Snippet: Very Annoying!

*snippet* Aaargghhh! Luuuseerrs!

Yep, it’s been “one of those days” where I’m just going to be using this blog as a “location for letting off steam”. And the fact that my job would be so much easier if we didn’t have customers to worry about *grr* Unfortunately, they pay the wages so 🙁

Basically, we’ve had to make a few configuration changes in anticipation of a major systems upgrade across our network of servers: nowt too bad you would think. Except, as with any major computer changes, there are bound to be a few minor hiccups (even Slashdot suffers from them when they move/upgrade servers: and they are “techy techys”!). Of the 400+ customers which were affected by this weeks changes, less than a dozen of them noticed the changes (I was actually aiming for none of them).

However, whilst most of that few dozen were content just to let things “reset” themselves (the .uk zone file seems to be delayed with making its updates: hence has caused us a few problems), we’ve got a couple of “vocal customers” that are reporting “major problems: critical: fix now” type messages. I’m extremely good on customer support (I’ve often been told I’m “too good”), but we run a very tight budget and hence I have to be careful how I regulate my time and try not to “over service” customers too much. However, I’m more than willing to go out of my way to people paying £50, £100, £1,000 per year to help them.

But those aren’t the people that are complaining. Oh no. The people that are complaining are the ones that got totally free webhosting with their domain name registration (I’ve seen our rivals selling “webhosting+domain name” for £40 a year: we do domain name registrations for less than £20 and “throw in” a free webhosting account). Yep: the customers which we don’t make any money from are the ones that are complaining especially “the web is important to my business so the site needs to be running”: in that case, spend more than £20 on your website hosting! If it is “really critical”, then find someone offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA) etc: but you will have to pay – several hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds for that level of guaranteed service!

Aaargh!

(rant over)