Here's a letter that I wrote to my former hosting company.
They had excellent prices.
They had an excellent online tutorial.

What they didn't have was good tech support or decent customer service. While they started off great, 10 months after I signed with them, they became the worst webhosting company I'd ever dealt with. Prior to this company, I dealt with 3 other webhost companies.

The first company went out of business.
The second company was excellent, but charged double the price of what I wanted to spend in my long-term plans.
The third company simply didn't offer comprehensive web hosting plans.

Web hosting company #4 was the kicker. They seemed great. I used them to sponsor my main internet address. Then they went to crap.

If only they responded to my concerns in a professional manner, I might have kept them. I recently transferred to another company that seems to be the perfect hosting company. (email me for more info) About 4 days ago, I wrote a letter to the company that let me down, and they still haven't responded with any acknowledgement whatsoever. There were no attempts to regain my business. Here's what I wrote.... share with who you will....

******
To the folks at NamesAreCheap.com:

I am sending you an email to inform you that I will no longer be using your services. I was extremely disappointed by the quality of your service.

1) Two weekends in a row, I could not receive email thru my domain name. I had too many people tell me that my email address was simply not working.

2) My phone call on a "Saturday" regarding this problem was responded to on a "Tuesday."

3) This disaster was, in your words, due to "maintenance."

4) You never responded to my question regarding when my annual contract for web-hosting was up for renewal.

With this in mind, it's time for me to move to another web-hosting company that understands the importance of coordinated customer service.

sincerely,
(a dis-satisfied customer)

You weren't able to receive emails for 2 weeks? that is a bit too much.

I have visited www.namesarecheap.com as well. The plans looks good to me, but since you mentioned about the support, i need look for other hosts.

where u intend to move your site to?

Ah you tell em zerp ;o) hehe :stickout

CK

Actually, to tell you the truth, their prices kinda are high....

Just to clarify, I was able to receive my email via NamesAreCheap.com most of the time. The real tragedy was that I had two weekends in a row where I couldn't get my email for long periods. In other words, if anyone tried to contact me Saturday or Sunday, it was truly a gamble. Sometimes I'd get my email, sometimes not. At these particular times when I couldn't get my email, their own website was down. During regular business hours, everything seemed to be back to normal. It didn't exactly inspire a vote of confidence, to say the least.

I notice they now have "CUSTOMER's TESTIMONIALS" page on their site. It's interesting to see that for the most part, they list the initials of the customers, with no email contact info or web address. For one of the few web addresses that was listed in their testimonials, I decided to check to check it out. Guess what. That page wouldn't even load. Surprise, surprise!

Who I am dealing with now? As it turns out, it's a company that sent me an email responding to one of my open-ended inquiries on this particular forum site- webhostingtallk.com! I looked at a lot of companies, sent out a lot of emails, and this particular company seemed to provide the best support with a custom-fit plan for my needs. They run their company from 3 different locations (which is good in these crazy times when disasters seem to occur), have a toll-free number for questions/support, respond very quickly to all my emails, a very friendly/professional approach to business, and a progressive attitude when it comes to web content.*

The company I'm dealing with is Web Hosting Products, based at http://www.getwhp.com/. Erik is my contact, and he's been great. As long this company continues to maintain the type of professionalism that I've experienced, then I will have no problem referring others to this company.

ZERP


*Special sidenote: I happen to think nipples are very pretty, yet I'm amazed how many companies absolutely forbid any form of nudity or links to nudity. I'm amazed at some of the contracts I've read - based on the wording, links to many of the great classic artworks would be a justifiable reason to cancel one's webhost account. I am over-reacting? Maybe so, but I'm not alone.

2 weekends of downtime is not true.

The fact is...

This user managed to walk out with more money than he paid by initiating a chargeback from his credit card company, and receiving a refund from NAC's billing department.

Just to give you an idea who NamesAreCheap.com is:

-Started in 1997 from Domainresellers.com (Privately Owned)
-Only 2 complaints from BBB after 7 years of hosting business
-More than 4,000 happy and loyal customers

Feel free to read our realtime testimonials since 2000 in our site

So go figure who you will need to yike about...



Ron
NAC Team

Well, guess it's better late than never to respond to an old post of this manner.

Originally posted by rbconnect

The fact is...




Not sure you noticed but youve dug up a 2+ yr old thread. :confused:
03-10-2002 04:50 AM

Well, guess it's better late than never to respond to an old post of this manner.Indeed. :)

Feel free to read our realtime testimonials since 2000 in our siteYes, there are quite a few, but:
1. You have control over them, meaning you can only publish the good ones. It would make little sense to do other wise anyway. :)

2. They do not provide a way to contact the reviewer. That means no one can verify them (contact the author).

never had problem with NC and always been good support I have chnaged me email many times there very fast usally few hours withen my support requests. tho I'm a big supporter im sure there with over 20+ domains.

gideonX- we concentrate in other areas than reading threads
martie- comment from another client & post is not true
ldcdc- client privacy is important to us.
kaneanus- thanks.

:)

Originally posted by ldcdc
Indeed. :)

Yes, there are quite a few, but:
1. You have control over them, meaning you can only publish the good ones. It would make little sense to do other wise anyway. :)

2. They do not provide a way to contact the reviewer. That means no one can verify them (contact the author).

1. That's the idea of testimonials as you've acknowledged.

2. Many customers prefer to submit testimonials anonymously for various reasons like:
- privays
- avoiding spam
- don't want to be contacted by people asking about their host ( this is like working for your host).


And those of you who thought zerp couldn't use his email for two weeks, should try to read the post carefully before showing your sympathy.

1. That's the idea of testimonials as you've acknowledged.Yes, which makes reading customer testimonials on the provider's website pretty much a waste of time (IMHO). The image you'd get would be biased. Negative testimonials do not get published.

2. Many customers prefer to submit testimonials anonymously for various reasons An unverifiable testimonial is like an anonymous witness. There's no way you can determine is the testimonial is real or not, if it's complete or not.

Yes, testimonials are a great way to help close the sales. That's clever marketing. But the value of testimonials on a provider's website is not that great.

ldcdc- client privacy is important to us. Yes, I understand that. However, a witness must reveal his identity or his words bear little value. Some customers will agree to reveal their identity and it's their testimonials that should be published. At least that's how I see things.

When I first started out I had my share of bad experiences and yes like you it was mainly the customer service or the tech support. There were just not all there. I now own my own hosting company and provide what the others couldnt and am very happy with the reponce of the clients I have. I have never had any complaints..


<<< Signatures need to be set up in your profile. >>>

Originally posted by ldcdc
Yes, which makes reading customer testimonials on the provider's website pretty much a waste of time (IMHO). The image you'd get would be biased. Negative testimonials do not get published.

An unverifiable testimonial is like an anonymous witness. There's no way you can determine is the testimonial is real or not, if it's complete or not.

Yes, testimonials are a great way to help close the sales. That's clever marketing. But the value of testimonials on a provider's website is not that great.

Yes, I understand that. However, a witness must reveal his identity or his words bear little value. Some customers will agree to reveal their identity and it's their testimonials that should be published. At least that's how I see things.

We're not talking about whether testimonials are reliable or not. I think the question was, why testimonials are positive feedback only and why some are submitted anonymously.

Testimonials are nothing different, in nature, to web site reviews in my opinion. They are simply someone else's words and how reliable they are is always debatable.

I personally see tesimonials, award seals, web site reviews, votes, etc as the same set of tools: marketing!
Whether a user should rely on those sources for making a decision, is a matter of discussion and personality.