Discouraging…

Wed, Dec 8, 2004
Business
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9 comments

You know, there are a lot of ways I have found out reasons that people aren’t happy with Simpli. But when I have to find out about it by reading your blog, that’s when I say you’ve gone too far.

This person, “victim” (heh) of a server move (a move, I might add, that upgraded his site for free from a PIII to a dual Xeon with a much nicer control panel), didn’t even bother to email us and say that something was wrong. No, he just switched hosting companies, and he’d been hosting with us for about 2 years. Guess what… that’s the second blog I’ve read recently of that nature.

This is the real problem in this industry. It’s so easy to switch hosting companies that people don’t take the time to actually work out issues; they just leave. It really bothers me. I know it shouldn’t; “that’s business” and so on. But it does. It’d be one thing if we were a multi-national billion-dollar corporation with hundreds of thousands of customers. But we’re not. I know every one of our customers on a first-name basis. I would hope that this would extend a little bit of faith in their direction. But no, when something goes wrong, they just leave.

I know this doesn’t apply to all our customers. (Some have had a relatively trouble-free ride with Simpli, and some have been through hell with their hosting for various reasons and are still hosting with us.) But at least have a little consideration and dignity and send me a personal email explaining the problems (preferably with a big red flag in the subject line, as I get hundreds of emails a day) and take the time to work it out and give us a chance. Sheesh.

willfe says:

12/8/2004 at 10:31 pm

If you recall, you and I learned awhile back that there are some customers who honestly aren’t worth the effort. Even if they’re paying $50 to $100 per month for service, when we end up spending hours on end trying to fix some problem, we’ve burned up the profit you get from even the high-end monthly accounts in less than a day.

In a case like the one you describe in this blog, it’s a bit harder. But think about it this way — do you really want customers like that in the first place? There exist people in this world who set impossibly high standards — no matter what you do, they *cannot* be satisfied. We’ve dealt with people like that in the past, too — no matter how many ways we bend over, no matter what courtesy or free upgrade we offer, it’s not enough.

They’re called “leeches” … I suppose Best Buy calls these “demon customers” — they’re “stealing” your product in a different way 🙂

Don’t let it bother you too much. For every pissy customer like this you’ve got, there are hundreds of happy customers waiting to fill in their spot.

SlashChick says:

12/8/2004 at 11:01 pm

Yeah, but this guy wasn’t what I’d consider a “problem” customer. We have those, sure. He didn’t really say much at all, just left. If he was a problem customer, I wouldn’t be too upset about him leaving. 😉

Safety Cap says:

12/8/2004 at 11:08 pm

I could say that if it were any other provider, I would’ve walked with the problems we’ve had, and the (sometimes) lack of timely response.

But.

Because we have a history vis-a-vis /., over the phone (I know your voice!), here and via IM, etc., I give you the benefit of the doubt, and am still planning on hosting my other site on Simpli once I get it coded up and get some funding.

I hold the personal touch in much higher regard than price and sometimes getting neglected (hey, reality being what it is, I know you don’t always have time to chat), so that means more to me than getting perfect service.

What would make me purr like a kitten with a bowl of milk is when I put in a trouble ticket, all I need is a response from someone (Mooneer, etc., but not automated) to the effect of, “Hey, we got your ticket, we’re working on it, and we’ll update you on where we stand in x (minutes/hours/days).” Even if it is a nasty problem, your man is on vacation and there is NO WAY you will be able to even touch it for 48 hours, that’s cool, _as long as you keep me informed_.

In a sense, I’ll bet you feel the same way when your customer leaves without telling you why: you’re missing that feedback loop.

Cheers,
Bryan

SlashChick says:

12/8/2004 at 11:11 pm

Hey Bryan… yeah, you’re definitely in the “more problems” camp (which is unfortunate; darn that JSP!) I’m doing an end-of-year wrapup newsletter soon which will explain more about how we’re making over our support. Basically, I’m hiring an expanded support team to be able to take care of issues on a true 24×7 basis instead of just having Mooneer and me around. It should be a Good Thing. Those changes are coming January 1, 2005. I hope this will solve your biggest complaint (which you have in common with other customers of ours.)

Outland Traveller says:

12/9/2004 at 4:59 am

I think the huge attraction of a smaller webhosting company is the personal service and flexibility. I’ve switched webhosts about 3 times in the last couple years for my pet project, trying to find the perfect mixture of “cheap, good database performance, allows unix shell access for direct maintenance”. I’d try and swallow the frustration and see if you can contact your lost customer in a friendly way. Maybe they will realize that the grass really isn’t greener and end up coming back with new appreciation. Perhaps it won’t hurt to leave that door open.

George says:

12/9/2004 at 9:37 am

Oh, it was Safety Cap. I was thinking someone else.

I can sorta see the issues he mentions here (although I’m not familiar with the behind the scenes people other than you, I don’t use JSP, and I really doubt I could do any better than having the IM of the company’s owner:)

If you are really interested in some stuff, I could give you a list of perl and php stuff I’d like installed serverwide instead of me having to install locally. It would help others installing gallery and or wordpress. (And even better, YOU could upgrade them instead of me:)

SlashChick says:

12/9/2004 at 9:55 am

Hi Outland Traveller — we don’t offer shell access as standard any more; unfortunately we had a couple people abuse it (one was hosting warez bittorents.) We did leave it enabled for those who had signed on before that, however. Ultimately, it seems that even those you trust can abuse it, which is unfortunate.

George, as far as I know, most of the stuff required to install WordPress comes with the server (remember, you recently had a server move to that same much nicer server, which comes with a more recent version of PHP and has more extensions enabled.) If you spot something that’s not installed that you need, send it over to support@simpli.biz and we’ll add the modules/extensions to our standard install. We’re always happy to do this for our customers. 🙂

Safety Cap says:

12/9/2004 at 2:32 pm

> youâ€™re definitely in the â€œmore problemsâ€ camp (which is unfortunate; darn that JSP!)

Heh! Well, now that I can see the logs and understand how you have the server configured, things will be much smoother. My test server is configured in a different way; the way you have yours done up makes sense from a hosting standpoint. All the other stuff I attribute to just the usual moving-to-a-new-home stuff. No worries; the site is pretty much solid and should be from here on out.

George says:

12/9/2004 at 4:39 pm

Email on the way, Erica.

Discouraging…

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