How to overcome existing web hosting issues for your website

A glitch in the matrix, human error, unforeseen bugs or cyber-attacks; things go wrong quite frequently when it comes to the internet. When your website is down, what happens next and who takes charge of it?

Uh-oh the website is down!

You paid good money for your website and you don't understand how it works or where it really exists.  Everything is going fine, it's been designed, developed and delivered.  Except you wake up one day and the site is not loading anymore.  Your business has become unrepresented in cyberspace and there is no chance of selling your products or services so far today!

This means you've been experiencing problems with your website host. So what is a web hosting?
Web hosting  is a variety of internet service that hosts websites, providing a place to create and maintain a site and have it accessible on the web for all. 

We've all been there and the feeling of helplessness is like when your car breaks down at the side of a quiet road!  You start to break out in a cold sweat, the feeling of panic descends, but hang-on, all you have to do is contact your web design agency right?

It's not coming back anytime soon...

Unfortunately the reality is that sometimes you don't get the emergency support you need.  Here are some possible issues you may encounter when trying to get help from your web design company:

• They don't answer the phone - Maybe they use office phones or an infuriating menu of options where you don't even know which one to press to get the person you have been dealing with!
• It's the weekend so no one wants to know - Or maybe no one is in the office to talk to because it is 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.  But this might be a good time for your customers, so unfortunately it's going to be a bad trading day!
• They haven't a clue what's wrong - Your agency decided to "diversify" a while ago and now build websites in five different platforms.  The trouble is they just lost their Drupal guy and now don't have any exerience in fixing the issue on your Drupal based website.
• The hosting company are not supporting the agency.  The agency tell you the host "can be a pain" and not get back to them or fix their issues quickly.  So we're all left wondering when a Tech is going to look at your ticket.
• The hosting platform/server is for experts only and the agency are not hosting experts - Whoops the normally reliable server is now showing a blank screen and noone at the agency knows what to do.  It's an amazing hosting platform, cheap, scalable and fast, but they don't actually offer a managed service.  Not sure what we're going to do now?

Partner with an established agency who genuinely cares about support

Having been in this situation (and worse) as a client in the past, we do care and created a web design service where we "made digital simple" for our clients, so it is a help to them and not a hinderance.

Let's look at those issues again and this time how we fix them:

• They don't answer the phone - Maybe they use office phones or an infuriating menu of options where you don't even know which one to press to get the person you have been dealing with!
  If we don't answer we'll always call back, or we may email back if we're in the middle of it!
• It's the weekend so noone wants to know - Or maybe noone is in the office to talk to because it is 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.  But this might be a good time for your customers, so unfortunately it's going to be a bad trading day!
  We use a UK based 24/7 hosting provider who maintain their servers and fend off attacks, even at weekends. Because we care about you and your organisation so we don't mind fixing critical issues at the weekend.
• They haven't a clue what's wrong - Your agency decided to "diversify" a while ago and now build websites in five different platforms.  The trouble is they just lost their Drupal guy and now don't have any exerience in fixing the issue on your Drupal based website.
  This is why we specialise in no more than two platforms (ConcreteCMS and Wordpress) so we know them inside and out
• The hosting company are not supporting the agency.  The agency tell you the host "can be a pain" and not get back to them or fix their issues quickly.  So we're all left wondering when a Tech is going to look at your ticket.
  We have stuck with our hosting partner since 2015 and wouldn't change due to their extremely good stupport.  They are not cheap, but if you want good service it is worth every penny.  We've dealt with many hosting companies over the years and some are too cheap to offer you good support and others are so profit-orientated that they keep coming up with hidden or other charges or simply saying that "your current package doesn't include this level of support".
• The hosting platform/server is for experts only and the agency are not hosting experts - Whoops the normally reliable server is now showing a blank screen and noone at the agency knows what to do.  It's an amazing hosting platform, cheap, scalable and fast, but they don't actually offer a managed service.  Not sure what we're going to do now?
  We've had clients with hosting that requires a trained Linux engineer to look after and they haven't had access to one.  If something went wrong they would be by themselves!  This is why we invest in fully-managed services so we can carry on with what we do well whilst the hosting company carry on with what they do well!

This level of service should be standard, but time and time again clients are let down in this unregulated industry.  What would it cost you if your website was down for a week, or couldn't be rescued and you were losing sales for months until you paid a new web design company to design and build you a brand new website?

How to choose the right agency:

• Have conversations with potential agencies before going ahead.
• Check their client feedback/reviews
• See how long they have been trading
• Do they offer marketing services too, such as SEO
• Does their portfolio of work show similar projects
• Don't make a decision purely on price, weigh up how the investment of a new website and how it will benefit your business.
• Check what support the agency offers and if support is even important to them
• Make sure you choose great hosting if you are doing this yourself

Relax and focus on running your organisation

As a business owner or head of a charity it's clear you need to carefully consider what support you may get from a potential partnership with a new digital agency or web designer.

This will give you a sense of security knowing that issues with be dealt with swiftly and your website and marketing activities are not in jeopardy.

Hubspot have some great customer service quotes from thinkers and leaders in industry that really put customer service and support into context.

Our clients agree that good, responsive service from their agency is so important.  Here's a nice review we received that is very relevant to this blog post:

Like you, we enjoy great customer service and the sense of relief, satisfaction and quality that you get from experiencing it.  Of course, none of us want things to go wrong, but a sense of techinical expertise paired with great customer service really smooths things over and prevents a small issue turning into a crisis.

So when you are choosing an agency, follow the tips above to make sure you are limiting your risk for when things go wrong and your website is in the right hands.

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