Database Crisis Reveals The Needs to Look Beyond 24/7 Support
Reliability and 24/7 technical support are most important for choosing web hosting services. A recent Voicent (http://www.voicent.com) experience shows availability alone can be misleading.
Cupertino, CA (PRWEB) February 28, 2007 -- For e-commerce companies looking for reliable web hosting services, the availability of 24/7 telephone support is critical, but availability alone can be misleading, says Andrew Kern, webmaster of Voicent Communications. The Internet-based organization, like many, relies on Yahoo web hosting services for its website and company operations. When problems occur the clock is ticking and any downtime translates to loss of business which can turn to a bottom line crisis.
Kern recently experienced this kind of crisis first hand when his company database was removed by his web hosting company. His story is one that reflects the importance of good customer service and sensitivity to the fact that, with many companies relying on large organizations, their customer service can be pivotal to the success of their customers.
"I had been committed to Yahoo, our web hosting company, since it was a small start-up company," says Kern. "While there are many excellent web hosting companies, I maintained my relationship with Yahoo as our business grew and relied on the organization's infrastructure and 24/7 phone support as integral to Voicent's operations."
Recent events taught him it might take a long time before a problem could be solved, even with 24/7 support. In November of 2006, Voicent began to experience database connection problems. In conversations with Yahoo web hosting support, he was told that the cause was a system wide problem, and that the company was working on it. Within an hour the problem seemed to be fixed but the Voicent website began to experience a database select problem. Again, Yahoo web hosting service responded, but this time no one seemed able to tackle the problem.
Kern was referred to an email address within Yahoo and sent them information about the database problem. A day later, an email responded noting that the issue had been resolved. It had not, and he indicated that via an email response.
Another day later he again called Yahoo customer support asking whether the problem had been solved. He was again told to send email for further help. While this was going on, Voicent was receiving telephone complaints from its customers. Nothing was working and it was not only affecting Voicent's operations, but those of its customers, as well.
When Yahoo was again called, they indicated that the case had been escalated to the engineering department. Voicent was again told to use the email address for further inquiries. Still no success and another day passed.
On the morning of the fourth day, things seemed to be normal but by afternoon the system was again failing, and this time it appeared that the entire Voicent customer database was gone. Again, Kern was referred to the engineering department's email, but this time Yahoo said that the database was not there and that, because Yahoo does not provide script support, customers have to troubleshoot problems themselves. Kern emailed a response noting that Yahoo had been responsible for removing the database, and that he expected them to restore the database and solve the problem promptly.
That night, when Kern again called after receiving no response, a manager in Yahoo's call center told him that the entire Voicent database was removed by Yahoo engineers, had not been backed up and could not be recovered. The Yahoo manager asserted that he could not and would not contact anyone else within Yahoo for further assistance.
On the fifth day, Voicent received no further communication from Yahoo; and on the sixth, when Kern asked to be connected with someone at Yahoo's corporate headquarters to discuss the problem, the receptionist refused to transfer any call.
Eventually, a Voicent employee called a friend who worked at Yahoo, and who was able to get a corporate response. The next day, the problem was finally fixed.
Kern says that because no one at any customer service level was willing to deal with the issue on a timely basis, Voicent's site was not operational for a full week and that sales, as well as customer trust has been lost.
As to Kern's own response: he has made big changes in the IT infrastructure. "For mission critical data, we have to assume anything can fail. Be prepared, and don't forget backing up the database daily," he adds.
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