Website Support

[mystic charms]

What sort of support would you/do you expect to receive when you purchase a website/hosting package?
If you was to buy a website from a dropshipping company, what support would you expect to be offered for free and what would you not mind having to pay for at a reduced rate?
Would like some input on what other people expect to get. :|

[janhindrik]

email support at least. I have a hosting company who offers chat support 24/7 and this is why i stay with them. My websites are not very fast but this is the reason i have not gone to the competition.

[CS-Cart]

Speaking of a scope of questions: at least basic, general help with web scripts that you install. Of course, more complex cases may cost money, but you shouldn't pay for each and every question you may have. And it's good if a host can be honest about resourced you can use and provide advice on how to use less of them with common web software.

[eukhost]

A well established web hosting company offers 24x7x365 support through Email, Live Chat and Phone. All these three modes of contact are very important because some clients prefer email and some clients prefer Phone or Live chat support. Response time to phone and live chat is faster than the email support.

[mystic charms]

Its not so much the way the support is delivered but what do you expect to be covered ie what problems woud you expect to be dealt with by your website support.

[OldWelshGuy]

You should expect whatever you have agreed and paid for. A simple question is 'when is hosting a hosting package, and when is it just hosting the site?

'free hosting' doesn't mean FTP access, database availablity, control panels etc. it can mean literally that. Your site can sit on our servers for free'. :(

[mystic charms]

Maybe I should rephrase the question.
You purchase a fully loaded ecommerce website and hosting as a package, what support for that website package other than hosting issues would you expect to have? What questions do you think should be answered and what hands on help would you be expecting for the website, not the hosting?
Say if you fiddled around with your site, wiping files etc woud you expect support to fix it for you for free?
Or if you want an add on that is not already on the site, do you expect it to be done for free?
My site has been hosted with one company for over two years, the only time I have used their support is when I Firefox has updated and wiped out all my bookmarks including the address to my control panel. I expect them to be able to send me my log in details for free. But I dont expect them to put 'add ons' to that hosting for free. I expect answers should my site disapear etc.

[OldWelshGuy]

I would expect there to be a back up available, free or not is the question. It all depends on what you are paying. E.G. if you are paying £15 a year, then in all honesty I really wouldn't expect anything at all beyond an acceptable uptime rate.

Paying £25 a month OTOH raises the levels of expectancy, and I would expect a bit of give and take for help. Things like backing up folders or files now and again due to infection/accident, should be expected i would say, as would a decent technical help system.

[That Guy]

Email / Phone / Live Chat Support, Backup Services etc.

Are you looking for something in particular?

[mystic charms]

"decent technical help system" thats the one, what is classed as decent technical help?

[CS-Cart]

I agree that it depends on a price. For example, basics like backups should be present in any case, however, in a cheap case, I wouldn't expect access to daily versions for the last week/month, nor would I expect a super-safe storage system. However, for an expensive solution, this should, of course, be present.

Same applies to software installation, transfers from another hosting companies, and so on.