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Downtime: Is it too much to ask what happened?
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Downtime: Is it too much to ask what happened?

To the providers here.

When/If your service experiences downtime, I assume it's customer service 101 to offer your customers an explanation as to what caused the incident at some point?

I've just experienced about 11hrs of downtime with WeLoveServers (Not the first time I've experienced downtime with them)

I'm not particularly fussed about the downtime, I have multiple redundancies. Plus I'm not exactly expecting 100% uptime for a LowEnd service. Overall I'm satisfied I'm getting what I paid for.

However one thing I do find frustrating is that 9 out of 10 times when I ask 'what happened' AFTER the issue is resolved, I get ignored.

Any ideas why they would avoid answering this as matter practice?

Thanked by 1[Deleted User]

Comments

  • LeeLee Veteran
    edited December 2014

    As a courtesy at least clients should be notified, I don't use any currently that do not provide a RFO.

  • i never had such ignoring experience regarding downtime cause.

  • If you ask, you should be told.

  • Just been going through my past tickets with them. And it does seem to be dependent on which support staff member picks up my ticket.

  • dammuglydammugly Member
    edited December 2014

    actually OP .. no i dont think it should be priority 101 to inform the customer of what happened .. it should def be about how it AFFECTED their services , nothing more .. they are not your friends and family , they are your customers.

  • LeeLee Veteran

    @dammugly - Just sigh.

  • @W1V_Lee .. i dont mind man you can sigh all you want .. you posted something you wanted an opinion on in a public forum and i provided one ..

    cheers mate .

  • @W1V_Lee .. sorry i thought you were the OP .. but does ANY provider do what the OP is asking for ?
    all i get is an emails , weeks after the fact , on a few hundred vps i have from vendors here is this .. .. aah shit broke , we fixed it , we are sorry ;)

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    For a lengthy outage, yes, in fact you should be given some info before it comes back up where possible, while a bulk email is not my preferred method at least an announcement front and center on the client portal.

    For any old minor blip, probably on request, I get a number of tickets every week saying "it keeps dropping out every now and then", 999/1000 it is an issue at the end users side.

  • they love servers, not customers. had a good experience with them in the past, it seems things have changed.

  • For a lengthy outage, yes, in fact you should be given some info before it comes back up where possible,

    but that was not the OPs issue .. he specifically said ..when he enquires about the issue he is ignored .

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @dammugly said:

    I know, however he is interested in providers opinions so I gave mime, in my case he would not have had to ask.

    Is that ok with you?

  • @AnthonySmith .. boss i am a humble user here :)
    but i was just trying to focus the point

  • Thanks for the replies.

    Although I'm not particularly fond of Mr. Alastair Campbell (And I know it's not on the same level as this), But I just remembered a tweet of his regarding Blackberrys 3-Day outage back in 2011.

    https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/124019300267864064

    For me the priority is always resolve the issue first. I'm fine with the simple 'We're working on it' support response when asking what's going on.

    But afterwards it would be nice (but not expected) to get a 'This is what happened', 'This is how we resolved it' and 'This is how we intend to prevent this happening again'.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    dammugly said: trying to focus the point

    It was aimed at providers though... :)

  • deadbeefdeadbeef Member
    edited December 2014

    I'm not a provider, nevertheless I am a marketer.

    It's super easy to send a mail and it costs practically nothing. Plus, it's super fast to write a paragraph with what happened.

    Great news is that with 10 minutes of time and zero cost you show your existing customers that:
    a) You're a pro (even if you're not)
    b) You care (even if you don't)
    This helps decrease your customer churn rate.

    Greater news is that you can stuff offers in there:
    "Accept my apologies and this 20% discount coupon for your next orders this week"

    Even greater news, you can stuff offers for their pals:
    "20% discount for you and 15% for your friends, this week"

    More great news, you can push your longer term packs
    "As an extra bonus, all our yearly plans have been extended for 2 days" (this must be done with care not to piss off people though).

    And more, and more and more.

    So, some downtime here and there is a great thing if you're not stupid as a log, marketing wise.

    Thanked by 2elijahpaul perennate
  • As an enterprise admin, I've always tried to be the first to know there's an incident, and get an announcement and outage bridge going before users start noticing the impact. It's much more reassuring to our users, and they can follow along, instead of hammering everyone with calls/tickets/emails...

    Additionally, always address the root cause of the issue and what actions will be taken next time to avoid or mitigate it. Actually putting the effort up front will prevent repeat occurrences and allow you to be less reactive in the future.

    I find people who don't want to discuss outages are usually the cause of them. Don't be defensive, just be objective and show your users you are always learning and growing.

  • I would like that,too. :) An e-mail to all affected customers, explaining in a sentence or two why the servers were down and for how long.

    I think BuyVM does that with larger outages (?).

  • @dammugly God, please, no, not another senseful post..

    Thanked by 3TheCTS Pwner PremiumN
  • The topic is directed at providers, so I'm inclined to comment even though not a provider here, don't believe will be and quite sure certain parties won't like to see. Uptime SLA is calculated whenever there is outage at the end of the month, including a reason for the outage, lengthy or otherwise. I'm quite sure a no. of providers do that, not via email but twitter or alike.

  • I always receive an email telling me what happened(mainly due to 0days) when I noticed that my SecureDragon vps is down after uptimerobot told me so

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited December 2014

    We put a forum announcement in cases when a serious number of people are affected, not for the odd reboot of a small OVZ server, though we sometimes do that too, mostly when it goes haywire and needs a reset.
    For big outages we give an email, but try not to abuse that, nobody wants a lot of emails.

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