Web hosting providers rely upon long term client/provider relationships to reduce costs and to help pay for attracting new customers. In my personal experiences it costs approximately $150 to attract the average new client to a hosting provider. When you compare the average monthly hosting bill of around $5 to the cost to attract a customer you will very quickly see why a hosting provider needs long-term clients.
There are clients that see purchasing web hosting as a long-term relationship with their provider and they look forward to reliability, service, and support for a long time to come. Realistically most clients tend to stay with their provider until their needs drastically change and this is how things really should be.
No host is perfect – every host is going to experience issues from time to time and what is more important than whether or not they ever have issues is whether the host is directly at fault for the issue or if the issue was something that shouldn’t be held against them such as hardware failure. Just because your host experiences an issue is not reason alone to leave that provider unless they could have prevented the issue and chose not to or they simply handled the situation poorly. Most clients understand that issues happen and as long as they are kept informed as to what has happened and what is being done to resolve the issue they are willing to work through the issue. If you find yourself changing hosts every single time your provider has an issue you may want to consider giving your provider a chance to handle and resolve the issue before deciding to move.
Generally you are going to get what you pay for – you can’t sign up for a $1/month provider and expect the best service and support in the world just as if you sign up for a $30/month shared hosting provider you would expect a high level of service and support. I have found in my personal dealings in the hosting industry that the less a customer pays the more they tend to expect out of the provider and the less they understand the provider/client relationship. Now of course there are going to be exceptions as you may get an amazing coupon for a provider that drops your monthly cost to something ridiculous or you may sign up with a provider that is simply over-priced and provides a low level of service and support. If you find yourself constantly changing providers to get a “better deal” or to “save money” the chances are that not only are you hurting the providers that you are jumping from quickly but you are hurting yourself as you are likely going to end up with a lower quality provider and have more issues with service and support.
Do you understand the provider/client relationship – The hosting provider is usually not your webmaster or designer and if you find yourself submitting tickets asking your host how to do things with your site then chances are that you are in over your head and you may want to look for a webmaster. Realistically you shouldn’t have to put in more than one or two tickets every month and if you find yourself putting in a significant amount of tickets you may be in over your head. I have found that most issues that web hosting customers put in tickets for could be answered by a quick visit to Google. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you not to ask support for help, what I am saying is that many times you can find the answers to your questions faster on your own by researching the issue before submitting it to your provider. Providing support to clients does cost the provider money and some providers will go so far as to let clients who submit a large number of tickets go or worse they could reduce the priority of answering said client’s tickets.
If you find yourself moving from host to host you should look back and see why you have changed providers. Are you choosing low quality providers or are you expecting more than you should for what you are paying? You should determine why you are changing hosts frequently and do what you can to change this behavior as the change will not only benefit your provider but it will benefit you in the long term.
Very well written, and perfectly true. Every provider has issues now and again, things break, even providers make mistakes. It is the way the provider handles these situations that makes the difference.
There are some “so-called” providers though that do not seem to realise that their customers are their lifeblood, and that keeping an existing client is cheaper than going out looking looking to “replace” lost customers.
I thought I was a host jumper as I have had some many hosts but looking back most i have left do to needing some thing that host did not have or a money issue. That and I have had hosts die on me.
There have been some hosts that I have been with for years. Like I was with 1and1 for 2 years. I was with downtown host for 3 years. I do not like to switch hosts as it is a lot of work so the 2 hosts I have now I hope will be my hosts for a very long time.
That is really true. No providers are perfect. The fact that they are contacting you when they are experiencing a downtime and telling you what resolutions they are using or doing, is a sign that they are reliable.
Very well written, thanks for the article. I hate to say it but I have tried several different hosts for a few months at a time over the past 3 or 4 years – I can think of 4 off of the top of my head. Usually it is just to give something new a test run and is generally for a non-critical site. The sites that I need stability for have been hosted at the same place for some time.
I have wondered if this aggravates hosts. I have always made an effort to submit positive feedback to hosting communities for those who have done a good job in the hopes of driving new customers their way.