Domain Blues and Webhosting Services
Here’s a novella about a fiasco over domain renewal by ZH.
ME: renews add-on domain on time on November 24, 2018
BH: emails me Nov 28 that add-on domain expired 4 days after I renewed
ME: live chat 1 Nov 28
BH: all will be well and taken care of
BH: Nov 29 lets domain expire
ME: live chat 2 Nov 29-30
BH: site will be up within 4-12 hours
ME: live chat 3
BH: will be fixed 24-48 hours
ME: phone call
BH: can’t establish timeline for problem-solving
I’ve been thinking a lot about moving my websites off paid hosting services to just using free blogsites. I used to just write on Blogger and it served me well. The time has come to seriously begin to move my 3 sites somewhere else. I don’t run businesses yet. I just blog and have my domain name. Do I need a domain name even? I can name a Blogger or WordPress blog my own way and make it my domain name, right.
Through this unpleasant experience, I learned some lessons about customer support:
- Be consistent.
- No blame-shifting. Do not suggest that your customer was deficient in any way.
- Improve workflow and communication processes.
- Write emails that address your customer and sign off with a real name.
- Never let your customer look bad. This site is part of my portfolio which I use to present my work.
- Speak in simple English, not in technical jargon (Note to tech support geeks). Communicate and connect.
Hope to post some good news soon!
Update: 11/30/2018 11:16 AM, Leonard from ZH emailed me that it was fixed. I checked and my site was still the same black “domain-expired” site. Emailed back to let them know.
11/30/2018 12:34 PM, my site is finally restored. Well, it’s past the 9 AM deadline. I needed it this morning to face the world. I will be looking to move this off to another hosting site.
