Over the last couple of weeks, there’s a pretty good chance that if you tried to go to this site to read whatever new content I had thrown up, you would’ve have been unable to for a couple of hours because my server (hosted by web-mania) has been playing up. It’s been like this for a couple of months now, but it’s been getting particularly bad lately. It has coincided with me receiving emails like this one:
Jon Kane
You have services at Web Mania which are due for renewal in the near future on Invoice 97659
To prevent any disruption in service, it is important that you renew your account before it expires.
Hosting renewal
Renew due before 29 Aug 2008
Account: xxxxxxx
writersbloc.co.uk
Subtotal: £xxxx
Vat: £xxxx
Total: £xxxx
You’ll notice that my existing (12 month) contract with them doesn’t expire until the end of August. A short 7 weeks away. I’ve been getting emails like this every two days for the last two weeks. I can understand them giving me plenty of notice so that the site doesn’t go down permenantly without me noticing, but every two days is extreme, and expecting me to pay two months in advance of the end of my contract is just retarded.
Now, this is a very, very long post, so if you want to read it all, you should, it’s pretty funny. However, if you can’t be arsed then just skip to the end where I make my point.
THE BEGINNING
The site has been going offline, so I got in touch with them on the 2nd of June to ask what was wrong:
Hello,
My website (http://www.writersbloc.co.uk) has been experiencing a considerable amount of down time recently, and I was just wondering if there was a particular reason for this period of poor service. I can understand when there are upgrades taking place, but I seem to have had downtime every two days for the last week and a half. I’ve not really had any problems with webmania before now, but my website being down so often for so long is proving to be a major problem.
I hope you can help clarify why this is happening, and perhaps some provide some assurances that this won’t continue happening with such regularity in the future.
Yours,
Jon Kane
As you can probably guess, I got a particularly helpful reply.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. We have checked website writersbloc.co.uk, it is working fine. We have also checked the all services for your account and at the moment all services are fine.
Please check the same at your end.
If the problem persist, please let us know.
Please feel free to get back to us in case of any further queries.
Regards.
Simon,
Technical Support Team.
I actually deleted it, since I was so pissed off. It didn’t address any of my concerns, and simply stated that it was working fine now. Something that I already knew, since I could access the site again. So I deleted the email, and hoped that everything would get better. The site was up and down for the whole of June, but it wasn’t happening that often, so I didn’t care too much. However, July kicked in and it started happening ALL THE TIME. It was time for another email.
Simon,
Further to this rather unhelpful reply, my site seems to be down again - for the third time in the last two days. My initial email was not to check if the site was working (because I’m well aware of when the site is down and when it isn’t), but as to why I am continuously being faced with this type of server downtime. I have been receiving emails requesting that I renew my hosting with your company within the next month and a half, and if this is the level of service that I will receive in future, I will be looking for a new service provider.
Any explanation you can provide as to why the server is down, and why the performance of the server has been so poor during the last few months would be greatly appreciated.
Yours,
Jon Kane
You can tell that I’m getting pissed off, but I’m still being polite. I just want a straight answer, right? Fortunately, web-mania were quick to respond.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. I have gone through your issue and found that the domain writersbloc.co.uk is working absolutely fine now. As we are not having any issues on our servers. Everything seems to be fine now. Please check same form your end.
Please do not hesitate to contact us back if you have any further queries.
Kind regards
Steve
Automated emails. Brilliant. They went to the trouble of changing the guy’s name from Simon to Steve, but the wording is identical. Incredible. Somewhat conveniently, when I received the email the server was down again. A reply was in order, mailbots be damned.
The server is down at the moment. Please address my previous question - why am I experiencing so much down time?
Yours,
Jon
Looking back on it now, I can’t believe my own optimism that a human being with eyes and the capacity for reason could have been reading my emails, but I stuck with it. I have such faith in humanity. Webmania got back to me:
Hello,
Thanks for your response.
This has been fixed now. We have restarted all the services on the server which has been resolved the issue.
Please check your website is now working fine and let us know if still you are getting any error so we can assist you for the same.
Please feel free to get back to us in case of any further queries.
Regards,
Rachel
Ooooh. Rachel. I like the name Rachel, it reminds me of my first serious girlfriend and my teenage (who am I kidding, existing) crush on Jennifer Aniston. Sneaky Web-mania, tapping into my manly desires. This reply is much better, since it shows that they took some ACTION. Finally, it’ll all get better! Yay, problem solved!
24 hours later:
Further to my three previous emails, the server that hosts my site seems to be down. Again.
Jon
Hopefully Rachel will get back to me and make everything better, just like she did the last time.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. I have again gone through your issue. We have made some necessary corrective changes on our server which seems to be working absolutely fine now. Please check from your end. Still we are continuously monitoring your issue from our end as well the server on which site is currently hosted on.
Please do not hesitate to contact us back if you have any further queries.
Kind regards
Steve
Damn, it’s Steve again. Steve’s already shown how useless he is. Again, they’ve made changes, it should be fixed now. In any rate, it’s being constantly monitored, so I really have nothing to worry about. Thank God for that.
THE ANGER BEGINS
Hello,
It lasted about 23 hours. The server for www.writersbloc.co.uk is down again. This is getting beyond a joke.
Jon
Sigh.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. Please check now. The site writersbloc.co.uk seems to be working now. Currently there are no issues with our servers. Please check same from your end.
Please do not hesitate to contact us back if you have any further queries.
Kind regards
Steve
WHERE HAS RACHEL GONE!?! This is practically the same as the very first email that I received. We’re going backwards. I miss Rachel.
The server for writersbloc.co.uk has gone down TWICE today. There is no point in me even having a website if it can’t even stay online for longer than 48 hours. Am I going to get any explanation as to why this keeps happening? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve emailed you in the last ten days.
Jon
I’m not even pretending to be polite anymore. I’m surprised I haven’t started swearing. I usually swear. Come on, Steve, MAKE IT BETTER!
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.
Please check now. The domain writersbloc.co.uk is working fine now. I have fixed the issue.
Still we are continuously monitoring your issue as well as our servers.
Please do not hesitate to contact us back if you have any further queries.
Kind regards
Steve
Or just send the same email as the last time, that’ll do the trick.
The site hosting www.writersbloc.co.uk has gone down. Again. Is there any record of how many times that I’ve contacted you? Is there any reason for this continually bad service?
Yours,
Jon Kane
Are you amazed that I’ve persevered with it for so long? So am I, but it illustrates a very important point. A vast majority of customers will go out of their way to give you the opportunity to make things better. I’ve now given them SEVEN opportunities to escalate my problem and tailor the reply to answer all of my questions and make it all better. They haven’t taken any of those chances. They did reply to me, however.
RESOLUTION
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.
We would like to offer our apologies for the inconvenience faced by you. There was a temporary problem with the mysql services on the server on which your domain is hosted. Now we have fixed the issue and would like to assure you that you should not face the same problem again in near future.
Thanks for your understanding and kind co-operation.
Please feel free to get back to us in case of any further queries.
Regards.
Simon
So, Simon has saved the day. I got that email yesterday, and I haven’t had any further problems since. So what is the point of all of this?
THE POINT
I’ve exchanged something like 14 emails with webmania in the last 6 days. I’m certainly going to be shifting to a new host in August. I’ll have to pay a bit more cash, but I think it’s certainly worth it if it means I don’t need to go through all of this again. The thing that gets me is that this is all very avoidable. In the first email (or the sixth, whatever) all Simon/Steve/Rachel had to say was this:
Hi Jon,
It’s terrible that you’ve been having problems with our service, it must be a real inconvenience for you, and we’re very sorry for that. It’s all down to the mysql settings on the server - they’ve been very tempremental recently. We can’t use that as an excuse (because you deserve the best service possible) but please believe me when I say that we’re trying our best to stay on top of it, and we’ll try hard to avoid any more problems in the future.
I can see via our records that you’re account is up for renewal - by way of an apology, and to make sure that this doesn’t stop you from staying with us, we’re going to knock £2 of your renewal fee.
I hope you’re having a good day, and if you have further problems, please email me directly at steve/rachel/simon@webmania.co.uk.
Yours,
Simon/Steve/Rachel
Of course it’s not automated, and it involves an extra two minutes of time, which makes it as far from what webmania want to do as you can get, but if they’d sent me this email, I’d be renewing my contract. Without a doubt. If you’re looking for a host, don’t go to webmania - go somewhere that actually gives a shit what their customers think. You deserve better than a fake “kind regards”.
[EDIT - Somewhat predictably, two hours after I originally posted this, the site went down again. If I get paid in the next three weeks by anyone, I'm gonna use the cash to pay for a new server.]
July 11th, 2008 |