1. Reliability: Look for a web hosting provider that offers reliable uptime and fast loading speeds. This will ensure that your website is always available and running smoothly.
2. Security: Make sure that the web hosting provider you choose offers secure hosting solutions. This includes features such as SSL encryption, malware scanning, and firewalls.
3. Customer Service: Look for a web hosting provider that offers 24/7 customer service and technical support. This will ensure that you can get help when you need it.
Web hosting support is an essential factor that people often overlook when considering a hosting provider.
Articles that tell you what to look for in excellent web hosting services will usually include an item that tells you to look for great customer service or technical support.
But what exactly does it mean to have great web hosting support? This article will help you answer exactly that.
Let’s start!
What Is Web Hosting Support?
The main goal of web hosting support is to make sure customers’ web hosting plans run smoothly. Web hosting support is an online helpdesk that assists customers when they run into hitches and glitches.
These might include tasks like:
Web hosting support can help customers with general admin tasks like processing refunds and money-back guarantees. Support agents can also assist with general inquiries or upgrades.
Web hosting support agents should have both technical and customer service skills.
It’s not enough for technical support agents to know about common web hosting problems. The agent could have top-notch technical skills, but if they can’t explain the issue in simpler terms, or if the customer can’t understand how to troubleshoot the issue over the support channels, both of them will be frustrated.
At the same time, web hosting companies that provide specialized or highly technical solutions can’t just hire any customer service agents. While we believe that anyone can learn anything, putting new agents on a highly technical account may also be frustrating for both parties.
How to Determine the Quality of Web Hosting Support
Now that you know what web hosting support is and what it involves, we’ll show you the differences between excellent technical support and the bare minimum.
1. Available Around the Clock
You can’t control when interruptions or problems arise — and the best web hosting providers understand that.
- The bare minimum: The web hosting support team is available 24/7/365.
- Excellent support: A great support team is easily reachable. There are no long wait times, and there’s always an agent available to assist you even if you aren’t subscribed to a dedicated server or VPS hosting. A short wait time is also a good sign that the hosting provider doesn’t encounter many issues.
2. Multiple Contact Channels
With the way communications technology has evolved, there’s no excuse for businesses to be unavailable. Common support channels include email, live chat, chatbots, social media, and phone, among many others.
- The bare minimum: There’s a web hosting support team available to help with customers’ concerns. Keep in mind that free hosting plans often don’t even provide support.
- Excellent support: Besides agents, it also helps to have documentation, tutorials, and a knowledge base customers can use when they prefer to solve issues by themselves. Salesforce found that 89% of millennial customers would rather seek out solutions on their own. If they can’t find what they’re looking for, that’s when they contact customer support.
3. Skilled Technical Support
The technical support team should be able to guide you through troubleshooting errors. Failure to do so means the web hosting company is more focused on competing on price or saving money than providing good service.
- The bare minimum: The hosting team can solve your technical issues and has the functionality to provide standard assistance for services such as website migration.
- Excellent support: A good web hosting support team is efficient. They can solve issues in a jiffy. Being available at all times is useless when the team takes the whole day to resolve the issue — customers can’t and won’t wait that long.
The best web hosting companies understand that they have customers from all over the world, so they also offer multilingual support. Providing this extra service contributes to website accessibility and inclusivity.
If you’ve ever used your host’s web hosting support services, you can use our list to check whether they provide satisfactory service.
Web Hosting Support Channels
Companies with excellent web hosting support offer different channels for their customers to reach them.
1. Documentation
Documentation plays an important role in development and website hosting. It helps the reader and customers understand:
- How web hosting works
- Common problems encountered
- Why those problems happen
- How to fix those problems
Documentation is often written and comes in the form of:
Because technology changes often, top web hosting companies also keep their documentation up to date.
2. Tutorials
Tutorials are similar to documentation but often come in video form. Tutorials can also be written, but we use the term to refer to video format.
Tutorials are the best format for learners who need to see a step-by-step troubleshooting guide. The best thing about them is that users can replay these videos.
Videos could be:
3. Live Chat
In recent years, live chat support has become a much more common support channel — 41% of people prefer live chat to any other support medium.
Key reasons include:
Some live chat solutions can also be escalated to voice or video when needed. Besides being preferred by most customers, businesses also benefit from live chat. These perks include:
There are several ways to add live chat to your website. You can sign up for a live chat app or install a WordPress live chat plugin.
For frequently asked questions (FAQs) and customer service queries, you can also add a chatbot to your live chat feature.
Another way to improve the customer experience for live chat support is to make sure your chat allows image uploads so users can share screenshots. That makes it easier for agents to diagnose and solve users’ problems.
4. Phone
Most people see phone support as the most common customer service channel offered by companies. It’s one of the most preferred support methods (especially for those who are less tech-savvy) because it’s simple. It lowers the need to navigate a website or customer portal, and users can work on resolving their issues while they talk with an agent.
Phone support also provides a significant human element to the support service. Agents and customers can have a natural conversation, which provides more context than trying to resolve issues through text.
However, phone support isn’t recommended for all businesses. It makes sense for some industries — such as crisis or emergency hotlines, which require urgency and a human element — but it’s not often the most effective web hosting support channel.
There are technologies available that make it easier and faster for web hosting companies to resolve their customers’ issues. For example, contacting support via your hosting account allows agents to immediately pull up your information — unlike phone support, which requires you to go through a long validation procedure.
When you can access support from your hosting account, you can also share screenshots or videos of the problems you’re having, allowing the support team to resolve these issues quickly.
5. Email
While phone and live chat support allow customers to communicate with agents in real-time, email support is more of a delayed channel. Despite its delayed nature, companies consider it a must in their support offerings because of the universal reach it provides — nearly everyone has an email account and opens it.
Email support is best for complaints that aren’t time-sensitive (for example, those that don’t need to be resolved right away). When delivering email support, remember that most customers prefer a casual tone unless you’re delivering bad news (which requires formality).
How Kinsta Beats Out Other Web Hosting Support Teams
Kinsta is one of the web hosting companies that believes in the importance of web hosting support. That’s why we go above and beyond to provide that to our customers.
Besides 24/7 availability, we pride ourselves on our web hosting support teams made up of tier-1 support agents. Instead of customer support, you get actual IT technicians and web developers working on your issues.
We also pride ourselves on our quick response times — our average ticket response time in 2019 was 1 minute and 19 seconds.
When you sign up for a Kinsta plan, you get access to the following web hosting support services:
All of these services are covered by Kinsta’s scope of support.
To access our superior web hosting support services, simply log on to your MyKinsta account. We don’t offer phone support, but our agents are available 24/7 on live chat.
Kinsta users also have access to our Learn WordPress resources and knowledge base to help you get the best out of your hosting plan.
Summary
Web hosting support is often overlooked when users look for hosting solutions. However, it’s a good indicator of how much a web hosting provider values you. Companies that provide exceptional WordPress support show they want to make technology accessible by making their users’ lives easier — especially those who aren’t tech-savvy.
When you research a company’s web hosting support, remember to look into:
- Availability
- Multiple contact channels
- Technical expertise
Kinsta offers cloud hosting with WordPress optimization, and we can help you make the perfect website for your large or small business.
Sign up for a Kinsta application, database, or managed WordPress hosting today.
How have your past web hosting support experiences affected you or your business? Let us know in the comments.
