1 Simple Step Towards Improved Customer Satisfaction for Web
Hosts
Most of your customers are not unreasonable sort of people.
They understand that problems crop up and mistakes do happen. I
don't know about you, but I know that I am a MUCH more
reasonable customer when the company I am purchasing services or
products from promptly communicates any problems that arise.
The web is all about communication, so you would assume that any
company that makes web hosting its primary business should
really understand this and put measures into place that allows
for the most reliable and uninterrupted communication with their
customers. We talked about this a bit in our last article and
promised to give you some tips about methods we have implemented
to increase our ability to communicate with our customers during
emergencies.
Let's face it, there isn't a web host out there who hasn't
experienced times where the server that their company web site
is on has gone down. Sometimes only for a few minutes, but
sometimes those minutes can turn into hours - or even days if a
major piece of hardware has gone belly up on you. And in most
cases, you don't dedicate an entire server to your domain - you
have customers who also share that server. Customers who now are
not only unable to gain access to THEIR domain, but can not
reach yours either. They are effectively cut off from electronic
communication with you. So what do they do? How can they find
out what is going on with their web site, and more importantly,
when it will be back online?
Some hosts, like AlphaOne
Technology, have emergency support available by telephone.
In that case, (if they can remember the phone number since they
can not access your website to find the number), they begin
calling. And calling. And calling. Usually there are over
100-200 customers hosted on a single server. Do you or your
staff really have the time to be fielding that many phone calls
when you are in the middle of a crisis and need to devote your
time to fixing the problem and getting the server operational?
Probably not. Nor do your customers want to spend time on hold
or dealing with busy signals. Every minute on hold, or every
call that results in a busy signal, leaves a bad impression with
that customer. They want to know WHY they are down and they want
to know NOW.
If you are large enough to have multiple incoming lines & an
automated voice mail system, a simple solution is to immediately
record a server status alert, along with an honest assessment of
what has happened and, if you know it, an estimated time that
the server will be operational again. This will allow customers
calling about their site being down to get the information they
need without having to talk to a live technician. The customer
is happy to be informed, (even if they are VERY unhappy about
having their site down), and you have saved yourself time and
money and can focus on the important problem at hand.
In your recorded status alert, let the customer know how often
the status will be updated. We recommend that if a server is
down longer than 90 minutes, updated information should be made
available every 30-45 minutes.
If you are a smaller host with only one incoming line, you
probably don't have enough customers that busy signals will
become a major irritant, but keep the message very short and to
the point.
By now many of you are saying "what about those of us who don't
HAVE a tech support number to call?" Good question since a
recent survey shows that over 75% of web hosting companies do
NOT publish a tech support number. Fear not, there are a couple
of other ways that we will discuss in upcoming articles. Our
next article will talk about using Voice Over IP service and
Instant Messaging.
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