What do you look for in a web host?

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
I asked this question of a member of a web hosting forum who asked for assistance from other members - for their recommendations. He had narrowed his list down to two Hosts over a couple months span of time. He eliminated them because their customer service department had not responded quickly enough to his request for information.

So, here is what is important to him. See if this parallels your criteria/requirements.

· Connection speed

· Competitive pricing

· Competent and reliable technical support

· Pays for what he uses and not for what he doesn’t use

· Doesn’t want his websites badly affected by other websites on the same shared hosting

· Honest/ethical business practices

What is NOT important to him are ….

· Testimonials on their website

· “Unlimited” advertising on their website when there really is a limit.

My take

I suspect that pricing gets an awful lot of prospects in the door, but great customer support keeps them there. Prospects normally allot limited time and resources to research a prospective host and those hosts all put their best foot forward to sell you (or oversell you). Once you’re there and experience issues, how those issues are resolved weighs heavily on whether you stay with that host.

I would disagree that testimonials carry no weight for prospects. If ABC Company hosts with DEF Company on your short list, and ABC Company is globally recognized, wouldn’t that sway your research?

Recognize advertising for what it is. Hosts have a very small window to attract your attention. I’d encourage you to pick up your phone, talk to 2 or 3 hosts and explain your requirements. You’d be surprised how many hosts will customize solutions for you.
 
· Connection speed

· Competitive pricing

· Competent and reliable technical support

· Pays for what he uses and not for what he doesn’t use

· Doesn’t want his websites badly affected by other websites on the same shared hosting

· Honest/ethical business practices
Click to expand...

I would also add the following to these criterias:
good live support and qualitative phone support.
Moreover, the most imporant criteria for me is the response time :) ( if the company responds to you requests and questions for a couple of days, then this is not a good hosting company).
 
I'd add control panel and method for uploading your site (FTP, SCP, etc) to the list. You don't want to have to learn to use a new control panel with possibly fewer features than you are used to. And I always try to avoid straight FTP.
 
Also, i'd like to add uptime for the years they have been up, and how many years they have been around.
 
Important Things To Me

Real 24x7 Support (Not False Advertising)
Free Site Migrations at least 30 sites moved free
Good Uptime
Competitive Pricing

A company open for at least 2 years
 
for me :

1- the reliability such as uptime,server speed,server response time ..eth
2- price
3- features
4- 24/7 Phone support
5- Refund Guarantee
6- Control Panel ( i prefer c-panel )
 
Response time on tickets, and then resolution time. I can get responses from guys in India every 5 minutes to my hearts content but without a resolution then it's a waste of time.

Communication and Support is the only thing that sets smaller companies apart from the bigger ones. This has always been the way. We all share the same type of pipelines, same hardware and same control panels (for the most part). The only difference is that when a customer comes to our site, we actully KNOW Bob, and know about his busienss, and can reflect on past conversations. With a larger company you do not get the personal service.

Phone support I can do without - response times are better. Tecnical people are usualy NOT good on a phone. This is why they have liasons at corporate companies to interface between engineers, tech support and sales/marketing people. Each of them speak a different language/lingo.

Price, uptime, guarantee and features are all required. Knowledge that the server will be taken care of and not abused should be expected. 24/7 monitoring and support is the norm these days, but personally, we have our tech staff at night only answer server or critcal issues - they're not answering billing questions or sales support at night (usually).
 
handsonhosting said:
Response time on tickets, and then resolution time. I can get responses from guys in India every 5 minutes to my hearts content but without a resolution then it's a waste of time.

Communication and Support is the only thing that sets smaller companies apart from the bigger ones. This has always been the way. We all share the same type of pipelines, same hardware and same control panels (for the most part). The only difference is that when a customer comes to our site, we actully KNOW Bob, and know about his busienss, and can reflect on past conversations. With a larger company you do not get the personal service.

Phone support I can do without - response times are better. Tecnical people are usualy NOT good on a phone. This is why they have liasons at corporate companies to interface between engineers, tech support and sales/marketing people. Each of them speak a different language/lingo.

Price, uptime, guarantee and features are all required. Knowledge that the server will be taken care of and not abused should be expected. 24/7 monitoring and support is the norm these days, but personally, we have our tech staff at night only answer server or critcal issues - they're not answering billing questions or sales support at night (usually).
Click to expand...

complete answer,thank you man :)
but i believe Phone support is really needed sometimes, at some cases you need to reach by phone quickly
 
Phone is good and bad. Working from home - there's a lot of background noise to make it sound very unprofessional. Outsourced, well you've got a 50/50 chance that the name is "Paul" or "Jon" and less of a chance that they're employees of a company. In house phone staff in a call center means large overhead, so the discounted fees are being skimped somewhere, would hate to think it's low end hardware so they can employ people to answer the phone :)

On the GOOD side of things, you do get a fast answer on the phone and a live human (hopefully) to help. The help is where the problem lies as you could be talking to someone that is sales, and reading from a script for support. But you do get that warm fuzzy feeling that there's a human at the other end of the business ;)

Other downside is "false positives" - peopel calling to say "my site is not working" only to then find out "oh, now it is - go figure". We see much of that in our helpdesk, or people that get locked out of firewalls temporarily for failed login attempts. Also, on the phone there's no documentation on what was said (or not said) - recording devices can be expensive holding logs for months or years.

Live Chat allows a tech to do multiple tasks and still keep an active chat or two. On the phone, you've just tied their hands to only deal with one thing at a time. Even worse when you're a small company and people want to "chat" on the phone and not just answer the question and move on.

There are positives to the phone though - I just try never to be on it any more ;) Even my cell phone, it's a "quick, what do you want", and then "I'll be home for dinner - just make something" type call ;) hehe
 
Yeah, phone support is good sometimes but not something I would impliment for my business. I rather stick to ticket support and live support.
 
ticket system is used in most cases and i personally use email/ticket to solve my problem generally , but Phone Support is also needed "sometimes"
 
I'm simple. I want someone that's honest with me. If the network / server is down tell me why it is down. Don't say, "we are doing maintenance" when really your networks getting ddosed or smurfed.
 
The-Pixel said:
I'm simple. I want someone that's honest with me. If the network / server is down tell me why it is down. Don't say, "we are doing maintenance" when really your networks getting ddosed or smurfed.
Click to expand...

I agree with pixel. Its always best to be honest with your clients and not give them the run around. Most clients will be happy if you tell them the true about what is going on, so they can be prepare for it.
 
Most clients will be happy if you tell them the true about what is going on, so they can be prepare for it.
Click to expand...

"I'm going to grandma's for a month. Sorry guys, she's got no Interweb in the wilderness there. For what iz worth, I really hate my folks for doing this to me. Cheers, and see y'all next month! "

:P
 
I would have to say for me the things I've always looked for were:
reasonable price for what you're getting
accurate information and limits before and after signup (no bait and switch)
good support thats not inefficient or rude no matter what the question
easy to use interface
the tools I need to host my sites (WP, PHPBB/SMF, etc)

Things I've added since my first host:
polite understanding support :if its your fault admit it and understand why I am angry don't be condescending and patronize me
weekly/monthly trials, not just a money back gaurantee after paying 6months-year (I'd rather earn the interest if you're not worth sticking with)
active support forums/communication about the changes in the host
 
ldcdc said:
"I'm going to grandma's for a month. Sorry guys, she's got no Interweb in the wilderness there. For what iz worth, I really hate my folks for doing this to me. Cheers, and see y'all next month! "

:P
Click to expand...
Have a great trip. Enjoy.
 
SteveBloemer said:
I asked this question of a member of a web hosting forum who asked for assistance from other members - for their recommendations. He had narrowed his list down to two Hosts over a couple months span of time. He eliminated them because their customer service department had not responded quickly enough to his request for information.

So, here is what is important to him. See if this parallels your criteria/requirements.

· Connection speed

· Competitive pricing

· Competent and reliable technical support

· Pays for what he uses and not for what he doesn’t use

· Doesn’t want his websites badly affected by other websites on the same shared hosting

· Honest/ethical business practices

What is NOT important to him are ….

· Testimonials on their website

· “Unlimited” advertising on their website when there really is a limit.

My take

I suspect that pricing gets an awful lot of prospects in the door, but great customer support keeps them there. Prospects normally allot limited time and resources to research a prospective host and those hosts all put their best foot forward to sell you (or oversell you). Once you’re there and experience issues, how those issues are resolved weighs heavily on whether you stay with that host.

I would disagree that testimonials carry no weight for prospects. If ABC Company hosts with DEF Company on your short list, and ABC Company is globally recognized, wouldn’t that sway your research?

Recognize advertising for what it is. Hosts have a very small window to attract your attention. I’d encourage you to pick up your phone, talk to 2 or 3 hosts and explain your requirements. You’d be surprised how many hosts will customize solutions for you.
Click to expand...

What I was looking for when I joined my hosting company ? very simple terms
I wanted good webspace
I wanted good bandwidth
I wanted a customer service which would work with me..because I was not a master in webhosting topics.
I wanted all option particularly uploading files and videos etc
I am happy I chose my web hosting provider
 
During a 'mystery shopper' analysis of other hosting companies phone support, I discovered that phone support is not always as helpful as it seems. Sure, you talk to a warm body, however; for more complex questions, you will be transferred from Tier 1 support to Tier 2 support, to possibly even be transferred again to Tier 3 support. And, each time you’re having to re-explain your problem all over again. That's not what I call great support.

It will have taken longer to get your problem resolved via the phone, with all this transferring. Also, many hosts are now starting to outsource their phone support to companies that don't know the hosting business. Sure they offer phone support but when you outsource your support, the quality of support diminishes. In addition, email support allows for documentation, which allows anyone from tech support staff to get caught up on the history of your question and answer your support ticket.
 
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