24/7 Support - it makes me wonder

It makes me wonder if 24/7 support is true and most webhosts say they provide this service. Indeed this may be possible however it seems unlikely. When a webhost says they have 24/7 support. Does that mean that they have the service their 24/7 however you do not recieve a reply within 5 minutes?

It also makes me wonder with hosts stating that is is every day of the year. Would their be someone on a computer on christmas day waiting for a support request?

I want to here on what you people see of this!!!:confused4

Hello,

As a host we offer "24/7 Technical Support". This can be taken in many ways some people would think there is someone here 24/7 to take support, however we don’t believe this is true. When we say "24/7 Technical Support" this is done by a range of ways, FAQ, Support tickets, msn, knowledge base, tuitions etc. This means they have access to support 24/7 and if all else fails then yes they can talk to a real person but we believe doing it this way is 24/7 as support in one way or another in online 24/7.

Luke

Thanks for that Blitz-Host. Thats what I thought aswell and I think alot of other people fall into the trap thinking that their is a support operator their 24/7

christmas day waiting for a support request?

Well I worked all xmas, boxing day & new years :cry2:.

yeah i was online as well for some of it. I was checking tickets once an hour over xmas holls

I think for a lot of hosts it boils down to the common misconception of what it could be and what people first perceive it to be. "Hey, someone's sitting there around the clock to help me!"

The support options ARE there 24/7, so hey a free mark up, right? Looks good on the old site, that's for sure.

Either way, people need sleep, so I'm not one to complain. If I were a large business, that may be a different case all together though. Personally I'd tag it 'Multiple support options for you to contact us at all times', but I'm a client and wouldn't push the ballot against myself. ;)

From my perspective 24/7 tech support means that there are support staff available to answer your questions within minutes of receiving them.

I personally know that if I purchased a service that claimed to have 24/7 support and I couldn't get a reply within quarter of an hour I would be demanding a refund. However, you get what you pay for. If you are paying less than $10 per month for hosting with reasonable specs, chances are you won't get 24/7 support so be wary of hosts that claim they offer it.

From my perspective 24/7 tech support means that there are support staff available to answer your questions within minutes of receiving them.

I personally know that if I purchased a service that claimed to have 24/7 support and I couldn't get a reply within quarter of an hour I would be demanding a refund. However, you get what you pay for. If you are paying less than $10 per month for hosting with reasonable specs, chances are you won't get 24/7 support so be wary of hosts that claim they offer it.

do you provide the same? would you reply to a ticket i sent within 15mins?

That is also my prosective 24/7 support to me means that their are people their to answer. Because any host with a support system can say 24/7 support

Basicly when a host says that they have 24/7 support, it normaly means they can receive the support request at any time (24/7), they may only check the support requests every hour, but email can always be taken. (hence 24/7 support). If a host does not have 24/7 support they are normaly only talking about live chat and MSN. They are the honest host :)

Well you could have scheludes and people from different timezones.. that will be almost 24/7 support.

But still, 24/7 support can be defined in many ways.

For sure I do not offer 24/7 Live Support and I dont say that I do offer 24/7 support(and that can be true because I have a FAQ section) But these small hosts offering 24/7 support do not have the money to employ people in another time zone to provide the rest of the support. We all have to sleep and we all have a life and our whole life is not dedicated in online support. And also these small host may have 5 support members however most will be their friends and they still live in the same timezone meaning that it is not 24/7 Live Support. If people truly do offer 24/7 support They should say 24/7 Live Support at these is saying that their is someone on the other end because it is live.

Well you could have scheludes and people from different timezones.. that will be almost 24/7 support.

But still, 24/7 support can be defined in many ways.

You referring to RTG right? :-)

We have staff from different time zones but we cannot say we offer 24/7 response because we as humans needs to "take a leak", get a cuppa coffee, etc etc etc :lol:

For sure I do not offer 24/7 Live Support and I dont say that I do offer 24/7 support(and that can be true because I have a FAQ section) But these small hosts offering 24/7 support do not have the money to employ people in another time zone to provide the rest of the support. We all have to sleep and we all have a life and our whole life is not dedicated in online support. And also these small host may have 5 support members however most will be their friends and they still live in the same timezone meaning that it is not 24/7 Live Support. If people truly do offer 24/7 support They should say 24/7 Live Support at these is saying that their is someone on the other end because it is live.

24/7 support is not next minute / instant support. The support who usually answer tickets within 2 minutes, tends to be one line responses which are not very helpful such as "What is your domaain sir?? Regards", "We'll look at this thingy later" type of non-solving, useless, questioning answers. If I was the client, I much rather see the host taking time over the issue and solve it first time.

24/7 support means that the time-frame in which you will recieve a response will be consistent, whether it be day or night.

Well i have hosting from Servage.net, and although their site mentions 24/7 Expert Helpdesk, my support ticket is yet to receive a single reply from them even though it has been more than 24 hours.

I hate this OVERSELLING. When i signed up with them i didnt had a clue about hosting. Now that i am FWS daily i know better than before :)

24/7 Support and two minute responses are two completely different animals.

No ticket should go more than 24 hours unanswered, that's for sure, but two minutes is unrealistic. Unless you wind up with those "Please include your Domain Name" Type responses. (Which your ticket system should have already requested anyway).

However, 24/7 Support means, that 24 hours a Day, 7 Days a week. Someone, Somewhere, Somehow, should be monitoring and/or recieving notificiations of issues that need to be resolved.

The customer should have some sort of ability to REPORT the issue, whether it be "Live Chat" "Ticket System" "Phone # To Call" etc etc etc.

I'll never sign up with a host who takes their contact form down when they goto bed. ;) That's just twisted and arrogant.

Seriously though, as most have said, it does 'imply' that someone is atleast monitoring the incoming support requests whether they reply to them right away or not.

I am the main support tech for my hosting, however I have 2 other people in diffrent timezones who will cover for me when I go to bed. They may not answer the requests right away but they do what they can. What ever they cannot do get's forwarded to me to do when I wake up :D

As you might have gathered through previous posts, I choose hosts that have been tried and tested for a long time. I need support maybe once a YEAR, so what is it with people demanding 24 hour support? What is up with that? They don't know what they are doing or they bug hosts for something they can do for themselves?

As you might have gathered through previous posts, I choose hosts that have been tried and tested for a long time. I need support maybe once a YEAR, so what is it with people demanding 24 hour support? What is up with that? They don't know what they are doing or they bug hosts for something they can do for themselves?

Hi, you have just identified 95% of all clientele.

I think the only real reason to offer 24 hour support is to cover all time zones that you may have people in. I know of a few dedicateds we have for clients over in Europe and when I am asleep they are waking up so unless you service clients in your time zone only it is pretty important to have people on 24 hours a day and to have other staff.

from what I have seen the night time is when most people submit tickets anyway (at least for dedicateds) these are the people trying to start a company and they work a normal job during the day, so they come home and work on their system late into the night, if someone is not here to support them it could be a waste of their night

the other reason to have 24 hour staff is sanity, I use to stay awake until 4am and then get up at 8am everyday......that was stupid, now I work a normal shift and I am far happier

I use to stay awake until 4am and then get up at 8am

I still do that, its called Kids :lol:

I still do that, its called Kids :lol:
Seriously, I try to sleep between 12am and 4am

I was online all day yesterday (Easter) with two of my crew :-)

I enjoyed a nice day off with the family yesterday, processed 3 orders when I got home, one fraud of course. and the night before that I got a nice 8 hours sleep....thats worth a few bucks/month for me

do you provide the same? would you reply to a ticket i sent within 15mins?No, but we don't claim we offer 24/7 support either.

If you are paying a high hosting fees and the host claims to offer 24/7 support then you should expect someone to be there. If you are paying mid-range fees you should expect a prompt response within 12 hours and if you are paying low fees, then don't be fooled by those who claim to offer 24/7 support because chances are they are like many of the other posters in this thread who don't interpret 24/7 as all day everyday or just put it on their site to make themselves look good. :)

Im with you Jan what is it with people wanting 24/7 Support. If their is a major server error they would know and the solutions will be to fix it

there is a difference between a major error and a minor one. every now and again we will get a ticket for something silly and not our fault (email setting up, database corruption for a forum, etc) if someome cannot get their email for 24 hours that is a huge deal and if a forum is down that someone relies on for revenue then that is a big deal too.

It's the little things that count, and that one time of the year you will want your host alert, coherent, and ready to take action.....not sleeping

But then its not the hosts fault if your database of the forum is currupt. If it is the hosts fault because SQL is down, Yes I do understand. If someone cameup to me with a support ticket for a corrupt database I would help however I would not take Responsibility

you are right it is not the hosts fault if the forum is corrupt but having a backup to restore at finger tips length and being able to complete that in just a few mins make a big difference

its the Quality of support not Quantity

yes but webhosting is a world where I think you need both

That really depends on the level of the user. Quality is obviously essential, but response time is very much down to what the individual customer needs. Personally, in general I tend to avoid services that charge extra for 24/7 tech support because I know I won't use it, though others may need it quicker because there is a high opportunity cost for delays in getting help with their site or they are simply beginners and know they are going to need regular help in a timely manner. :)

I guess it depends on the persons mode of thinking and how they work. I have always bought high end because I like the luxury of having my stuff in working order. example: I buy server management from serverwizards because I know that if I am in a pinch they will get to my stuff in about 2 minutes, always. Their price is over double of what most cpanel managers offer but I like the response time and knowledge they offer

if fast support isnt your thing though I suppose that is why there are companies offering hosting for pocket change

its the Quality of support not Quantity

All Paul is pointing out here is that fastest support doesn't mean better support. This is much agreed.

I guess it depends on the persons mode of thinking and how they work. I have always bought high end because I like the luxury of having my stuff in working order. example: I buy server management from serverwizards because I know that if I am in a pinch they will get to my stuff in about 2 minutes, always. Their price is over double of what most cpanel managers offer but I like the response time and knowledge they offer

if fast support isnt your thing though I suppose that is why there are companies offering hosting for pocket change

I agree with your proactive support post. But that depends on what your hosting support actually covers in the first place. The proper hosting providers have their own support rules on what they will provide support on, and what not. This makes sure time is well spent on things which are necessary for the service concerned. These rules would probably be effected by target customer genre and pricing.

However faster support does not mean more money spent. Faster support response doesn't mean the hosting is higher end. Serverwizards are pretty cheap prices still, 30 bucks more than the cheapest managements around?

Most "fast support" providers give fast support simply because they don't have a big workload - This is true. Quite simply, anybody using industry leading providers know, that if you send them an email, it will take more than a few minutes to get a response. (Most useless responses, agreed) Ever sent support queries to 1and1, Godaddy or even, Paypal?

On the other hand, let's think of a tiny scale hosting business run by one man, waiting on AIM/MSN and replying to every email he gets pretty much when he gets them. Half the time you will probably get most instant response from that service. Does it mean this service should be more expensive and is higher class hosting? Definately not.

Support is good when they do it the way you like it.

they lie when they say 24/7 support

my host was down 12 hours in weekend and now is down for 6 hour

i sended a couple of mails asking whats going one and i got 0 responses

ill wait till tomorow, if they dont repair the stuff and apologize i will review them on 5-10 webhosts sites and in some forums.

they say : 99-100% uptime, this month they have 80% uptime.

Who are "they?"

We weren't talking about any host in particular.

yeah there is always the possibility of that too....


support is good when they do it the way you like it

good call. I know alot of small hosts that basically sit on messenger waiting for something to go wrong, so you just have to weigh your options when searching for a host I suppose, research the company and do your homework. I think now you can pretty much tell who runs a one man show, at least I can just from being around and spotting patterns.

It all comes down to who is sitting behind the wheel driving the car and what they put their priorities on

Who are "they?"

We weren't talking about any host in particular.

i decided to wait another 12 hours

if they dont apologise deeply or they go down again sooner than 2 weeks i will make them so advertising to remember.

my host is posting in this forums promising 99%-100% uptime.:lol:

I guess we can assume "they" is one of these: http://freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2161247

if they dont apologise deeply or they go down again sooner than 2 weeks i will make them so advertising to remember.

my host is posting in this forums promising 99%-100% uptime.:lol:

Are we talking "SuperBowl" worthy? :P

The problem is pretty simple.

Support options are available 24/7 but, there is no word on response times. Some of the better webhosting providers have the following:

Support is available 24 hours per day 7 days per week with a response guaranteed within 15 minutes from one of our support team members and resolution of the issue as soon as possible.

Beyond that you won't fine a better promise of support.

My service falls into the 24/7 support access with response time within 12 - 24 hours depending on the issue. I believe that is fine in the vast majority of cases provided the servers are monitored 24/7.

good call. I think I will end up rewording our support page as well to accomidate those changes. We do actually have a 30 min response "guarantee" so might as well use it the an advantage

30 min response "guarantee"

Another thing "Guarantee" sorry for being off topic. What happens if you break this Guarantee I have seen some host "not saying yours" that have said this and I think would I ever get my money back.

What do you also see about this?

Thanks for the people that have posted to my thread

This should be covered in detail in the host's Terms of Service. If it isn't and they aren't in your legal jurisdiction then it is essentially a worthless statement as there isn't anything you can do if they don't do as they say they will.