Issues with my Hosting Company
November 27th, 2006
This is just a semi-rant to hopefully let anyone out there know that lunarpages.com – a web hosting company, was not very reliable in a situation I recently had. It has been now 7 days while they try to fix a an e-mail problem with one of my clients. After numerous e-mails, the problem still remains unsolved.
I am usually hesitant in writing something that could negatively affect someone else’s business. This issue was one that made me doubt what I was paying for and ultimately made me look for an alternative. 
UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this entry, I was contacted by some people from Lunar who wanted to get to the bottom of this. After explaining what had happened, it seems the communication was broken down and that was the reason why my issue remained unsolved after some time. The person whom I exchange e-mails at Lunar (Amy) was mega courteous and was very sorry about how things turned out. They offered their most sincere apologies and behaved like a company should behave when giving customer support. It is truly a shame it had to come to this.
Examining the situation a bit more, it is kind of harsh to refer to them with the original title this post had, so it will was changed. I will have to make some edits to the original post as well since I was vert steamed at the time of writing.
Technorati Tags: Random Rant
As per requested, here is the e-mail history of my ticket with my issue:
First Response (Nov 23)
Dear E-MAIL REMOVED,
This is an automated message to advise you that a technician has responded to
your question. You can view this response and track the progress of your
inquiry online at:
URL_REMOVED
You can also reply to this e-mail.
Ticket Ref : 8910-QDHJ-6780
Ticket Subject : HELP: Mail Server is not Responding
Reply:
Helllo Christian
We apologize that you were not notified, you are correct when there is
scheduled maintenance you are notified via your contact address on your
account. Unfortunately this was not scheduled maintenance this was an issue
that required our admins to perform maintenance
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and the other users on
your account.
If you are still having any issues please provide us with the email accounts
and temporary passwords.
Thank you
–
If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to contact the
Lunarpages Help Desk again.
Best Regards,
Deanna Murphy
support@lunarpages.com
Phone: 1-877-LUNARPAGES (Toll-free)
Phone: 1-714-521-8150 (International)
<=== 8910-QDHJ-6780 ===>
Second Response (Nov 23)
Reply:
Hi Christian
We would like to offer you a server move and move your account off valina
Please advise if this is something that you would like to proceed with?
In order to move your account we would need to know the following:
[LIST OR PRE-REQUISITES OMITTED]
If you wish to proceed, for security purposes to confirm you are the account
holder, please provide your Lunarpages account username and the last 4 digits
of your credit card on record.
We take care of the transfer and your site should not experience any downtime.
After this, I sent them the requested info…the problem persisted…
Second Response (Nov 27) (yes, 4 days and they had NOT moved my account to the new server nor had they fixed the problem)
Reply:
The Valina server is still undergoing maintenance for load balancing. We can
certainly understand that the current issue with Valina can be frustrating and
irritating. Our server admins are currently in the process of moving accounts
off the Valina server in order to balance the load issues that server is
currently experiencing. Your account may be moved by them in this process.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that a server move causes a server’s load to
increase dramatically, we cannot move your account since our admins are also
currently moving accounts.
We do apologize for the inconveniences this is undoubtly causing you. Our
admins are moving accounts are quickly as possible without causing Valina to
appear completely offline.
–
Thank you for choosing Lunarpages
Suzanne Turner
Customer Service Representative
After this, I switched hosting companies:
December 6th, 2006 at 2:09 am
12/06/2006
ATTENTION:
I have been working in customer support/service for the last 10 years. In fact, almost everyone in their lives, at one time or another has been required to utilize some type of customer service. The task of keeping your customers satisfied with correct responses and your employers happy with performance can sometimes be a bit challenging. Throughout my years of experience in working with customers, I have come to realize that there are only two distinctive types of attitudes customers display.
1. Happy
2. Angry
With a “Happy” customer, there good attitude alone will help resolve their issues. The Happy customer will not try and find the faults of an organization and its associates; they will work with the associates to find the best resolution for their issues. The happy customer will be quick to offer praise for any help received. They are usually patient and understanding when trying to resolve an issue.
On the other hand, the “Angry” customer will almost always have a negative attitude. This is usually directed towards the staff or individuals that they wish to provide them with assistance, making it almost impossible to please them. The “Angry” customer likes to make very unreasonable demands and requests. They know that the company providing service to them wants their business, and does not want them to suffer any hardships resulting in a negative impact to there clients business.
So why do they do this you ask? It’s simple, because they can.
I’m not saying the customer support mentioned above could not have been better. I’m sure that had the staff alerted the proper management personnel, something could have been done to prevent this situation from escalating. But to attempt to slander an entire company because you received, what you considered to be less then acceptable customer service…This is ludicrous!
I hope I have provided you with a little more than just an opinion of your complaint. Hopefully I have provided you with enough information for you to re-evaluate your own attitude. Remember, “You choose your own attitude… no one else chooses it for you”.
Sincerely,
Joshua L.P. McLain
December 7th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Joshua: I do agree with you to a certain extent. I disagree in viewing customers as black or white. What any company needs to understand is that there are gray customers who are somewhere in-between. How does a customer reach such state? By not receiving the support or services he is paying for. Does this mean that a company cannot make mistakes? NO. Of course mistakes will be made.
I was not pissed off because my hosting company was giving me problems – I am expecting these every now and then. What is unacceptable is that after numerous e-mails the problem persisted after several days.
I really do not want to dig this (but if you want I will), but I recall a time when I had something I needed from Lunar and no one answered my tickets in the support category. I then entered the same ticked under billing and it was answered immediately (the question was not billing related!).
Judging a company’s support for ONE issue is ludicrous, I agree – but like I mentioned on my original blog post, this issue was the drop that filled the cup. It is not the first issue I had and the way I was seeing things go, it was defintely not going to be the last.
That being said, some people from Lunar contacted me after they read my post. This has been updated on my original post.
I really hate to close this with a cliché, but it certainly does apply: “If you don’t take good care your customers, someone else will”.
Thanks.
-Christian
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