Dealing With ThePlanet Sales Staff Is Like A Trip To The Dentist

I've been pretty happy with my servers with theplanet/ev1servers for the past, err, 5 years. But the OSes were out of date and it seemed like I could stand to get some significantly improved hardware for what I'm paying now (or, comparable hardware for a lot less).

I put in a RFQ from ThePlanet to see what I could do as far as upgrading my current server, hoping for something a little better than buying a new server while the old one is up and moving everything over, and also hopefully avoiding re-paying a one-time fee I had for a secondary hard drive.

Now I have no problem whatsoever with the result -- that my only option is to buy a new server, they won't migrate my HDs, and they won't upgrade my current server, and they won't give me any kind of credit for the second hard drive or let me transfer it to a new server. I get where they're coming form, even though it might make sense to figure out something a little better for a customer of 5 years that's dropped about $25k over that time period.

The problem is their sales staff. I'm surprised that theplanet (at least theplanet I remember from when I signed up) would have sales people so apathetic and basically useless.

Getting information I requested in my initial ticket took back-and-forth with a sales rep over the span of over 24 hours (and I still haven't really gotten an answer on one part, about my secondary hard drive). Actually looking at the ticket now, the initial response was over 24 hours after I opened a ticket (and it was opened during working hours).

Heck, the first two responses didn't even include a price for the hardware he wanted me to buy, just if I wanted to proceed and buy it.

Figuring it beats waiting I did one of their instant chats and before answering my questions I was told to be sure to give the guy credit for the servers I order. In fact, him telling me his contact information and to choose him were the only complete sentences I got, and roughly 80% of the communication I received.

I haven't needed support on my server recently, so I can't speak to if this is the quality of their support department now. I don't think I'll be around to find out though.

(Executive summary: Hello SoftLayer!)