Customer support promises and service level agreements (SLAs) are the most important factors in the selection of a Web hosting provider, according to an independent research report released today, but what kind of service levels are really being experienced once customers have signed on the dotted line?
The report - Customer Service: Fanatical or Fantasy? - was commissioned by Rackspace Managed Hosting Europe and carried out by Vanson Bourne, an independent market research company that questioned the customers of five leading Web hosting providers in the UK.
The report found that there is a huge variation, and still much room for improvement, in the levels of customer care and support currently being delivered within the marketplace. Even very basic functions, like call handling, are falling short of the mark with a quarter of all respondents questioned not satisfied with the manner in which their calls are dealt.
Rackspace commissioned the research to examine what kind of service is being delivered in the industry and to see how it fared against competitors. Respondents cited fast service and support as one of the most important services. Rackspace scored a 100% satisfaction rating for this in comparison to a much lower level of satisfaction, 78%, among customers of other hosting providers.
Rackspace was also proud to be acclaimed for its commitment to go that extra mile in service delivery, with 85% of its customers agreeing the company is prepared to work whatever hours are necessary to fix a problem.
Dominic Monkhouse, managing director, Rackspace Managed Hosting Europe, comments: "Rackspace is passionate about customer service and we wanted to commission a research report that looked at service delivery within the industry as a whole. We hope that the findings will help to raise the bar across an industry where service delivery is, overall, still very poor.
"Good customer service is a massive issue in the Web hosting industry. 67% of customers that come to Rackspace from other hosting providers do so because the previous company let them down. It`s no longer a case of `better the devil you know`, people are wising up to the fact that good customer service is essential - and they`re coming to Rackspace to find it.
"Rackspace is determined to champion the cause for improving the industry`s service levels - we`re committed to being 100% customer focused, 100% of the time. The Web is a business-critical channel for our customers and we recognise the importance of providing customer service and support that ensures the sites we manage are accessible all the time. Each Rackspace customer has a dedicated care team assigned to meet their every hosting need and members of this team are always contactable - 24/7. In our mission to deliver Fanatical Support we have no automated call handling - a person not a machine answers every call. 95% of our customers would recommend us, with over half of those very likely to do so, which is a figure that speaks for itself."
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Rackspace Managed Hosting provides managed hosting solutions with Fanatical Support to companies that have sites that are a crucial business channel. All customer platforms include state-of-the-art data centres, customised servers, burstable connectivity, 99.999% uptime SLA, a dedicated account manager, instant emergency response and access to live expert technicians 24x7 for support of all hardware and core software. Founded in 1998 with locations in San Antonio, Texas, and London, the company manages over 7 000 servers for customers in more than 80 countries. For more information, visit www.rackspace.co.za or call (0800) 085 3973.
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