Through the years I’ve gotten used to working with technical support on shared hosting accounts. The process involves submitting a support ticket and hashing out the details through a subsequent string of emails. If you have a good shared host, the support staff will “think along with you” rather than assuming that you have zero understanding of what you’re doing.
With luck, you can usually get your problem or request ironed out with a minimal amount of emails. Other times, trying to communicate via email can be a serious time waster when a simple phone call would clear things up in thirty seconds or less. However, that’s the price you pay with low cost shared web hosting: Limited technical support options help shared hosts keep their costs down.
On the other hand, as I mentioned last Friday, working with Rackspace technical support as been an entirely different matter. They are more expensive than a shared host; however, that added expense means world class technical support.
In addition to a nice email ticketing system, I can call Rackspace support 24/7/365. What’s more they don’t use a voice mail system. A real person answers my calls in three to four rings. Their staff is commited to helping me in a warm, professional and friendly matter. What more could I ask for? Well, yesterday the Rackspace support crew gave me another reason to sing their praises: Proactive Technical Support.
It all started with me submitting a support ticket asking about a configuration on my server. This was followed by a response from Rackspace where my question was answered; however, I replied for some clarification on another point. Then I stepped away from my desk for a moment.
The next thing I knew, my phone was ringing. I picked it up to be greeted by the same Rackspace technician I’d been emailing. He said he figured that a phone call would allow us to clear things up much quicker.
We got all my questions answered, and the technician said he would handle the configuration and make a note on my ticket. Rather than being constrianed by some tech support protocol, the technician handled my ticket like an interaction between two human beings. Once again, Rackspace had proved why they are the prefect solution for my business and my clients’ websites.
