No, not all hosting companies are the same. There is more than just a price difference that you should consider.
Web hosting companies are as different as the people that run them and the customers that they have. Web hosting companies are the most different when it comes to their commitment to high-quality support.
With most Web hosting companies, you will be treated like a number. If you need support, you may not even have a phone number to call in case of an emergency. Web hosts also compete with each other with a wide variety of prices and services.
When it comes to choosing a Web hosting provider, one of the most important factors to consider is the level of customer service provided.
While you should obviously make sure you get the features you need, and of course a great price, you also need to be assured that the company you select will partner with you for the long haul and be there whenever you have questions or concerns—be it midday or midnight.
Below are some recommendations and insights on how to assess a Web host's level of customer service and choose the right provider for your short- and long-term business needs.
Ask questions, be informed:
Asking questions is definitely the most important part of the "research" stage and a great way to uncover the level of customer service a Web hosting company offers. Some questions to ask:
• How do you define customer service?
• Will you go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction?
• How do you anticipate customer needs?
• Will you ask me - your customer – for input into what's working and what's not?
The availability of 24/7/365 live customer support is critical and a service you should demand. Many companies tout "24-hour live support," but be aware that they may only be offering 24/7 support through chat, forum, or email. Hence, we consider just such hosting providers to tag them as Hosting assured.
Imagine working on your Web site after a long day at your day job, expecting to talk to a human being on the phone only to find out that your hosting company is essentially closed! Or, worse yet, you get somebody on the phone, but you find out they're a "hired hand" who knows nothing about your account.
Luckily, there are a number of hosting companies out there who answer their telephone 24 hours a day, so try narrowing your search by this qualification. Once you've identified a few companies with whom you'd potentially like to work, try calling their support numbers at random times and see if a professional service person answers the phone. Do the same with their alternative support options such as chat, email, etc.
Try calling your prospective Web hosting company's technical support department. Do you get through right away, or do you wait in a hold-queue for several minutes?
How many support tiers are there at the prospective company? Quite often, support departments have a 1st Level "General" support tier, which only answers basic questions.
They then have a 2nd Level "Advanced" support tier that can answer intermediate questions. Finally, they have a 3rd Level "Engineering" support tier that can answer very technical questions.
Quite often, when needing support, customers may find themselves playing phone tag and 20-questions with 1st Level / 2nd Level support representatives. It isn't until the problem has continued for 4 or 5 days that finally it gets escalated to the 3rd Level engineers.
It sounds like a technical term, but it is vitally important to understand how your web host's network is structured. Do they have failover peers should their primary internet connection go down?
Many will talk about how they have T1's or OC3's - but by how many different providers? What happens when your web host's bandwidth provider goes down? Do they already have live connections to a completely different provider?
Industry experience is very important. When problems arise, the experience will determine whether or not the problem gets fixed quickly and easily.
Did the company make their own control panel, or do they license it from some other company? The same question asked another way would be:
"If there was a problem with your control panel, would you contact the software publisher/author of the control panel?"
How many different services does the prospective hosting company offer? As we know, the cliche is "Jack of all trades, master of none." - Be very wary of a hosting company that also sells Internet access or other services unrelated to web hosting.
Quite often, these other companies are spreading their technical staff too thin, having them work on many different services and not just web hosting.
Hosting your Website with a provider that specializes in web hosting is important.
There are companies that sell services at a loss in order to attract new business. The problem with this method is that they either raise the prices dramatically a year later, or they end up selling their customer base to another company to recover lost profit. You can check our listing pages and set the filter to "prices" to find the best hosting plans within your budget.
Most hosting providers offer a Help and FAQ section on their Website in an effort to provide quick answers to your questions and to avoid overburdening their customer support staff. But not all companies make these sections comprehensive, intuitive, or easy to use.
When evaluating a Web hosting providers' overall customer service, it's important to check out their Web site and see if they offer a repository of useful information in addition to time- and money-saving tips.
It's important to determine up front if the hosting companies that you are investigating offer at least a 30-day money-back guarantee for their service. If not, there is no reason to buy from them.
As a hosting customer, you should be allowed to return any item if you are not pleased with the level of service you receive. (Note: typically, domain name purchases are not refundable, as the names are pulled from a central registry that is shared across the Internet.)
In order to meet the growing demand for cost-effective, 24/7 X 365 customer care, a number of Web hosting companies are outsourcing and shipping services overseas at an accelerated rate.
Although there are perceived benefits to this practice, the bad far outweighs the good. We believe that because customer service is critical to the hosting business, it must be held to the highest standards of quality control, meaning it should definitely remain within the corporate domain.
Local support helps to build trusted relationships and keep customer care consistent. So when looking for a Web hosting provider, never be afraid to ask the all-important question: who will answer my support call at 11 pm on Christmas Eve?
Once you've decided on a Web hosting provider and you're a full-fledged paying customer, it's really important to remember that you deserve the highest quality and most consistent customer care.
In addition to feeling like a number one priority at all times, you should feel confident that your hosting company will take the time to explain things to you in plain English, not just technical jargon.
You also need to know that a real human being will answer the phone when you call and that they will actually be an employee of the company with whom you have a hosting agreement. What's the bottom line? Look for a reputable hosting company that will listen to you, support you in a way that you need to be supported, and value your business — if you can find that, you can't go wrong!
Here are a few listings for you:
Sign up or log in