Providers offering terrible support

chip

Hi all,

Just a bit of healthy discussion on providers (in general) ... why do the ones that seem really big (oneprovider, ovh being the obvious two) ... that are so popular get away with offering terrible support?

And even though they are known for offering terrible support people still flock to them?

I'm really very interested... as I work in an IT support role and always find this stuff interesting

Thanks

Chip

tentor

The more clients you get the less is the value of single individual for a large scale business

PineappleM

I haven't had much negative issues with OVH. I can usually expect a reply in 24h (no I don't pay for extra support). I'm on OVH World so I dunno if that matters.

I use OVH primarily because of its anti-DDOS protection, and its sales are often quite competitive too.

Neoon

You can't compare OneProvider with OVH.

OneProviders Support is pure shit, good luck asking for a disk replacement.
OVH on the other hand, I get responses within 24 hours of technical, billing days yea but everything else like a broken drive, I ticket them or ask via API.

Have it replaced, without any questions in 10-20 minutes.

chip

@tentor said:
The more clients you get the less is the value of single individual for a large scale business

Yes I get that, but I was once looking st a dedicated server for backups and I remember someone saying about oneprovider who are great as long ad you don't need support .... and I did and their support is absolutely awful.

But people still sign up and subscribe with them (I did) knowing this? ... now I didn't need support for anything urgent it was an upgrade query (can this have more disks sort of thing, to which the answer was no)

And others are known for terrible support

And they seem anyway to have a massive following/customer base

Chip

tentor

@chip said: And they seem anyway to have a massive following/customer base

I think there are few primary reasons for that:
1. They are running their business for many years and are considered somehow reliable
2. As they are big, they could easily offer lower prices
3. As they are big, their tech-stack is well tested and tailored to their needs
4. Some clients need real cloud features like hourly billing, API to deploy their services, huge storage etc...

PineappleM

Usually money is the biggest deciding factor for most people. People don't think about support or anything else (e.g. whether they will disappear overnight like DediPath did) when they are looking for a server - price ($$$) is the only thing they base their decision on. Both OVH and OneProvider have lowend-prices for decent-ish hardware.

For me in particular, I look at whether the service has competent anti-DDOS protection (like what Path and OVH have), then price second. Support for me is not something I'm too concerned about since I rarely need help from the provider unless the server itself failed to install properly or something like that.

fiberstate

When it comes to bare metal servers, offering IPMI access is a must. It cuts down on most support requests outside of hardware replacement, etc.. Also it helps to choose a provider that has phone support.

HostSlick

@fiberstate said:
When it comes to bare metal servers, offering IPMI access is a must. It cuts down on most support requests outside of hardware replacement, etc.. Also it helps to chose a provider that has phone support.

thats true. I notice out of every 100 servers, there are maximum 2-3 clients who dont know how to use IPMI etc. Otherwise they manage most themself with it..

But bare metal servers are very silent for me in general and generate less tickets then VPS and Hosting.

Network has issues
VPS Customer: Opens ticket after 1-2min
Dedicated Server customer: notices after 2 days his dedi was down few minutes

At least my customers

jtk

@chip said:
Just a bit of healthy discussion on providers (in general) ... why do the ones that seem really big (oneprovider, ovh being the obvious two) ... that are so popular get away with offering terrible support?

I have a number of systems with OneProvider and OVH for years. My experience with support with either doesn't reflect that apparent consensus. I've not actually needed OVH support much, so maybe I'm not a good test case there. I've opened a few OneProvider tickets, mostly about a network/host outage/failure, to which they were responsive (within 24 hours). Most times they are reliant on their own provider or upstream, but in general I've been satisfied with the support provided.

Perhaps because they are big providers, those imperfections are more often amplified than lots of silent, but satisfied customers?

And even though they are known for offering terrible support people still flock to them?

The prices, products, and support are probably good enough for the majority of customers on average is my guess.

Maounique

@PineappleM said: (e.g. whether they will disappear overnight like DediPath did)

I don't think many people were thinking DP would disappear like they did either.
As for support, that might be on purpose. Too many people take a cheap dedi and then have no idea how to operate it. We get routinely asked why FTP is not working on the newly purchased server and cPanel is down on their basic VPS without anything extra.
This kind of people is also the kind which is the most impatient as well, so it might be a tactic to keep them away.

chip

@PineappleM said:
Usually money is the biggest deciding factor for most people. People don't think about support or anything else (e.g. whether they will disappear overnight like DediPath did) when they are looking for a server - price ($$$) is the only thing they base their decision on. Both OVH and OneProvider have lowend-prices for decent-ish hardware.

For me in particular, I look at whether the service has competent anti-DDOS protection (like what Path and OVH have), then price second. Support for me is not something I'm too concerned about since I rarely need help from the provider unless the server itself failed to install properly or something like that.

Yes, I got that... it just surprises me how little people value "good support" ... even I'm guilty of it as I have a dedicated storage server with them, but someone on here had warned me their support was beyond rubbish ... and it's used for backups (which are also backed up to borgbase) so no big deal on it taking time to reply

But for "mission critical stuff" I would want fast and responsive support and for that you need to pay abit more ..in my opinion anyway

chip

Maybe they always say the unhappy customer shouts the loudest..maybe that's why its better known their support is bad because they are bigger and have a larger customer base than a smaller provider

And their prices And support are "good enough" for the majority and the "minority are just "vocal about their issues"

Hmm.. your probably on to something their

Chip

@jtk Said:

Perhaps because they are big providers, those imperfections are more often amplified than lots of silent, but satisfied customers?

And even though they are known for offering terrible support people still flock to them?

The prices, products, and support are probably good enough for the majority of customers on average is my guess.

chip

Surely that's an indication that the dedi customer is using it for backups/seeding and so didn't notice the downtime but the vps customer is/maybe hosting email/websites which are ore frequently accessed and so notices these things

@HostSlick said:

@fiberstate said:
When it comes to bare metal servers, offering IPMI access is a must. It cuts down on most support requests outside of hardware replacement, etc.. Also it helps to chose a provider that has phone support.

thats true. I notice out of every 100 servers, there are maximum 2-3 clients who dont know how to use IPMI etc. Otherwise they manage most themself with it..

But bare metal servers are very silent for me in general and generate less tickets then VPS and Hosting.

Network has issues
VPS Customer: Opens ticket after 1-2min
Dedicated Server customer: notices after 2 days his dedi was down few minutes

At least my customers

tentor

@chip said: But for "mission critical stuff" I would want fast and responsive support

For such stuff providers like AWS are used pretty commonly and as far as I know they are really quick to reply. Furthermore, they are really quick even in abuse complaints handling considering how many clients they have!

chip

I've heard that before, but I do think some providers are missing a trick with managed vps hosting here ...

Customer A buys an unmanaged VPS, not having a clue what he's doing... opens a ticket asking where CPanel is and why ftp/web/email etc aren't working.

SUPPORT Person replies: you've purchased an unmanaged service and this is your responsibility, however we can/do offer managed services for XX and include YY (must be a control panel, help etc) ... easy upsell as customer A needs managed service but probably didn't know it and now does and it will take the hassle out of getting this server ready... how is that not a WIN WIN.

@Maounique said:

@PineappleM said: (e.g. whether they will disappear overnight like DediPath did)

I don't think many people were thinking DP would disappear like they did either.
As for support, that might be on purpose. Too many people take a cheap dedi and then have no idea how to operate it. We get routinely asked why FTP is not working on the newly purchased server and cPanel is down on their basic VPS without anything extra.
This kind of people is also the kind which is the most impatient as well, so it might be a tactic to keep them away.

emgh

I've only had experience with OVH support for OVH dedis (as in, no Kimsufi or SYS line products)

And I'm impressed, even billing replies are fast and helpful to me

And from what I've heard, disk replacements are done impressively fast

I think people have a tendency to underestimate writing in a way that makes you easy to understand (there very much can be a language barrier)

I also think that people are used to providers on LET, making scraps and answering everything in a few minutes; OVH isn't that, they're a big corporation and that comes with both pros and cons

Often you have to figure out how to best get what you want because there won't be any hand holding, and if you do stuff the right way, you usually get what you want (kind of like @Neoon mentioned of using the API for requests, stuff like that)

Hetzner support has been MUCH worse to me compared to OVH, several times even, OVH on the other hand, they've always been much more helpful

chip

And ive had the exact opposite from Hetzner, I had a cloud server with them and they where very helpful and quick too.

I guess it depends on the workload of the support department too, a bit like where I work if we are busy support tickets tend to "hang around" in the queue longer, if we are quieter (not that we are ever incredibly quiet) they get replied to and dealt with quicker, sometimes incredibly quicker

@emgh said:
I've only had experience with OVH support for OVH dedis (as in, no Kimsufi or SYS line products)

And I'm impressed, even billing replies are fast and helpful to me

And from what I've heard, disk replacements are done impressively fast

I think people have a tendency to underestimate writing in a way that makes you easy to understand (there very much can be a language barrier)

I also think that people are used to providers on LET, making scraps and answering everything in a few minutes; OVH isn't that, they're a big corporation and that comes with both pros and cons

Often you have to figure out how to best get what you want because there won't be any hand holding, and if you do stuff the right way, you usually get what you want (kind of like @Neoon mentioned of using the API for requests, stuff like that)

Hetzner support has been MUCH worse to me compared to OVH, several times even, OVH on the other hand, they've always been much more helpful

emgh

Yeah, my experience with their support has been absolutely horrible, but I guess all companies can be terrible sometimes (and I still use them, because cheap)

jar

@tentor said:
The more clients you get the less is the value of single individual for a large scale business

These are the words spoken by someone who truly understands the issue of scaling support.

One person can provide amazing support for a ton of customers. But the number they can handle is still limited, and the prices people expect of this industry don't support continued hiring of those incredible one man armies that usually start out from the beginning. Even if they charge enough to do so, there's still a cap on available people of their skill level, eventually you have to introduce unskilled employees.

This industry's price standards simply don't scale with it's definition of great support. It's why the industry seems to function better with a lot of smaller companies than with a few large ones.

Maounique

@chip said: easy upsell as customer A needs managed service but probably didn't know it and now does and it will take the hassle out of getting this server ready... how is that not a WIN WIN.

Simple:

1. Host doesn't offer managed services;
2. Customer came for price and a managed service at the handholding level the customer needs is VERY pricey. Hardware gets more powerful at similar prices, but people do not grow more brains and hands at the same speed. The customer will simply accuse you of bait and switch and move to the next victim;
3. Managed services are a completely different beast, there you are selling knowledge, time, patience, interpersonal skills and the usual IT guy only has the first two. Finding good people for these roles costs an arm and a leg, hiring some fiverr or outsourcing to [insert high population, low income south/south-east Asian country here] is very hit and miss, usually miss, and you end up with huge problems like access control, database leaks or even hacks, whether in purpose or through negligence.

emgh

@jar said: One person can provide amazing support for a ton of customers. But the number they can handle is still limited, and the pricing people expect of this industry don't support continued hiring of those incredible one man armies that usually start out from the beginning. Even if they charge enough to do so, there's still a cap on available people of their skil level, eventually you have to introduce unskilled employees.

Yes

And people probably underestimate how random it can be too

Imagine how many GREAT support staff OVH has that does their best to accommodate

And then imagine how many not so great support staff they've got

And even then, the great ones can have bad days and the bad ones good days

rcy026

@chip said:

But for "mission critical stuff" I would want fast and responsive support and for that you need to pay abit more ..in my opinion anyway

People do not run mission critical stuff on lowend providers. Some people claim that they do, but they have no idea what mission critical really means.

dev_vps

@tentor said:
The more clients you get the less is the value of single individual for a large scale business

Certainly this rule does not apply to providers like BuyVM @Francisco

emgh

@rcy026 said: Some people claim that they do, but they have no idea what mission critical really means.

xD

To be clear and not just troll:

The funny thing with the comment above is that you claim that people here have a different understanding of mission critical compared to other places and therefore the people here are wrong

It's as if words mean different things in different places

Also, there's always going to be bigger fish, and, mission critical is personal, if a startup of 10 employees rely on a service for those 10 employees to be able to get their salary, support their family and pay their rent, that's mission critical to them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_critical

First actual sentence: "A mission critical system is a system that is essential to the survival of a business or organization."

emgh

@dev_vps said:

@tentor said:
The more clients you get the less is the value of single individual for a large scale business

Certainly this rule does not apply to providers like BuyVM @Francisco

I've gotten bad support from them too (although always top from Fran)

Maounique

@emgh said: It's as if words mean different things in different places

They actually do, because everyone has a different idea about what mission critical means and not only for them, but in general.
For some people is nuclear missiles stuff, for others it is not missing a TV show or match.

This also varies by country and culture. There are Romanians, for which "merge si asa" or "works that way as well" is a national motto to Germans for which a slight misalignment of parameters or even a heightened risk of that happening are unacceptable.

This is why the market is so vast and varied, because, if everyone would have had the exact same ideas, 1-2 providers would have been enough. Diversity is life, we turn into robots without it.

jfreak53

@chip said:
SUPPORT Person replies: you've purchased an unmanaged service and this is your responsibility, however we can/do offer managed services for XX and include YY (must be a control panel, help etc) ... easy upsell as customer A needs managed service but probably didn't know it and now does and it will take the hassle out of getting this server ready... how is that not a WIN WIN.

I've yet to find a customer seeking a $2 a month vps who wants to pay for management 😐 they are there for the cheap (usually throw away) vps.

chip

Yes but if you buy an Unmanaged VPS expecting it to work like your Cpanel shared hosting your obviously in serious need of some help/mamagement/someone who know what they and you are doing.

And if you thought it would be at the same price point as a shared package your obviously more dillusional

So is that an education and understanding issue?

I have a VPS with an unmanaged provider who offers fantastically fast support (<= 5 mins replies) ... but their support likes to tell you that the service is Unmanaged at the end of their tickets(which I knew) but I guess if I didn't that could open up a conversation about what other "options" there are?

@jfreak53 said:

@chip said:
SUPPORT Person replies: you've purchased an unmanaged service and this is your responsibility, however we can/do offer managed services for XX and include YY (must be a control panel, help etc) ... easy upsell as customer A needs managed service but probably didn't know it and now does and it will take the hassle out of getting this server ready... how is that not a WIN WIN.

I've yet to find a customer seeking a $2 a month vps who wants to pay for management 😐 they are there for the cheap (usually throw away) vps.

rcy026

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said: Some people claim that they do, but they have no idea what mission critical really means.

xD

To be clear and not just troll:

The funny thing with the comment above is that you claim that people here have a different understanding of mission critical compared to other places and therefore the people here are wrong

It's as if words mean different things in different places

Also, there's always going to be bigger fish, and, mission critical is personal, if a startup of 10 employees rely on a service for those 10 employees to be able to get their salary, support their family and pay their rent, that's mission critical to them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_critical

First actual sentence: "A mission critical system is a system that is essential to the survival of a business or organization."

You are correct, the phrase mission critical of course depends on situation. I was just jokingly referring to all the people that claim "I lose a million dollar per hour" when their $7 vps is down. Mission critical might not have been the correct term to use.

chip

but as emgh says mission critical is really down to point of view... my e-mail is mission critical to me... it wont be to anyone else.....it makes me no money, isn't even business related, but i rely on it heavily for communication.

but yes i see the point you are trying to make the $7 per month VPs shouldn't be hosting your million pound per hour website ... thats an AWS/Azure job for sure.... but is this down to expectations? understanding? a mix of the two? something else?

@rcy026 said:

@emgh said:

@rcy026 said: Some people claim that they do, but they have no idea what mission critical really means.

xD

To be clear and not just troll:

The funny thing with the comment above is that you claim that people here have a different understanding of mission critical compared to other places and therefore the people here are wrong

It's as if words mean different things in different places

Also, there's always going to be bigger fish, and, mission critical is personal, if a startup of 10 employees rely on a service for those 10 employees to be able to get their salary, support their family and pay their rent, that's mission critical to them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_critical

First actual sentence: "A mission critical system is a system that is essential to the survival of a business or organization."

You are correct, the phrase mission critical of course depends on situation. I was just jokingly referring to all the people that claim "I lose a million dollar per hour" when their $7 vps is down. Mission critical might not have been the correct term to use.