eZiNFOmgmt

Today I spent a couple of head-banging hours trying to update a shopping cart on a client's website.   There are some important lessons here.

Lesson #1.  Be Careful of a "Bought" Reputation

I use several web hosting companies.  Only one of the companies has significant national recognition by the general public.  This one has spent lots of money pursuing Superbowl ads that feature young women pushing toward Janet Jackson's "malfunction."  The owner likes to create high profile videos pushing his views and management methods.  They are pretty well done, too.

Maybe I should expect this high profile hosting company to set the standard for customer service and web host performance.

Wrong!  The company with the reputation bought through advertising has abysmal site performance.  Read more below.

Lesson #2.  Native, American English Speaking Technicians Are Only Easier to Talk With

After 10 minutes on hold while waiting to talk with a support technician, I was greeted by "Brooke."  She was very courteous and easy to understand. While I was on the line with Brooke, I tried adding a new product category to the shopping cart.  Five minutes and 13 "failure to connect" errors followed by 13 page reloads and I got it entered.  The technician was off looking over the website.

When she returned, it was pretty clear that she didn't know much about a Joomla-based website.  She thought I was uploading files to the site. I told her that I was running a web-based program on their server that generates the website.   She couldn't see any new files; all my changes were recorded in a database that she couldn't see.  I complained about the "failure to connect," a 500 code in the server log.  She went to see. It only took 3 minutes and 7 code 500 errors to get an actual product listed this time.

I asked if they could move the website to a better performing server.  She went to check.  I added another product.  It also took 7 "failure to connect" errors and 5 minutes.  She returned saying that they would not move the website.

I asked if she checked the database since it probably is on a different machine than the actual web code (a normal security and performance setup).  She went to look.  Five error pages this time for another item and 4 minutes. No the database is fine, but the site has too much junk in the database according to her.  I said it couldn't have because I have problems getting anything into it.  They installed it; if any junk is there, they had to have put it there.  She said I should just check the database.  I cordially hung up after thanking her for her help--she was nice, at least.

I checked the database.   It must have looked like "junk" to her, but all databases have a complex design with tables to hold all kinds of related information.  If you take out a table, nothing works.  The tables were almost empty--except for the few products I entered while waiting for her and a few look up tables of state names, etc.

Bleat! Everything is Fine on Our Servers [It must be your fault.]

Lesson #3.  Don't Let the Geeks Blame the Customer.  Know Your Stuff.

I'm going to move the website to a different host.  My other hosts rarely give problems.  When there is a problem, it's a quick email response to them with a fix within a reasonable time.  On the rare occasion when I have to speak with a support person, it's the quality of the answer and the fix that count, not the accent or location that matter.

And, when I do make a mistake,  good support people find a solution for me.  With this "American" company, I'm just left hanging, helpless to fix the website until I get it moved.