Can you keep a long term client happy?

[ridebmx]

I have been a customer here at WHB for well over 5 years and for the most part have found them to be averagely helpful with the few issues I have had and relatively reliable.

Most technical issues I have had, have been fixed by people outside of WHB as the staff here were either not enough help, or had no idea what to do.
Which is fine, I stopped asking after a while.....

However.
Experiences of late have been changing my mind about the service here and the staff I have been speaking to have been making it all the more apparent that perhaps it is time to move on and recommend all those I brought to WHB should also move on, or WHB need to pull their socks up and sort out the problems properly.
Bad luck or no bad luck, there is no excuse for poor customer service and less reasonable uptime than downtime over the past 3 weeks.

I am not a webhost, however I am not an idiot either and I am quite sick of being treated like I know nothing about servers and how they work.
I do work in IT and have done for about 15 years.
I actually have an IBM Server running RAID 5 on SCSI drives here at home, and I have set it up myself so I do know what is involved and how easy it is to access data on alternative drives without having the machine running if you have a problem.
I have not setup a server for external use - webhosting purposes, however have set them up for internal networking purposes.
When I ask what the problem is, don't fob me off with an archtypical response.
Tell me what the problem is.
When I ask what the ETA is, then give me an ETA. Don't tell me there isn't one, as if this is the case, then you either have no idea what's wrong, or you haven't ever come across this issue before. If you work with servers for a living, then you have a rough idea of time-frames for most procedures. A good IT backup system will have a list of allotted time-frames for system restores, recoveries and all other common procedures. This is standard for all billing purposes or time-management to keep resources in check.

In the last three weeks there has been event after event - all of which resulting in down-time to the end user. Sites not available, email not available and clients unhappy.

Apology after apology, but further problems occurring every few days.
Apologies are not good enough.

I spoke to a 'customer service' staffperson and voiced my frustration and my request to be moved to a more stable server.
This I was told was 'impossible' with no explanation.

On another occasion when again I spoke to a 'customer service' staffperson and voiced my further frustrations and dissatisfaction, I was then upsold to a higher cost account and convinced it would save me from the issues I was facing with my own customer dissatisfaction.
I agreed to this (contrary to my inner reasoning) and was told this would happen as soon as the server was stable.
I followed instructions, received the email, confirmed the request and received the email telling me it would happen.
RS16 was stable for a period of time.
Yet my account was not moved.
I made a request to have my moved, and THREE days passed, at which time (as now) yet again RS16 has taken another nosedive.
More than 8 hours has passed since we have been able to access it.
My account should have been OFF this ridiculous server 3 days ago yet it wasnt.
I am now stuck as I cannot access my clients information and the staff here at WHB are unable to even maintain regular communication with their clients via the forum they happily direct you to.

I have even emailed Saf directly, and surprise surprise, I have not even received any acknowledgement of that email.

Now, I don't consider myself a difficult customer....
I rarely use support.
I have a small but (until now) loyal clientele.
I do not break any rules.
I have only general content on all of my sites.
I use little in the way of scripting, mainly flash/html and the odd php site.
I don't have huge traffic and I dont feel that I suck up resources in any way.

What I would like to know, is why WHB feel that hollow apologies are all their clients are worth and why they make promises they refuse to then keep?

I am at the end of my tether with WHB and this is the last straw for me.
I am sick of reading about the so called uptime rates that I can prove are imaginary....

I keep only a few clients, as they pay enough to look after my infant son and I as a SAHM rely on the income from this.
My clients have trusted me to keep their service up. However at the moment, I look like an idiot as I have been telling them repeatedly, that this should be the last issue. That once this is done there wont be any further issue.
Yet again and again and again, clients are without service which they are paying me for.
I have had clients terminate services, I have clients given complimentary service periods which I can ill-afford and I am sitting watching my business and income vanish down the drain.
All due to WHB.
I would love to know who is going to purchase formula for my child, when I struggle to as my clients have gone elsewhere????? Yes I am frustrated and angry - as are my (ex-)clients.

I received an email asking me to write a review today, ironic timing really as a month ago I would have said nothing bad, however now I have nothing good to say.
I will no longer recommend WHB to anyone I know, and will be passing on my recent experiences to the people I have recommended here already, I know they will likely move when I do as we have enjoyed sharing the same host.
It's a shame that a working relationship this long has been destroyed because of laziness in communication and people not doing what they commit to........

I will be watching with interest to see if anyone who works for WHB will give me any response at all or whether I get another hollow apology.

[Matt R.]

ridebmx,

This is my area to discuss, not Saf's. I'm contacting you privately and will do my best to make things right.

Matt

[Matt R.]

Please check your PMs.

[ridebmx]

Checked and replied to two last night and one this morning.
Still waiting on a reply this afternoon?