"They have an excellent customer knowledgebase and support information and support ticket system but would clearly rather limit human interaction to a minimum."
Actually they don't, one of my partners still has a dedicated box there and I have to deal with them all the time and they are a complete nightmare. I would sure like to know what this "excellent support system" is.... Last week he had an issue and asked me to call them and see what the deal was but I didn't have the ticket # and their "excellent support system" couldn't even look it up by the customer account and after making it quite clear to me in a very unprofessional manner that I couldn't expect them to and I told him that HMS has no such problems and it is a rather easy thing for them to do and the idiot hung up on me... nice service. So 5 hours later when his plane landed and he got to his hotel and got into his email and got me the ticket # and another 45 minutes on the phone with another idiot and a $150 charge to his account they were actually able to restart the server. Great service, I wish I had them.... ">To this end they have a very feature-rich, constantly evolving control >panel, one that allows me to perform many tasks that I might otherwise have >to submit a request for." I have been in that panel and its ok but still not as nice as others. ">I honestly have no idea what you're talking about... one of the fundamental >aspects of CrystalTech (and many other hosts) is that YOU run your business. >They do everything they can to ensure that your customers are NOT aware that >you're hosting at CrystalTech. They're customer control centers are >generically branded as all customer-facing services - they abstract >themselves out of the picture as a feature." LOL, you don't know what I am talking about? Ok so lets say you get on a plane to hawaii and soon as you board the plane your server goes down, well guess what.. its down for for quite a long time before you have any idea and so your customers sites are down as well and nothing can be done until you land and someone tells you which could be 12 hours later. Now that might be ok for you Jim, but its not ok for me! I make it a HUGE deal to my customers to let them know who and where is hosting their site and I make sure they have all the info they need in case they can't find me but can call the host to get something fixed. Personally, I want them them to know WTF is going on with their site and have abilities to get things fixed if something goes wrong and I can't be contacted. After all, it is THEIR web site and they are paying the bills. IMO, there is absolutely no reason in the world to not add that extra layer of protection. To me the way you do it is just another way for you to make money off of your clients, while that is good for you it's not so good for customers. I pay the extra money and pocket less out of the hosting to ensure things are going right. Now you might not have had any problems or maybe you have, i dunno but we just don't agree on biz models. "and criticizing them for it seems silly." So for example last week derricks server goes down and since its at ct he cant get it restarted and it takes them several hours to get it back up and going, thats just damn silly aint it Jim. Not to mention all the damn hoops we had to jump through just to verify the account, now maybe it is just me but it shouldnt matter who the hell calls it in, if the damn server is down then get it back on, which was something that their techs just couldnt understand. But problem is that when people on here ask for hosting opinions they dont usually ask if the plans are "managed" or "unmanaged". I know you love CT but I have yet to have a good experience with them, I havent dealt with them a lot but the 30 or so times I have were nightmarish. "I can only relay my personal experience... and my personal experience has been excellent." And I will respect that Jim. And I can only relay my personal experience and that of approx 15 other ppl that I know who have used them and have had detailed conversations with me about them. And a lot of those were customers of their and everyone of them have thanked me time after time for taking them to HMS. And my personally experience with has been nothing less than pathetic. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:299184 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
