Dear Hosting Service not only are you are killing me. You are killing your own business and I am moooving on. Last Monday we got to the office early to prepare for an afternoon pitch. Around 9am, I got this email from our designer.

“Have you been having problems with the site lately? I’m not able to connect via ftp or view the site online.

Kristine”

I went to our site. Nothing. Blank. I tried to login to my FTP – error #mysiteisntworkingandIhaveademoinafewhours. In other words, no login possible.

I hopped over to our hosting provider Fatcow and looked around for a contact email. Nothing. I clicked on “Need Help” and got an FAQ. There was an option for LiveChat, but I’ve done that in the past and have found it to be like the self-checkout line at Lowes—a great concept lacking execution. My last option was to contact the “Moo Crew” (their term)—I prayed that this was going to lead me to an email address, but instead I got stuck staring at a form.

The form in this instance was acting partially as form of squeeze marketing, a device used when you have something I want (say a whitepaper or an e-book) and I have something you want (an email address and/or phone number), and partially as a filter. But what I wanted was my site to be up and running, and Fatcow already had my email address, phone number, and credit card number, so there wasn’t much more I could give them. At that moment, a form was the most inappropriate thing a company could have possibly offered me.

My last option was a call to Fatcow’s 800 number, where I sat on hold for 30 minutes. The only blessing of the hold was knowing they were going to take forever. With the speakerphone on full volume I greeted the UPS guy, took a call on another line, and stepped outside for some air. I even had a little time to search for a new hosting provider on Google. The whole time, the same terrible Muzak Jazz blared on and on. Finally, a gentleman answered and gave me the third degree about my URL, my favorite dog, and mother’s maiden name. After all that, I got:

“How can I help you today?”

“Well, my site is down and I have a demo in a couple of hours.”

“What is your URL?”

“www.eatmedia.net. (The same one I gave you 19 seconds ago.)

“Yep, she’s down.”

“Yep, that’s why were talking. The question is…when will it be up.”

“Not sure. We had some servers go down. Could be awhile but it shouldn’t be too long.”

After hanging up I sent this email to Fatcow:

As a longtime customer, your outage last week is indicative of a downward spiral from your good old days The India tech support (LiveChat) was a terrible idea, the Canadian service (phone) is better. But overall, I am very disappointed. I used to recommend you to everyone and sing your praises, but I think I will be “moooooving” on.

And this is what I got back the next day:

“Thank you for getting back to us.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. I’m glad you shared this because it gives us a chance to improve our quality, and this is what we intend to do. I again apologize and assure you that we’ll provide you with the stable hosting and support you are looking for.

If you have any further questions, you can e-mail us seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”

A huge opportunity for Fatcow to make things right zipped by like a Nolan Ryan fastball circa 1973. After telling them I was thinking of leaving, they chose to share with me that they are happy I shared. The problem is, my sharing with them doesn’t make me happy.

The lesson here is every single contact with your customers is important. There is too much competition today to tick them off. If you outsource any functions of your business, be it customer service, tech support or even sales and marketing, make sure those who represent you and your business understand that your brand is in their hands. And for god’s sake, if you built your business based on great customer service and support, don’t let it slide into mediocrity. Servers are cheap these days. But finding new customers? Not so cheap.

*I have been using FatCow for upwards of 10 years now. When I first starting using them, it was known as a nerdy, tech friendly hosting provider. Over the past two years, I have seen a noticeable decline in services. If you know a reliable, customer friendly hosting provider, please drop me a comment.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Content, News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.