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DoYouNeedSupport.Com?
- the emergence of branded support sites
HostIndex.com staff noticed a new and interesting site while evaluating hosting companies for our January 1999 top twenty ranking. We ran across a branded hosting support site by WebHosting.com Inc. What interested us about their new site, ineedsupport.com, was the way the staff at WebHosting.com have brought together a wide gamma of support technologies into a newly branded support site under it's own domain. It peeked our attention enough to contact the company and to try to see if it was hype under the site's stylish graphics or an actual attempt to bring about a new level of hosting support. We spoke with Rawlson King who is the Manager of Corporate Communications at WebHosting.com Inc. What transpires in this article is a commentary and evaluation of their new site.
Apparently ineedsupport.com originates from a six-month investigation into the support questions and needs of hosting customers at WebHosting.com[formerly DynamicWeb.] What then was the main need discovered by this hosting company in it's research? The answer - "Empowerment… we wanted to give our customers tools to administer their accounts properly. As small and medium sized business become more active online we wanted to provide these companies with the information to take full advantage of their sites and maximize the money they can make."
Ineedsupport.com incorporates four main components. The first, is a form which is used to submit tech support questions that provide a tracking number. While not new to the industry, it is WebHosting.com's first implementation of a system which is not by any means commonplace in the business - a disappointing fact given it's high degree of usefulness in maintaining prompt tech support.
The second, is a network status page which keeps customers up-to-date on server problems. Interestingly, WebHosting.com intends to keep customers informed of all problems irregardless of the seriousness or length of the problem. "[WebHosting.com] will tell all. It makes no sense for us to not inform our customers if we have a problem" stated King.
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The third component is an online chat server where customers can have real-time chats. Unfortunately, at the time of this review the feature was offline, however, we were told that the chat tool would go back online shortly. While not doubting the return of this feature, our one concern was whether or not a technical support rep would actually be available - there are some companies with similar technologies who do not staff their promised chat lines. "We are unsure as to whether it will be dedicated staff serving online chats or part of our regular team…We do intend to have the resources to deal with the product," King said. Actually, this was reassuring to see that the chat feature was not online - it appears that the company will not activate a feature it is not presently able to support it 100%.
The final component was particularly intriguing and not commonplace among hosting company support sites - the ability to escalate a problem to management if handling has been poor. The escalation feature first requires a tracking number which ensures the opportunity for general tech staff to deal with the issue. This restriction would appear to help only legitimate concerns process through to management, thus eliminating a potential overload which would make this feature and process unmanageable by the company's president. "It is a reconciliation process which helps ensure client quality control," King told us.
Our first impressions of ineedsupport.com are quite positive - we wanted to know if there were "other" motives to what seems a significant amount of effort on the behalf of webhosting.com. Is webhosting.com simply creating some new tools in order to be acquired by another hosting company? King gave us the impression of remaining independent and challenging other companies to establish a new level of customer support - "We would like [ineedsupport.com] to become the de facto standard for hosting support. We intend to focus on hosting issues rather than solely business elements. We want to grow and create better products and services for our clients."
Undoubtedly, a major difference factor between hosting companies lies beyond the bits and bytes of data flowing across similar servers and similar backbones - technical support. With a huge range of tech support available a standard such as the one promise by WebHosting.com would be most beneficial. The possibility of extensive and dedicated hosting support brands is indeed a step in the right direction as websites become more mission critical for companies. We congratulate WebHosting.com Inc. for a solid step in leading the industry to higher levels of online customer support and hope that this new support brand can live up to it's appearances. If the hosting industry adopts this new format and degree of support, all hosting customers will be better off regardless of your provider. Hosting companies are you listening?
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