Posted by : Tom Doyle in (Internet & Computers) 10th Mar, 2008
Hosting365 Register365 announce charges for phone support
Hosting365 announced to their customers today that they will no longer be offering their Freefone line for customer support. Instead, if you need support, you will be expected to ring a premium rate number at €0.95 per minute. (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055252378)
Although I don’t agree that it was fair to announce this to clients all of a sudden, I do think it’s not a bad thing.
I have been in this industry long enough and I can only guess the type of calls they receive on a daily basis. I know from my web business that we are always getting calls from clients telling us their websites are down, when in fact it’s their internet connection and not us at all. That’s just one example of what we get, imagine being a hosting company!?
I think from their point of view, they would have been best advised to have certain levels of support calls based on price of service provided. But that opens up another can of worms.
My only concern is those clients with serious support issues. In the past Hosting365 haven’t exactly been the most honourable responsive business when it comes to customer support.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of servers going down for maintenance without notice, or being delays in responses to support tickets etc. So if it was hard to get answers when something serious happened then, what’s it going to be like now trying to talk to people through the live chat facility!?!?
Hi Tom,
Let’s be fair, we’re not ’switching’ to 1550, we’re dropping phone support. We will continue being the ONLY Irish host offering true 24/7 support through live chat and email and will be offering a call-back service where our (now much less busy) agents in Dublin can call customers pro actively.
As for our ‘honour’ around customer support, I’ve no idea to what you refer, but think it low and ill informed.
As for customers with ’serious issues’ - they can ring the 1550 and we can call them back, or they can request a call on the other systems.
Just to add that resellers, partners and all dedicated customers continue getting 24/7/365 freephone support with dedicated account managers.
Hi Stephen,
I never used the word “switching”, you did. But if you want to put it that way, I guess you are actually “switching”. Whatever mask you want to put on it, you are no longer offering free phone support like you have in the past.
As mentioned above, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all - plus - you also made it clear that those important business clients will still get freefone support, which all makes great sense.
I’m not going to get into details around the customer support service you provide, there’s enough information about that if you do a search on Google. So it’s not fair to say I’m ill informed, it was one of the major factors in 2bscene not hosting with you.
The point around serious issues, I don’t think it’s fair for the client to have pay for a mess up on Hosting365’s behalf - that’s where I worry for existing clients.
Other than that though - I think it’s a step in the right direction for a hosting company!
Hi Tom,
I appreciate you’re agreeing with the fundamentals.
My issue is only with your suggestion that our support (and by proxy the individuals who provide it) are in some way ‘dis-honourable’ based on heresay and ‘google’.
As for your level of information, a google for ‘hosting365 customer support’ yields two negative blog posts in more than the 250 results I scanned - and in both those cases you can read more recent posts which are positive. It would be more honourable to disclose your links with a competitor to register365 than commenting on a service you have no experience of.
Hi Stephen,
Firstly, I have no links with any of your competitors. Do I do business with some of them? yes - but more than one - but that’s as far as the link goes.
On another point, we do business with some of your clients and we would have dealt with your support team on numerous occasions on their behalf.
So in fairness I think I am well postitioned to say how I feel about your customer service and support.
I really don’t want this post to be dragged to that level. I was actually trying to let people know how I agreed with your decision and how I felt that in theory it was a good idea.
I have real concerns for working with our existing clients and I think I’ve made that quite clear.
On another point, you should really look up “Hosting365 support” as opposed to “customer support”. You’ll find at least 8 negative posts from forums and blogs in the top 20 results.
Tom
I repeat my sole objection to the word ‘honourable’. Every person is entitled to an opinion, I of course have no issue with that, but when that opinion spills over into disparaging or personal, that is my issue.
Like any large host, it’s easy to find positive and negative comments about any aspect of any service we deliver. Most of the comments you can find are very old (we’ve invested heavily in support the last 2 years) or are from individuals who later also post positive comments.
As for your concerns, we continue being the ONLY Irish host offering 24/7 support, with email,. ticket, live chat, (paid)phone and free call back service available 24/7. We also about to launch a new offsite status site for Register365 customers, including real time server status, offsite links to live chat and call-back systems and proactive notifications by RSS, Email and SMS (all free).
On a last small note - Hosting365 isn’t changing anything - Register365.com is.
Ok fair enough, I have edited the above post since you have an issue with it.
I know you guys have been working hard on improving customer support and this is obviously another step towards that!
Tom
Thanks Tom, I’ve been accused of taking things too seriously - the company is still ‘my little baby’ at the end of the say