People often ignore or forget to check the web hosting support policies, while selecting a hosting provider for their websites. But today we will explain why this hosting support should be the number one priority while comparing hosting providers.
Also, what does it really mean to have a good web hosting support? This article will help you to answer this.
So without further ado, let’s start!
What Is Web Hosting Support?
The main theory of web hosting support is to offer solutions to customers’ problems so that their web hosting accounts run smoothly. Web hosting support is normally provided through an online helpdesk, where customers can submit their issues, and support agents from the provider offer solutions according to the problem.
The support agents can provide various types of solutions, this includes but not limited to the:
- Helping customers to migrate their websites smoothly
- Letting customers know about hosting account settings and how to change them
- Troubleshooting website errors and issues
- Optimizing the websites of the customers for faster performance
Web hosting support agents can also help customers with the billing tasks like accepting orders, processing refunds, account upgrades, domain changes, etc. So, web hosting support agents should have both customer service and technical engineering skills.
It’s not enough for technical support engineers to have only basic troubleshooting knowledge, the support agents should have in-depth knowledge and experience resolving all kinds of support-related issues and also should have good communication skills so that the issue can be explained to the end customer in simpler words. If the customer can not understand the issue or the support agent did not properly able to resolve the issue, then both of them will be frustrated.
Web hosting companies that are offering managed support, and running complex platforms require high-end skilled support engineers so that they can take care of both platform and customer issues. As we all know, humans can learn and develop any skill, but this takes time, so hiring an intern for a highly technical environment can hamper customer experience.
How to Determine the Quality of Web Hosting Support
Now let us show you what good web hosting support actually looks like. Also, you will find the difference between excellent support and bare minimal support.
1. Available Around the Clock
You can not control problems in a technical environment, and when they arise you left no other choice instead of contacting support channels. The best web hosting support providers understand this.
- Bare minimum support: The web hosting support agents are available 24/7 and offer basic support through a ticket system.
- Excellent hosting support: A experienced and skilled support team, who are easily reachable. Support agents are available through various channels like live chat, ticket system, skype, or call. There is no long waiting time, and agents are always there to assist you.
2. Multiple Support Channels
In this online era, where there is a lot of innovation going on, there should not be any excuse for companies to be unavailable. Common support channels include telephone, chat box, ticket, email, social media, skype, and many others.
- Bare minimum support: There is a customer support team available to offer web hosting support. Please note that free web hosting providers do not offer any support.
- Excellent hosting support: Besides a great support team, blog articles and a knowledge base help customers to solve basic problems. Research conducted by Salesforce found that the majority of customers try to resolve their issues by themselves. So only if they can not find a solution then they look for a support option.
3. Skilled Technical Support
The web hosting support agents should be highly skilled and can able to guide customers through any kind of troubleshooting issue. Failure to do so means the provider is not reinvesting properly in skilled support agents and only focusing on money-saving strategies instead of offering good web hosting support.
- Bare minimum support: The web hosting support team has some standards, and can offer basic technical support such as website migration.
- Excellent hosting support: A great web hosting support team can go above and beyond as per client expectations, they can solve issues in a jiffy. Being available 24/7 is useless when the support team takes the whole day to resolve an issue – as clients want fast support.
The best web hosting providers understand that they have clients all over the globe, so they offer multilingual support in all international languages. Offering extra services via support shows that they are serious about after-sales services.
If you are currently hosting your sites with another web host, you can use our points in this blog article, to categorize your current web host into a good or bad list.
If you’ve been let down by technical support staff, they’re difficult to reach, or the company provides anything less than 24/7/365 customer support, then it’s time to find a new web hosting provider.
Web Hosting Support Channels
Best web hosting providers offer various support channels so that their customers can easily reach them in case of any issue.
1. Knowledge Base
Knowledge base plays a significant role when customers really want to fix small issues by themselves. For example, you want to change a site’s PHP version or enable an extension, so a simple DIY knowledge base will do the job pretty well. These days more and more companies are focusing on the knowledge base section, as we have mentioned earlier most customers prefer to resolve their issues without contacting company support.
Knowledge base helps website visitors and customers understand:
- How to change their hosting account settings
- Easy ways to build and manage any website
- Common troubleshooting guides
- Basic concepts of web hosting and how it works
The knowledge base can come and often written in the forms of:
- Web-based readable text
- Ebook
- White papers
- Case studies
As online technologies are always evolving, companies are delivering their self-help guides in different forms.
2. Blog Contents
A blog is another well-explained article format documentation, which covers a wide range of categories, such as WordPress, emails, developments, SEO, optimization, etc.
Blog contents are one of the best formats for learners who need a detailed step-by-step guide and advice for their business, website, or marketing. And the best part is you can reply to those blog contents and engage with authors.
At Stromonic, we also maintain a well-defined blog section, which is where you are currently reading this article.
3. Tutorials
Tutorials mostly refer to video format, customers who don’t want to read a lot, prefer video format instead. Video tutorials are one of the fastest-growing segments on the internet, and lots of companies are now started focusing on this.
As day by day, humans’ attention span is decreasing drastically. In 2000, it was 12 seconds, and now, 15 years later, it’s shrunk significantly to 8.25 seconds. This is also the reason, why nowadays, most customers love to watch video tutorials instead of reading 2000 words of documentation. And the interesting part, companies know it.
Video tutorials can also come in different platforms:
- Uploaded on YouTube
- Available as Course
- The company’s repository
4. Live Chat
Over the last few years, live chat became one of the most common and preferable contact solutions for customers. Data statistics by Help Scout, state that 41% of consumers prefer to use live chat support over any other support medium.
The key reasons include:
- Faster response time than a ticket
- User-friendly conversation
- Very little or no waiting time
- Convenience
Live chat support can also be escalated as Remote Screen support, Voice call support when needed. Besides being preferred by customers, companies can also benefit from live chat. The live chat can also be used as a sales channel to acquire customers by answering visitors’ questions, and doubts.
This also includes some additional perks:
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Lower the support operation cost
- Increase trust and brand value
You can also include live chat support on your website, here are some of the best live chat softwares to get you started. You can include the live chat software javascript code in your website or alternatively install a WordPress live chat plugin on your WordPress site.
For frequently asked questions (FAQs) you can easily set up a chatbot for your website, where you can pre-define questions and their answers to the chatbot, and when someone will ask the same question, it will instantly reply with the answer.
Best web hosting companies always include live chat support for their customers. Where customers can upload images or screenshots so that agents can understand the error and help you with troubleshooting.
5. Phone
Phone (calling) support is one of the most popular support mediums for many sectors, like Telecom, eCommerce, Hardware business, Hospital, etc. For customers, especially those who are less tech-savvy, this phone support is most helpful because of its simplicity.
It completely removes the need of navigating through the website and log in to support the helpdesk system. Customers can dial the helpline number, and within a minute, the customer can talk with a real human support agent.
Phone support also provides an important human element to the support service. Support agents and customers can have a natural conversation, which provides more valuable context than trying to resolve issues through text.
However, phone support is not much popular in the SaaS industry and web hosting business, because of the complexity of the software and infrastructure, error screenshots can not be shared through phone support which is often essential to share with agents for such an industry.
There are other support mediums and technologies, which make it easier and quicker for web hosting companies to resolve their customer problems. For instance, contacting support from the ticket helpdesk system allows support agents to verify your account ownership, and pull up your information. Unlike phone support where such features are missing and could not be integrated.
When you are using the ticket helpdesk system, you can easily attach an error screenshot or image of the problem you are having, allowing the support agents to quickly understand and resolve the problem.
But still, having phone support with a web hosting business, means they are serious about their business and would like to offer a simple contact medium for customers who are not familiar with a ticket system.
6. Ticket System
The ticket support system is one of the most standard and universal support systems in the industry. You will find this support system with almost all the best web hosting companies. This is also the most professional and formal way to communicate through support agents. The ticket support system is widely popular in the SaaS and web hosting industry.
Customers who don’t have any urgency to resolve issues, and don’t want to waste their time chatting or talking with a support agent over respectively live chat and phone, contact via the ticket support system.
You will find support agents will always talk in a formal language in the ticket system. Hosting companies can have dedicated or integrated ticket systems in their client area dashboard, and the ticket can be created right after login into your client area dashboard. When an agent will respond to your ticket, you will receive an instant email notification on your registered email.
How Stromonic Beats Out Other Web Hosting Support Teams
Stromonic is one of the web hosting companies that believe in the importance of web hosting support. That’s why we go above and beyond to fulfill our customers’ expectations.
Most of our team members have 10+ years of experience working in the web hosting industry, and our team consists of web developers and IT engineers, who have developed WordPress themes, plugins, infrastructure architecture, and so on.
We also pride ourselves on our quick response times — our average ticket response time in 2022 was 10 minutes and our live chat response time is just 30 seconds.
When you sign up for a Stromonic plan, you get access to the following web hosting support services:
- Free website migration support
- Troubleshooting of server error messages
- Free full website optimization support
- Solving issues with outgoing transactional email (TransMail)
- Website security monitoring, including DDoS protection
- Free website security audits
- Protection against sudden traffic surges
- Uptime checks: We check that your site is online every five minutes.
- Regular backups: Access your backups from the easy-to-use cPanel control panel.
All of the above-mentioned services plus more are covered by Stromonic support. You can simply initiate a live chat, submit a support ticket by login into your client area dashboard or simply call on our helpline number. We are available 24/7 for you, anytime anywhere.
Stromonic customers also have access to our Knowledge Base, Blog, and Video Tutorials to help you get started with your online journey.
Conclusion
Hang on there! We have just given you some tips for choosing the right hosting provider. But how do you verify if your chosen web host actually offers them or if they are merely big words mentioned on their website? The easy answer is research!
Check the latest reviews of the web host on Google and other review websites, check their social media accounts/pages, call or message their customer support with genuine technical queries, contact their sales team to clear your doubts, and so on.
Web hosting support is mostly ignored when selecting a web hosting, but you should smartly consider it while choosing your next web host. The after-sales support provides an indication of how much the company serious about its business. Companies that offer extraordinary tech support, show they prioritize customer satisfaction, and want to make technology accessible by making their customers’ lives easier.
Overall, it takes patience, time, and research to select the right web host but it is time worth investing.
Stromonic offers a wide range of web hosting services with 24/7 top-notch support by real humans. Get started with our managed WordPress hosting solution and experience the difference by yourself.
How have your past web hosting support experiences affected you or your business? Let us know in the comment section.
