Webhost Hottie
Nothing makes me madder than being treated like an idiot when clearly I am NOT! Have you ever been treated like that by customer service people? I’m not standing on the soapbox today, I’m kicking it! I spent all of yesterday trying to see and get into my website, now probably none of you had that problem but I did and I missed my writing deadline. I hate that!
In order to eliminate all reasons why, I began first with my webhosting people BECAUSE in the past their ‘technical’ glitches HAVE been the reason why my site was down. So at 10.18am NZEST I begin what was to become a very bad dance with a customer service person representing IX Webhosting. I give him my name, rank and serial number, all helpful and necessary details for him to begin investigating my concerns and thereby eliminating the Server as a problem child as opposed to being thee problem child.
He went to check at 10.25am. He told me he’d looked and it all looked honky dory to him AND that would be fine except I still couldn’t see the site and I relay this somewhat inconsequential fact to him. He advised me to clear the cache and cookies and use another browser. If this world blinds you by its science`I can assure you we didn’t do a smash and grab in the kitchen pantry.
In computer science a cache is a temporary storage area where frequently accessed data can be stored for quick access. Once the data is stored in the cache, future use can be made of it by accessing the cached copy rather than repeated to-ings and fro-ings to get the original data. In this way, getting the information takes less time.
A cookie is a small text file that contains a unique ID tag, it’s placed in your computer by a website. They’re not much chop for eating. When you revisit the site days or weeks later, the site can recognise you by matching the cookie on your computer with its counter-part in theirs. They fit together like pieces in a puzzle.
There are two types of cookies: temporary and permanent. Temporary cookies, also called session cookies are stored temporarily in your browser’s memory and are deleted as soon as you end the session by closing the browser. Permanent cookies, also called persistent cookies are stored permanently on your computer’s hard drive and, if deleted will be recreated the next time you visit the sites that placed them there.
Now browsers on the other hand are not the same as grazers as in the cullinary sense. A browser is software that lets you ‘see’ the world wide web. The most commonly used browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Netscape. SO I relay to Operator 1 I’m done doing the stashing the cache!
At 10.39am NZEST the operator tells me he’s directing me to another operator who’ll read the transcript between me and him and he’ll assist me further. You know, I can understand Shift changes and it would have taken Operator 1 less than 5 seconds to tell me that’s what was going to happen but he didn’t. Instead, up pops Operator 2 who doesn’t make the best morning impression on me by telling me to wait while he reads the transcript. And I was thinking, hell I’ve been waiting this long what’s another 2 mins!
So the dance hits a mis-step when I ask Operator 2 to explain the transfer and the tone of his onscreen writing gets a little more defensive than I expected. Sensing this, I try to stay ‘light’ on the speak and mention that from a customer perspective the change of operators may be cause for concern and should I be. Then without missing a beat and so he wouldn’t dwell too much on his lack of social courtesy I relay him the cold hard fact that I STILL can’t see my website.
I get the feeling he’s certain now he has a total moron through the laptop screen! Me, I’m casual with it because I’m thinking something decidedly similar. At 11.02am NZEST Operator 2 suggests it might be a propagation issue. I ask him what a ‘propagation’ is to which there is no response and I KNOW now he’s summed me up as a TOTAL moron. Charming! This is somewhat typical IT geek behaviour in my experience. When all ability to communicate fails, blind them with jargon and silence. Works every time!
Readers, if you’re still with me I applaud you. I’m bordering on ‘not-so-understanding’ now. Close to axe murderer actually (to be read tongue-in-cheek). I give my friend Operator 2 an ‘in’ back into the conversation by suggesting that it isn’t a DNS (Domain Name System) propagation issue and try to match his oozing through my laptop screen technical superiority with a little quick finger googling to give me a definition of propagation.
Interestingly, he responds immediately and I get king hit with a blinding uppercut to my jaw, he checkmates me with five little words, “it’s not our problem then”. I really wanted to smack him then except that it’s not lady-like and he’s in cyberspace. Instead, I’ve decided to take my business elsewhere.
I’m moving webhosts for two main reasons: (a) Another webhost that has LiveChat which means that I’m able to fix my problem when I have it. I favour this over the ticket-system which can take hours sometimes for operators to get back to me.
In a business extended periods of outage can rack up sales losses and if you’re a small business that’s not good for the blood pressure (b) Use of english-thinking first operators as opposed to where English is the second language. Unfortunately, with the outsourcing of call-centre like activities it can be a mixed bunch. Mine was a little too russian roulette for my liking!
My final word of advice, when paying for a service EXPECT to be treated with a modicum of decency. If you’re not, consider your options first but don’t ever put up with it because you think you have no choice. Pick a choice and do it.
