19 Hours no reply :

Still Unable to access all emails, We have 15 accounts those that we can access still have missing emails. Is this still happening for any one else? Anybody received their missing mail ?

I can understand running a company reliance on staff, tech guys etc I do it myself I’m sure many people using Dreamhost run businesses etc. Problems arise from time to time which take long to fix which is understandable but 3 messages later to support and still no reply.

Nope were not on the most expensive monthly payment plan and were more than happy with the great services Deamhost Usually provides, The response from the Support team is usually speedy and fantastic but 19 hours with out even a reply !!




Edited by RPRICE on 07/27/07 07:10 AM (server time).

I looked into this message and it is related to a system status reported outage from yesterday. Messages like this are grouped together while the underlying problem is fixed. This cluster of messages is assigned to a support manager. The fix was being worked on overnight by an admin and the support manager is now going through the list of questions and verifying the fix worked for each one. Sorry for the delay.

The current targets for our support are to not let any message go over 24 hours, a 5 hour average response time, and to have the 50% of easy questions answered within the first hour.

I have been mulling over the idea of pay per ticket emergency support. It would be something like you'd check a box on the support form that said "Pay $20 to get a call about this issue within 20 minutes." We'd still hit our targets above and have great free support, but it would give people a way to get immediate attention if they really needed it.

Would a system like this be off putting to customers that don't use it? Or would it just be a nice option to have if you ever really needed to cut right to the front of the line? I have wished that some companies I use have had a system like this. Some of our business support contracts come with different levels. In one of our contracts for instance we pay $2000 per year for a 4 hour guaranteed response time. (the average ends up being about an hour)

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I have been mulling over the idea of pay per ticket emergency support.

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Although it sounds really cool on the surface, I predict it would be a public relations disaster for DreamHost. I am certain that it would be falsely reported that DreamHost only offered support to people who paid. Moreover, if anyone coughs-up and DreamHost (for whatever reason) fails to deliver, you'd never hear the end of it. It would be "DreamHost sucks" all over again.

DreamHost Prime
Alternatively, you could offer a sort of "premium support" package that offers unlimited and rapid support for an annual fee - a sort of "DreamHost Prime" thingy like Amazon does with its shipping. I don't think such a deal would carry the same PR risk as a pay-per-problem solution. Such a system would also be easier to administer (annual renewals, along with hosting, rather than lots of individual payments) and would provide a more stable revenue stream with which to employ additional support staff (if needed).



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Unfortunately unlimited "premium support" would price itself out of the web hosting market. I pay $2000/yr for 4 hour guaranteed unlimited. I only use it a couple times a year though. I guess it comes down to how much would people pay for X level of support. For the vast majority what we provide at $10/month is adequate.

I guess the only way to really tell would be a beta test to see if it is used. Maybe no one would use it at all.

Maybe it could be limited like the support callbacks are? For instance you could add on one emergency support callback a month for $5 or 3 for $10.

Alternatively you could create a Level 3.5 plan that included two or three emergency callbacks a month for $29.95 a month.

It would have to cost more though. Like on the order of $20 per call.

Thanks very much for the reply Michael I agree with you that some type of service set up for more urgent problems to get attention could definitely work .

In terms of it being added on to the individuals hosting plan at the end of the month if they use the service in that particular month. This way instead of having a blanket fee payable monthly when not in use it can work on a “pay as used” type service. This might eliminate some Dream host customers making complaints of paying for the urgent service and not receiving it. Maybe some type of credit system like 10 urgent callbacks a year for Xx amount of £’s , then another rate if the urgent call back frequency increases above their package. Just a thought

Since posting have had a reply from the Dream Host team and the problem is being looked into which ables me to breath a gigantic sweet sigh of relief lol

I still feel Dreamhost on other occasions has performed very well with the customer service. I hope everything for me can get back up and running a.s.a.p so I can continue bragging to some of my business affiliates who use other host companies and sometimes suffer “non replies” up to a week !

Thanks again

Rprice

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It would have to cost more though. Like on the order of $20 per call.

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I was actually thinking that you could make more at $10 a month. I mean, this is $120 a year for the right to make 2-3 calls a month. How many calls would the average customer make in a month? Zero. You'd have to run the numbers and maybe do a little pilot to figure out whether the psychology works out.

I think it pretty unlikely that someone would actually make use of their 2 calls a month every month.

Also, the reason I suggested the L3.5 plan at $29.95 a month is that it would upsell lots of L1 plans. So that would be a net upsell of $20 a month for a service that most people wouldn't have to take advantage of - it would be there "just in case" for "peace of mind".

Another idea would be to offer a rebate in months where you didn't take advantage of the feature at all. So it would be something like $34.95 a month for a L3.5 plan, but if you didn't take advantage of the emergency support callback, you'd be rebated $7.50 in that month. This would encourage people to *not* take advantage of the service - kind of like a perfect attendance award. :)

Some interesting ideas here. Beware of people using an upgrade/downgrade trick to avoid the month to month charges.

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