope. I am disgusted that we were not provided with at least 30 days notice of this and due to this I have lost all faith in Tripod and defiantly will not be taking up any of there new offers and will highly recommend people avoid them in the future unless something is done quickly to rectify this situation.

Tripod have left a lot of hosting companies with a major headache by not giving them any prior notification of there plans.

Regards,
Peter

I especially don´t understand why they do force all clients to upgrade their pricing with 0-day notice. Even if you´ve noticed your old business model doesn´t bring enough revenue, you could have slowly migrating them over the next 2-3 months.

Doing so with NO notice, only shows that you must be straight before bankruptcy that doesn´t allow you to do the migration slowly. However, I think this plan will fail very well, as I am sure you will now even loose more customers and remember, there are support companies out there that CARE about their clients.

Next time do your homework and write a business plan. This really doesn´t seem to be different from some kiddie that runs a webhosting company and sells 40 cent hosting who then fails some months later because he didn´t do the math.

Roj- I created this post with merely the quote facts from the email. I understand that changes had to made and that you are trying to improve your company. However, with no forewarning you competely dropped our company. I am left with no support online, and clients upset because I promised them 24 hours support. This came with no warning, and no time to find a new support team. I am currently scrambling to find someone else, but of course it takes time to setup. I feel that you left a lot of companies and potential clients in the dark. Personally, I feel what I was paying is adequate. You answered a total of 5 tickets for $35 last month. However, I may have considered using your company in the future once we grow enough to need your services. This is no longer an option as you instantly dropped us with no warning. Most of your clients understand your reasoning but your method of implementing this was definately not very ethical. I hope you understand.

Originally posted by niyogi
C'mon now - $35/server for 24x7 live chat and trouble ticket support? That *is* a deal if I ever saw one. You sign up because you're excited about the golden deal you just found, only to be dissapointed to the point of being so POed because you feel like it's a scam, you have to vent your frustration in the good ole WHT. It wasn't my intention to be selling lemons of a deal (believe me) - it also wasn't my intention to be working with a majority of customers who wanted the world but couldn't pay for it (and were ready to rant on WHT).

OK, I was basically not that worked up about the drop of support until I read this. Who made you offer the service for $35/month? Did someone hold a gun to your head and make you do it? You certainly have a right to raise your prices, with a reasonable notice. But, to now make out like anyone who signed up with your $35/month plan was the problem end of the equation is really inappropriate.

I was using your service as a supplement to help make sure our customers were covered, and you certainly didn't lose any money on me. I think you responded to only a couple of tickets a month because our other staff beat you to them most of the time.

Given the way this was handled... 0 days notice of dropped support... then this argument that anyone signing up for the service was the problem... I agree that your credibility has been blown away.

Sorry to vent, but this really just struck me the wrong way.

Thanks for the responses.

I think we've all summed it up that:

(a) it was bad business practice to terminate service abruptly

(b) it was bad business practice to have a weak price structure in the first place that got us where we were

(c) quality of support was sub-par and that my accusations about $35/month-paying customers was a low blow and should be recanted. Not all customers were like this - and if we decided to cancel *those* accounts, that would be a whole different story.

Guys, it really does suck where we're at and I'm sorry to say this but I've got stuff to take care of to make this business better so that the customers that are signing up *now* according to our new pricing model get treated right.

Regards,
Roj

It's obvious that they realised their current business model was flawed and unworkable. Ok, outsourced support (*shivers*) for hosting companies is a very fast moving market niche, and they realised they needed to drastrically adjust their business model, if they were going to survive and prosper.

However, it's a bit rough and unfair not to give at least a few days notice. 1 week would have been bare minimum, for something like this, IMO. Folks have to make alternate support arrangements, and 1 week would allow them to do so. By not giving any notice, they basically force their clients to upgrade, or have no support.

Ok, your previous business model "sucks", but that's no reason to hurt those clients that you offered the service to. :eek3:

In hindsight, you guys are absolutely right that it was pretty harsh to have taken such abrupt steps. As such, just *email* me and I'll have support reinstated for the time needed to look for alternate arrangements.

Some clients have already done so. :-)

Take care.

Roj

appreciate it Roj!

Originally posted by aixagent
...Finally, he comes up with an answer: a link to the knowledge base of another web host. Great...

I think if you want to succeed providing outsourced support, in addition to competency, your reps should be able to exercise common sense. But then again, some training wouldn't hurt. You're now charging a lot more for that level of competence? I hope the costs of not only training new hires but keeping existing techs up-to-date are part of your new business plan.

If I give you access to my knowledgebase, I would expect your staff to be able to contribute to it. And to never under any circumstances hand it out to my competitors' clients? Finding an answer for one of my customers on someone else's KB can't be avoided. But at that point the support rep, in-house or outsourced, ought to posess the skill to paraphrase it into an entry in my knowledgebase. Send that to my customer.

Wow... I have honestly never seen such an unprofessional move. Cutting off paying clients with absolutely no notice and then simply responding by saying "You get what you pay for."? You're trying to create a better image? Please tell me how in the world this makes sense.

What is so hard about sending them an email last month saying that next month we will be changing things? To me it sounds like you made a knee-jerk reaction to something without thinking it through. Even if that is not the case it is an extremely poor business decision and I honestly hope it hurts your company, as it has definately hurt many of your PAYING customers.

While the thought of outsourced support has always given me the shakes - no-one's going to look after our customers the way we do - I can understand that some 'businesses' feel the need to use them.

I can safely say, having read this entire thread, and having paid special attention to 'Roj's' replies, that his 'company' is something I'll die happily having never done business with.

Developing a price structure that's unsustainable, then flat out abusing the people who took advantage of it makes me wonder if you should be in business at all - and that doesn't even include the constant (they're rubbish for a month ro two till they 'work out your business').

A month or two of half-assed responses to support tickets would have us begging quarters at the bus station. While our customer base are generally wonderful people, very few of them would react well to poor resolutions to their issues.

In both of the two Tripod threads I've read here Roj's response has been to blame his clients for his problems in one post and to apologize for blaming them in a subsequent post.

If you can't sustain the prices you charge, that's your fault for pricing them too low. Look at what SM has been doing - slowly increasing their server prices over time. The early adopters are locked in to the low prices and the company builds on this base to attract new customers.

The customer's only responsibility is to pay for the services you provide under the terms of your agreement. You set the price and provide the service.

It would take a complete and utter fool to continue using their services after reading this thread. I'm just glad I've never dealt with this guy and can safely say I never would.

Is this really the type of person you want representing your company?

All I can say is WOW. We had problems with Tripod Support, with promises that things would improve. Promise after promise never came to fruition, so I cut my losses and went to Bob Cares for my tech support. It was the best move I ever made, and I recommend others look at Bob Cares also.

I'm floored at the fact that customers are quoted a price, then when they pay it, are blamed for the companies problems. Roj was always a pleasure to talk with, but everything else about the company was below sub-par. After reading the latest turn of events, its difficult to maintain what respect was left.

For those that are left in a bind, contact Bob Cares. The techs there are good, speak English very well, and pay attention to detail. For once, I don't regret that part of our support desk is outsourced.

I was a bit torn on whether or not I should add to this thread, seeing as how it could be construed as poor form. However, since we decided Not to put a big sign on our site that said "Tripod Refugees Click Here", perhaps my comments here won't shatter public opinion or create some sort of Touch Support - Tripod Support rivalry.

I wanted to note that I asked at least one person who came to us if they were under a contract with Tripod, to which the response was a resounding "Nope". After realizing that there were no contracts with the clients that were instantly cut-off, my outlook on the situation changed somewhat; Without an agreement of some kind, Tripod seems to have the right to do this and/or whatever else they wish without being crucified on WHT.

That said, however, we also had to dramatically change our prices in October of last year if we were going to continue to grow at the desired rate. Even so, we still have one client that signed up last September that is paying $135/mo. for system administration + ticket support (which, as many of you know, is WELL below what would be charged today). There is nothing that would stop me from honoring our orginal agreement with this company even though their price point is Dramatically lower than anything we presently offer.

Nobody is arguing that he was wrong for raising his prices and termination. We're merely discussing the ethics of no notice & termination. In the web hosting industry, if we have a client who broke our Terms of Service, then we as web hosts usually suspend/terminate accounts. But here, we have done nothing wrong and now look at the consequences of his actions, and the havoc that he wreaked on some of the clients that he dropped. I feel especially sorry for that one guy who had a vacation planned for the 10th, I bet he was a very hard worker and was finally happy that he was in a position where he could get up and take a break for a little while. We all know this can be a stressful industry. Roj is well within his rights to raise his prices, and nothing is stopping him from terminating services--but this is why the free market is so great in the USA. Roj creates a service that he admits is subpar and then executes the termination of services unethically. Unsatisfied customers speak resoundly (re: do a good job, maybe one person will hear about it, but do a bad job and many others will hear about it). As a result, potential customers will steer away, and head towards his competition. I, myself, will never do business with Tripod ever again. There are many other companies that can do what they were doing and have the credibility to back up their claims and prices. As for Tripod, give them a little while and see how their new business platform works out. They will need a bit of time to rebuild their reputation.

Greetings:

"But here, we have done nothing wrong"

Let's say a consumer buys life time Web hosting on eBay for $5 which provides 50 GB of bandwidth per month, 1 GB of disk space, and free use of up to 100 MB of Oracle 10G space / engine.

If the company does not deliver, can you state the "consumer did nothing wrong?"

Thank you.

By doing nothing wrong, I meant we, and other clients, didn't violate our Terms of Service, etc that would warrant sudden termination of service in the way that it was done. I'm not saying he's not allowed to--but at the very lease you could have taken steps to try and prevent the clients that were paying him (regardless of price and return of investment that his clients were receiving)--at the very lease he could have given his clients time to transist without causing major disruption. We're talking about the business ethics of terminating without the common courtesy to warn customers. Please, let's not digress.

Greetings:

This is on concept and to the point.

If the consumer who purchased the ebay offer as described did nothing wrong, then fine.

However, if the consumer should have known better; and was equally at fault... what's the differnce between that consumer and one who purchases services in the same manner?

Thank you.

By your logic, anyone who offers a good promotion price are up to no good and consumers should not buy from them because they are destined to flop. Many companies offer really good deals to attract people and to get their name out--that does not mean that their quality of service is abhorrent. In some cases, this is true, but not in all cases. My business was not hurt by Tripod's sudden move, as we do have our own support staff. Tripod was used as a supplement to what we already have. Does that mean that I am wrong?

You're arguing on behalf of people who offer either a poor service or have poor business practices--which makes no sense. There are reasons why organizations such as the BBB exist--to try to protect consumers from poor business ethics. If the BBB truly felt that all consumers are responsible for companies knee-jerking them then the BBB would have no reason to exist. So, you're also telling me that businesses that offer "amazing deals" are entitled to act like jerks? I guess the less you charge for your services, the less responsible you are right?

Geetings:

I'm not stating good promotion.

What I am stating is that if some one offers something too good to be true, it is most likely too good to be true.

And that the consumer who partakes of such "too good to be true" offers has a level of responsibility for their own actions.

Thank you.

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Geetings:

I'm not stating good promotion.

What I am stating is that if some one offers something too good to be true, it is most likely too good to be true.

And that the consumer who partakes of such "too good to be true" offers has a level of responsibility for their own actions.

Thank you.

You seem to be defending him based on "He never charged enough so you should have expected it" which is very poor reasoning. Personally I would not have ever touched the company at anywhere near this pricing but if you read this thread it is 99% about the lack of notice given and the lack of professionalism on his part, not about the pricing. He offered a service for a price he set, you can't say that he noticed overnight that the pricing was too low and needed to increase it on the spot.

The whole thing here is that he left his clients with no notice. To me it seems like an attempt to guarantee people would upgrade. When it comes down to it, if these companies are used to outsourcing the support, then some won't have a choice but to upgrade just to keep the business running. I don't know what pricing he is charging but lets say this move lost 50% of customers and he starts charging double the amount he did before, this stunt means he needs less staff for the same income.

In the end, this should be a lesson to people that outsource to get a contract with the company. It still bewilders me that someone would let a company offer support to their clients without any contract in place. However, I still side 100% with the clients on this one.

Greetings:

I am not defending anyone. I am stating all parties share in the responsibility.

"Personally I would not have ever touched the company at anywhere near this pricing."

This is sound judgement given the offer.

Thank you.

All parties share in the responsibility? Why are the customers responsible if Tripod set the prices? Why are the customers responsible if Tripod pulled the plug without warning?

AH-Tina was giving away reseller accounts a few days ago for a penny - does anyone here think that company is going to "pull the plug?" Server Matrix was selling major league servers for $69 a month - does anyone think they are going to "pull the plug?"

Don't tell me they could or that they would get away with it legally, tell me you think they WILL.

This is not a "you get what you pay for" situation. This isn't about the price of the service - I don't see anyone complaining about Tripod raising their prices.

This is a "not getting what was paid for" situation. The only party at fault is Tripod.

Like Dave from Touch Support I am hesitant to post to this thread but there are a few issues I'd like to comment on.

To an extent it is true that "you get what you pay for", but the price thresholds which apply when determining cheap versus expensive are different for purchases within your own country compared with purchases from overseas.

For example, if you went out to dinner, what sort of meal do you think you would get for $1 ? The answer is that it depends on where you are. $1 probably would not go far in western countries but in some parts of India it is likely to buy you a great meal at a nice restaurant.

The same thing goes for other services. When you buy hosting support services from India all the sums change (compared with the US) and so $35 does not necessarily equate with low quality.

Quite a few Indian companies are providing decent support packages for even lower prices than $35, so I think it is inaccurate to say that reasonable service cannot be delivered at that sort of price.

Also, I gather Tripod Support have terms and conditions on their site which apply to their service, and if a customer has signed up for their service and has been accepted by Tripod Support as a customer, then surely a legally binding contract is in place, governed by the terms and conditions set forth by Tripod Support. If those terms and conditions are silent on the issues of providing customers with notice of price changes and/or cessation of service, then presumably it would be up to the courts to decide who had what rights.

I agree though, the important issues are business ethics and professionalism. I'll leave that one for others to comment on though ;)

This is sad, there pricing was nice, but as above poster said not great for that part of the world. The rep here for there company shows little remorse and no business morals at all. I will never do business with this company, and I was including them in a new business plan. I have so much to say now about this kid and his so called company, but I guess I will let him dig his own grave, which he is doing a great job of.

Originally posted by niyogi
It surely is unnerving for a hosting company that has to resort to other methods of providing support when they were doing so with an outsourcing company as their primary operation - and they have to do so in 24 hours. These *same* clients who understand exactly how important support is to their company's image flippantly decide to - usually as a knee-jerk reaction - hop into WHT and post "stay away" threads on our company in hopes that we come e-mail them back and beg them that we'll do better but that they please not post another bad thing about our company. We've had clients actually say things like "don't make a mistake otherwise I'll make sure the whole world knows how bad you are in WHT". Yet they just don't understand that quality support is why their customers stay and they should pay somewhat dearly for it.

That is definately the most unprofessional and unethical post I have ever seen on this forum. I now understand why so many negative reviews of your company exist. I'm sure I wont be the first to stay clear of your company and every future service you represent. I for one am and extremely glad I don't trust people like you with my company.

Originally posted by emzec
The rep here for there company shows little remorse and no business morals at all. I will never do business with this company, and I was including them in a new business plan. I have so much to say now about this kid and his so called company, but I guess I will let him dig his own grave, which he is doing a great job of.

I agree 100%. He makes reference to the copious amounts of negative reviews, then tops it off by insulting our intelligence.

I am very much a newbie to this all - but I have read through this post and must say - Tripod will not handle any of my support concerns if I so need to go in that direction.

I am sure Roj feels horrible (i hope) for some of the statements made and understands that in the light of it all, maybe dropping clients without much prior notice was an immature business move but lets honestly face it - it tarnishes Tripod for awhile. WHY?

I am new to it all and now would not trust Tripod to handle my support. Just because I would fear they would get another wild hair up their @ss (excuse the texas in me) and do a similar action to me and my customers.

Just the thought of something messing up my business with the hinesite (i have spelling issues and i blame microsoft for spell check) that a company I am choosing to do business with has done this before - it would only really be my fault for being so blind.

Honestly - to do this to paying - yes PAYING customers - is completely outragious to me. Not ONLY do you loose them as customers, but I promise you, they will not recommend anyone else to use Tripod and will most likely tell others to stay clear of your company.

I haven't even launched my hosting site yet - but I do know customer service and that is the foudation of our company. And to think that you would treat paying customers (i have to keep syaing that cause it blows my mind) in such a way where you are almost coming across as saying that customers are a dime a dozen and we need to focus more on the ones who offer the bigger bucks.

In my opinion - as if I haven't voice it enough - I would say these clients have been Godfathered in and have established a contract with you at the price you stated. Think about the moral you would have established with them the customers they would have brought you at the higher price... cause now - i am sure if anyone who is anyone in hosting reading WHM - you are going to suffer now greatly from your comments and rash behavior.

How to fix it is not to have people email someone about your error. That's just once again saying that your too busy to handle this yourself so if you are interested or care to reinstate - just email someone. Did you tell everyone that or just thosein the forum?

Roj - you personally address this issue and reinstate everyone and then send an email telling them that you will give them at the least 2 months - at which you will increase their price to the new set amount and if they choose to discontinue their service with you - to please inform you.

This way - your not dropping clients and potentially damaging another companies reputation with their support.

Okay - i have had too much coffee - but one thing that helps from reading these post is better ways our company can increase our support.

Now I might be wishing upon a star or whistling dixie or what ever - and I know it's not a perfect world built upon the backbone of host - but lets face it - we need each other to build an industry. Lets keep it that way.

so any news on if tripod is a legal business wherever they are located, come on I know someone was looking:)

Not giving any notice is extreemly unprofesional. I would never deal with a company that have acted like this in the past.

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Geetings:

I'm not stating good promotion.

What I am stating is that if some one offers something too good to be true, it is most likely too good to be true.

And that the consumer who partakes of such "too good to be true" offers has a level of responsibility for their own actions.

Thank you.

While I understand the point you are trying to make, I believe it is out of context here. If you were talking about someone selling a web based business on eBay, for a reserve price of $1000, that they advertise as generating $25K/month in revenue... then I'd agree that a buyer going in should realize that something is wrong with this picture. If the buyer didn't do any homework with the seller to get proof of the claims, then I'd be saying that they got what they deserved.

I believe that is entirely different from an established company offering a promotional price, and then deciding it was a bad business decision... blaming the clients for buying it... and then cutting them off with no notice.

There are tons of bargain prices out there for anyone that is willing to hunt. I recently bought a Maxtor hard drive from CompUSA that was so low in price, that I was tempted to buy all they had and sell them on eBay. The clerk in the store said to me when I picked it up, that it must be a typo on the price, because there was no way that could be the right price. It turned out that it was the correct price, and they were offering it as a promotion. Should I have expected the hard drive to not be the 160GB which was on the label, when I installed it... because the price was comparable with other 80GB drives... so if I got home and ran chkdsk, and it said 80GB... well it was my fault because I shouldn't have expected to get 160GB for the price I paid? That is what your comment suggests to me that you are saying.

There are many, many, many cases of companies offering "deals" as a promtion. Grocery stores offer very low prices on select items to get people in the store, knowing they'll probably buy other impulse items that will generate profits to offset the loss of the promotion. Should the clerks stop customers at checkout that didn't buy anything but the promotional item and say... "sorry, you can't buy that... we changed our mind for you". Hosting companies offer free hosting as a promotion to get their company name out. Should the free hosting clients expect crappy service, or to be cutoff with no notice? The list goes on and on.

In our case, we only used Tripod for supplemental support, so life will go on. But prior to signing with them, I did do some research here, and found that they had an established track record of service. I weighed that against the costs, and against what I was needing for supplemental support. I do NOT think I was expecting, not did I get, more than I paid for.

The proper thing for Tripod to do in this situation, if they valued their reputation as a company, would have been to raise prices on their site for new clients first. Then continue to do a good job servicing their existing clients. Then at some point, if it were absolutely necessary, announce that at some point in the future, a price increase would be rolled out... giving their clients the option to sign up for the new offering, or find other arrangements.