When it comes to buying services and complex products I always prefer buying from a local seller. This makes it easy to communicate and handle any matter that might come up when using the product or service that we buy. But in some cases the typical Sri Lankan customer relationship attitude make it a nightmare.
This happened way too often with my hosting provider. To be specific the X hosting provider. Not that this blog is some mission critical application, but when ever there is a problem with servers or downtime, a simple proactive mail from the host can save lot of time for customers. Instead they just make us panic and wonder what is going on. And in most of such incidents it takes ages to get a response from them.
I would not blame it entirely on them because this is typical Sri Lankan attitude. Whenever there is a problem we often keep our heads under the sand hoping that no one will notice. We do not take proactive measures on time and wait till the situation degrade to the point where clients start walking out. Seriously this need to change. Otherwise how are we going to complete with rest of the world.
Just to share with you my experience… My tiny blog is nothing compared to many sites that are getting the same treatment. I am not going lose anything if my site go offline for even weeks. Only reason I am on own hosting is simply because I love to play around with the code and WordPress.org hosting don’t let me do this. Also I am not satisfied with the backup facility they give. (Blog export/import is not a backup feature. It does not even work if you blog have more than a few posts). Even with such minor requirements a host that is not reliable enough or not communicating enough about their problems can annoy you to the point where you want to move out. Even when the alternative is as twice as expensive and half the world away.
Also in a time where companies can pop-up and disappear in a blink, its critical to have some fool-proof method to select a host. At least this time, I did some research, read some reviews and tested the response of support before selecting a new host. This actually helped me to avoid number of potential bad apples. But only time can tel if I have landed on a safe ground. On the mean time I’ll keep taking backups.
By the way next post will be on moving a wordpress blog from host to host. Here is a hint, apart from some trouble with domain transfer everything went easier than I expected. Thank god I took backups.
/Rakhitha
Tags: Backup, Customer service, Sri Lanka, Technology, Web Hosting, WordPress, wordpress.org
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