Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com) • Hacker News Board

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#31

Post by jarin » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:02 AM UTC

mikey_p wrote: post #17

As someone who runs his own consulting business, if I had clients who didn't know what they were doing and abusive towards me, I'd drop them in a heartbeat. The original poster on reddit isn't going to garner any sympathy from me.

I'm a consultant too, and I've had the occasional abusive client just like everyone has at some point. And who hasn't had several clients who were just oblivious to reality?

I've kicked them to the curb as soon as possible, but not before sending them their source code (at least up until the last commit paid for), server passwords, backups, assets, and whatever else I can find.

I've never, ever, deleted anything or brought a server down just because I was angry at them. And thank goodness too, because half of the time they come back after they've had a chance to cool off.

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#32

Post by jarin » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:05 AM UTC

X4 wrote: post #30

tomkr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between dropping a client and treating them disrespectfully. At the very least, the bad publicity isn't worth it.

Sorry, but there was a guy earning millions just because he had the worst customer support. That was his job, to be rude, aggressive and an ass to customers. Really google even changed it's algorithm due to people like him. Telling everywhere, that domain abc.org sucks would result in domain abc.org beeing ranked top, heh. At least it was a creative way of fraud and motivated google for a move, otherwise google would…

Apparently the owner of the site in question has the same mindset: http://i.imgur.com/gYcys.png

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#33

Post by pseudonym » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:08 AM UTC

Jabbles wrote: post #25

thirsteh wrote: post #9

Reason #3 in "Why we're so good" ( http://www.thiswebhost.com/reasons.html ): "We want to help. Customer service is very important to us, so we'll treat you like a valued client and not like a number."

How many people do you think "we" is? Could the person that runs the twitter be an employee? They advertise 24/7 customer support. Even if it is an employee, and he is terminated because of this, would that allow you to trust the company again? If it turns out to be the founder/CEO, then we have no hope for the company. But how devastating would it be for your startup if one of your employees did something like this,…

It depends entirely on how it's handled by the actual owner, assuming this is just an employee.

If you're good at spinning PR and responding correctly, the right apologetic stance can flip this from a PR nightmare to free good PR. The trick is responding fast, responding apologetically, responding honestly, and more than making up for the original mistake.

"We apologize for the lack of respect our CS rep has shown you; he's been terminated and we'd like to offer you a free two years of service and we'll do our best to recover your lost data."

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#34

Post by samarudge » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:12 AM UTC

jarin wrote: post #28

citricsquid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some looking. The Twitter account appears to have been used by their "Technical Director" Jules. Jules is the same person who replied to the tickets. I then got ahold of their company documents, Jules is not listed as a company owner (or Director) whereas 3 others are. Therefore I am making the assumption that he is indeed only an employee and not someone associated with the higher up management.

Jules is also listed as the company owner on the reviews: http://www.webhostingreviews.com/thiswebhost-reviews.htm And is the registrant of the domain name (and the only contact).

WhoIs lookup shows him as the domain owner

Registrant Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson ()

Fax: South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Administrative Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Technical Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB

Also he appears to be using a fake phone number on the WhoIs, am I right in thinking you're not allowed to do that?

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#35

Post by jarin » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:13 AM UTC

innes wrote: post #12

laCour wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://twitter.com/berfarah & https://twitter.com/boriskourt

Unprofessional behaviour from the host, but these guys should perhaps have employed a bit of professionalism too - I wouldn't be surprised if the 'perpetually indignant' twitter mode of address, and the tendency to want to summon up mob of the righteous whenever possible, has spilled over into their dealings with this company. Seems like twitter has given every angry person the opportunity to wave a banner of Truth a…

I think there's some truth there. Both sides acted like children, but the reason the focus is more on the hosting company is that they abused their power.

As far as the attitudes go, when you're reselling $2.95/month hosting you're going to get $2.95/month customers. In my experience, cheap customers are the most likely to squabble and gripe and moan over tiny things and drive you crazy. But hey, you make your bed and you gotta sleep in it. And don't delete your bed's data and backups over a twitter hissy fit.

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#36

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:14 AM UTC

boriskourt: "That's not cool. Suspending a friends account because of a minor PayPal dispute? When did you get into doing that?"

This seems to be about a web host not accepting people not paying their bills.

It's not really the web hosts problem if you can't pay, doesn't matter if you've a dispute with paypal. Don't pay and they're in their rights to cease providing service.

Don't pay, then bitch about them not providing your service, then provide profane public responses and post a call on Reddit to try and get the company destroyed ... well is it a surprise that they delete your data at that point.

Aside: berfarah needs to read up on the Gunpowder Plot.

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#37

Post by dous » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:18 AM UTC

Hates_ wrote: post #2

One of the hardest things when communicating with customers is not taking it personally. Don't take criticisms or complaints as personal attacks and above all else resist the temptation to try and "one-up" your customer. Loads of times we've received pretty insulting emails, but done our best to be polite and helpful back, more times then not we've received a really thankful and praising email back in response. A lot…

Your comment reminded me of this video by Derek Sivers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwwHa-7Ux8

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#38

Post by anthonyb » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:24 AM UTC

pseudonym wrote: post #33

Jabbles wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people do you think "we" is? Could the person that runs the twitter be an employee? They advertise 24/7 customer support. Even if it is an employee, and he is terminated because of this, would that allow you to trust the company again? If it turns out to be the founder/CEO, then we have no hope for the company. But how devastating would it be for your startup if one of your employees did something like this,…

It depends entirely on how it's handled by the actual owner, assuming this is just an employee. If you're good at spinning PR and responding correctly, the right apologetic stance can flip this from a PR nightmare to free good PR. The trick is responding fast, responding apologetically, responding honestly, and more than making up for the original mistake. "We apologize for the lack of respect our CS rep has shown yo…

Not very likely. Go and have a look at the rest of their Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost

https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102087912497221633

https://twitter.com/#!/oscargodson/status/102092891979132929

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#39

Post by geoffw8 » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:28 AM UTC

jarin wrote: post #4

Hates_ wrote: post #2

One of the hardest things when communicating with customers is not taking it personally. Don't take criticisms or complaints as personal attacks and above all else resist the temptation to try and "one-up" your customer. Loads of times we've received pretty insulting emails, but done our best to be polite and helpful back, more times then not we've received a really thankful and praising email back in response. A lot…

It's doubly worse at a porn company. People already half-expect you to be scamming them somehow, and come into it with apprehension if not outright hostility. The upshot is when you give them amazing customer service, they turn into instant evangelists :)

"Upshot"

Re: Stay away from This* (thiswebhost.com)

#40

Post by FeministHacker » Tue, Aug 16, 2011, 10:33 AM UTC

rmc wrote: post #19

It irked me that he didn't seem to care about lost customers He doesn't sound like a good customer, I can understand why a company would want to ditch him. Companies shouldn't try to keep all customers all the time. Just read the blog http://notalwaysright.com/ which is full of anecdotes of stupid customers.

I am of the opinion that businesses are defined by how they handle the exit of customers more than by how they handle take-on of customers. A customer being difficult to manage or not profitable still deserves a professional exit.

These sorts of customers are not, however, automatically "stupid customers". They are "difficult" or "non-profitable". In my experience, a user simply being "stupid" doesn't in itself mean that you shouldn't work with them - in fact, often with a little bit of work, they might even become a reasonable repeat customer.

Like a lot of people who have had customer facing roles, I have enjoyed reading notalwaysright (and the older http://customerssuck.livejournal.com/). But I have found over time the postings to have become more deliberate funny-making or actually problematic from an equality point of view.