List Of Good Hosters With Good TELEPHONE Tech Support
May 6, 2008
I'd like to start an ongoing thread here listing the 'Good Hosters with Good TELEPHONE tech support'. In other words, out of the 1,000s of host companies, this may cut it down to less than a dozen.
( And for all you Hosters out there who really want your company to grow, and want to know how, - it's easy: just read here.)
Good telephone support is the #1 ultimate requirement, because:
-It's a lot faster and easier for both the user and the host company, because you can state and answer all questions and clarifications on the spot, you don't need to continually pass new emails with new questions and clarifications, back and forth for days on end, until the issue is solved. It saves tech time and user's time. And saves a lot of nerves.
- It's the best way to sort the good guys from the bad. A bad company isn't going to bother to answer the phone, - or will make you wait way too long, - because they are likely getting endless complaints. The good guys are always ready to answer the phones, with a friendly voice, - because they really WANT to please the customer.
- If a company can't be bothered to pick up the phone, we can't be bothered to even consider them. They're a joke, and so won't be listed here on this thread. (So, before adding or listing any Hosters here, please verfify that they do have Good, quick, friendly, telephone support,; ideally 24/7, but 9am to 10pm might be acceptable, if it was supplemented by some emergency contact.
AND:
- Hoster ALSO needs good EMAIL support (and preferably, Chat online, extended hour availability). (I spend a lot of time overseas). It sems all emails should get a non-automated response within about an hour, - and then support should jump on fixing any problem.
I only need support a few times a year. To answer some questions, or fix a problem, or do an install. That's lesss than 1 hour total, so any company paying maybe $18/hour tech support should be able to handle this. It IS reasonable to charge a custm for extended calls, beyond say, 90minutes a year, IF you don't count the 80%? Of times an issue is the Hoster;s fault of stmg gone wrong, and don't count the 'hold' times.
ALSO IMPORTANT:
- Uptime
- site Speeds
- Monthly plans, no contract (Only a dishonest host will try to force you into a contract, where they can then ignore you.)
- Reasonable price. (? Maybe $12 to $18/month for a basic business site. We don't need massive bandwitdths, - we all know that's an overselling scam, and can't ever be delivered.)
- a good upgrade plan of bigger options. Maybe even VPS.
- Dedicated IP, and availbility of SSL
-PHP 5, mysql, phpMyAdmin, etc
- cPanel ( Some Hosts are using problematic panels, like Hsphere, which are slow to load, slow in operation, require many more clicks, have too many options, spread apart on many separate pages. Time is money, and this really slows down the ability of a small business to manage his own site in effective time. For example, one WHT user wrote somewhere: "I don't feel that HSphere's interface is nice at all, although I have worked with cPanel and DA all my life... I just found it to include un-necessary features or split features up in to different hard to find pages, such as backups - mysql backups you had to find on a completely different page than file backups, and then there were options to have it in the home directory or server-end backup, in which then you had to wait a good 10 minutes before it was ready. cPanel, just hit backup and hit download and instantly it does everything you need...".
I have used several hosters. Currently on Aplus.net and Godad, which have phone support, and mediocre service.
My LIST So Far:
- Liquidweb: a very impressive company with good, 24 hour support. But to get dedicated IP, you need to go with their $25/month plan. Yikes!
- NewIdeaHosting.com. A very small company. My call was returned, and the owner chatted with me for an hour on the phone! Plans have small bandwidth, but promises No overselling, and personalized attention. Extra $5 for dedi IP. He specializes in Small business sites, and small eCommerce sites. He has only 250 accounts, on 3 servers. He rents servers from the Equinox data center of Chicago. Seems exceptionaly honest.
- MegaHosters. Excellent phone support and WHT reviews. But company was taken over by another company, and so may well go downhill in future. Another problem: uses Hsphere.
- Steadfast. Has a good rep on WHT, and seems impressive. Tech answered the phone immediately, but they say they prefer emails. Sales phone has limited hours. Good price on $20 SSL. But, uses Hshhere.
- JodoHost 24 hour phone. But, uses Hsphere. An Indian company with office in Florida, and good rep. I like the idea of outsourcing phone support, if it makes it more available and affordable. But, the accent on the phone was very hard for me to understand, so maybe this might not work.....
- Hostgator. Yes, it's a big overseller, but seems to get good reviews/results anyway, and good phone support.
- ? ThePrimeHost ?? Mostly good WHT reviews; some dissenters. Site says 24hour phone, but when I called on several nights, no one ever answered...
- Can anyone add to this list? Please list only hosts that meet the above minimum requirements of phone support, etc. Especially useful is hosters you've tried.
TO AVOID:
- Avoid Arvixe. I had a horrid experience with them, here: [WHT forum]:/showthread.php?p=5097822#post5097822
- Avoid WebHostingBuzz. This company never returned my phone msessage inquiries.
we are thinking of moving to rackedge, as we need an nl server and they offers are pretty good, but we don't know how good support is, has anyone used them? what's your experience? if it was bad, have you found something better?
It's imperative for you to know that web host features does not just stop with Unilimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. There are other very salient features to which some people looking for a host provider have ignore, it is CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
You will not value the importance of a good customer support until you start having problems which you want resolved in the shortest possible time. For some host providers this is like telling them to do the impossible.
It is sad that some of the so-called reputable host don't even have a ticket system not to talk of an on-line chat system where you can ask questions and receive answers in real time.
So, for those of you that are new to hosting or want to change your host, then you had better look for a host that offers good customer support either by Chat, ticket system or forum.
I decided to go for a budget dedicated server because the shared hosting I was using was grinding to a halt several times a week.
I haven't used a dedicated server before, and wasn't 100% sure what I needed, so after lot's of going round in circles, I found the 123-reg £49.99 server and unlimited bandwidth, so I ordered it....and waited, and waited. Not so much as an order confirmation, or reply to my emails asking what was going on. Not a great start, so I cancelled the order.
OK, I have a budget of around £60 a month.
I need the server to be able to do mod_rewrites.
Unlimited, or a generous amount of bandwidth per month is important.
Good service if it all goes wrong is essential.
Preferably UK based, but will consider other countries if contacting them isn't a problem.
I need some kind of control panel as well.
i will be running a Vbulletin + VBSEO (hence the mod_rewrites) installation and a joomnla installation with lots of large images if that makes any difference.
There are a lot of people whether their web hosting providers are good or not. After months of purchasing their web hosting account they might discover that their web hosting providers are so bad. Therefore, you’d better checking your web hosting provider.
One of the most important parts related to web hosting is the supporting services. So when you purchase a new web hosting account, try to check their supporting services. Try to ask them a few technical questions even you don’t have a problem. It just tests their supporting quality. How do they answer your questions quickly? Ask yourself this question. If they spend a lot of time “two or three days”, it might be poor service. For this situation, my advice is to cancel your account. The most of web hosting companies offer 30 days money back and try another web hosting company.
There are many supports kinds:
* HelpDesk * Live chat * Supporting via Phone * Supporting forum * And so on
This is all about the supporting part for your web hosting provider. So this is very important to check this service.
I have servers with softlayer current paying $2000 a month for 3 dedicated servers. THey are set up and work perfectly.
Issue is i was not aware that softlayer doesnt do "managed" support, would like to know if anyone has a good third party company that works with softlayer.
the tools they have on the portal our great so really would like to find a company thatworks with them. the co that softlayer suggested doesnt do windows support go figure!
our VPS hosting company did an upgrade the other day and now something is wrong with our home page, it takes about 30sec to load. They keep saying its a php problem, but the scripting is fine, the engine is fine and the only thing that changed is that they did an upgrade.
They don't seem to be able to grasp the problem, and it is making my boss go nuts. A web guy a know said it definately had to be something at their end, and everyone else is at a loss.
Do they do a good job of supporting OSCommerce? I want to customize stuff using OSCommerce for my site. Let me know from those who have used OSCommerce with Cirtex hosting.
I am referring a friend to JaguarPC but he wants more options so he wants me to recommend 3 different shared webhosts to him. What are two other great shared hosting providers that have as good support as JaguarPC?
I came to this site few days back only and was going through various discussions. After being on this website since last 1 week I am really impressed that members are really helpful to other members with their fair and valuable suggestions.
I do have a quick question for you and need your suggestions: Q: Which web host I should go with where I will get around 20GB of space with PHP, MySQL, FFMPEG support.
Please recommend me a host with high uptime, good http response time, and reliable to host considering a long term relationship.
i have been hosting as a reseller with gazzin.com on their windows servers for past some years and in this period i suppose they have shifted their datacenter more than twice causing a great problem to me and all my clients.
the latest period of the shift being going on currently i request you all to go through the transcript below which i had with their support center. when we talk about a refund for this downtime i suppose the owner 'PAUL' just stops responding ......
For people looking for a vps, I thought it's important to get a feel for their technical support team. So for the first time, I've had to use it. . .
My problem is that MySQL CPU utilization is around 25% at all times and it is lagging the box like crazy. All of my sites hosted only get around 200k uniques per month. <<snipped>> The lag seemed to start around the same time I added multiple cronjobs at various times and frequencies to grab RSS feed data and check to see if it should add a new entry into the DB.
I am not a linux guru, so I opened a ticket and asked for help and suggestions on what to do. . .
Response:
Quote:
I could try tweaking the mysql configuration so the service uses less resources, but this usually just helps with the memory use.
I was looking for him to either say yes the cronjobs are doing it or I have poorly coded queries. . something useful and related to CPU usage. But no.
So then I say sure, tweak. I ask if he agrees that the cronjobs are the problem and what options I have to remedy the situation.
Response:
I have tweaked the mysql configuration for you. Yes, most likely those cronjobs are causing the big CPU usage in mysql.
Basically he completely ignored my question on what other options I have or recommendations on what to do next. Needless to say I am furious. I ask for advice and get absolutely nothing useful in return. Not to mention his short answers make it seem like I'm lucky he even reads my entire question.
I've been with Zoom for 2 years now, and I'm leaving as soon as I find another host. Here's why: once a month, for the last 3 months, emails I send to a Yahoo.com address are bounced because Yahoo is blocking all email from my mail server. When this is finally dealt with, it turns out Yahoo blocks everything coming from Zoom (or my shared server -- sorry I'm not technical) because of spam originating there. Now, *I'm* not sending spam, and spam is annoying enough to deal with in my in box, but now other people sending spam are stopping me from sending my little 20-30 emails a day!
Here's how tech support has worked for me when this problem comes up:
1. I go on and open a chat with support.
2. Someone In India eventually says hello to me.
3. I state my problem.
4. Long wait.
5. Someone In India eventually comes back and says "hello" again.
6. Now I'm pissed. I tell Someone In India what the problem is and give her email headers and tell her to pay attention.
7. Another long wait.
8. This Someone In India gives me an email address at zoom to email directly about this problem.
9. I email TheAddressIWasGiven @ zoom explaining my problem...and THAT EMAIL BOUNCES! Despite the irony of having an email begging for help with bounces get bounced itself, I am not amused.
10. I go to call Tech Support... DOH! They no longer have phone support.
11. I fill out an online support and send it in. I wait No reply. Emails to Yahoo still bouncing.
12. I fill out another one. I wait.
13. I get an email telling me my second support request is being closed since they are working on the first one. Really? First I've heard of them working on it.
14. 20 minutes later I get an email saying they're working on the first request.
15. A day or so later, I get an email telling me it will all be fine in a day.
16. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes I get another email telling me to go to Yahoo and fill out a form to get them to unblock it.
17. I fill out a form at Yahoo and it gets unblocked within hours. I am currently suffering from the latest email bouncing and am at step # 14. Which is what drove me here to find a real host. Something about getting lumped in with spammers is just....icky. Yucky.
Also, they spontaneously took my little web site off line several times because they messed with directories. It took days to get right. My business is not web-based, but it was still annoying.
Anyway, there's my cautionary tale about Zoom . A few mistakes are forgivable, but this is too much.
I had purchased an SSL certificate from Go-Daddy. The Tech support people at GigaPros were more than willing to give me the advice I needed and to get the certificate installed for me in very short order.
Polite courteous professional service, excellent response times and top notch support. This company offers excellent value for the money! I highly recommend GigaPros!
I have dedicated servers - which are overkill as I only host 10 sites (small). I am now looking to move to a VPS solution and would like to know if anyone can recommend a good UK company (that offers true UK hosting) with good uptime and support?
Cpanel and Unix VPS, but may also require windows vps - so a company that offers both will be beneficial, but long term view to migrate over to Linux
my web site has about 4,000 pageviews and currently working fine on shared host. i plan to build a forum to support my products. i just want to know if the 128 MBs VPS is good plan for my web site?
40 GB Disk Space Fairshare of a Dual Xeon/Opteron CPU 512 MB Dedicated RAM 2 GB Burstable RAM 750 GB Premium Transfer Fully Managed
I have about 10 sites that run straight HTML and 5 WordPress low traffic sites (which obviously use a database). Will the server above support my needs adequately?
I need managed services since I don't know anything about server maintenance and I saw LunarHosts VPS (http://www.lunarpages.com/virtual-private-server/)
The deal sounds pretty good - 1000 GB Bandwidth, 20 GB Space, PHP, MySQL and managed services for $50 a month.
I wanted to know if anybody has tried them out? Are they good? Is their a better value anywhere else?
I was looking for a webhost with adwords credit, and cheap.
When I went to Bluehost and Hostgator, the more well-known sites they had $50 adwords credit each but couldn't get their price down to less than 58$ a year. With Fatcow seems to be $44 a year and also have $50 adwords credit.
Does somebody know their reliability? I was searching google and the host seems to be a new person in town and that might be a problem.
Preferably I was searching for $20 a year webplans but I can't seem to find one with adwords credit. I want to use the adwords to drive quick traffic to a new site. I am not sure should I go for the adwords credit+ hosting or hosting seperate + adwords seperate. The keywords I'm gonna use only have 1,000-10,000 max visitors a month. If the credit is only valid for a limited time than I'd maybe better off with a both seperate.