We’ve been hosting our email with the same company for 10 years. It’s been rock-solid, with the occasional problem solved quickly and well.
We were the first in line when they offered a new, upgraded server.
And the transition was a disaster. Tech support was surly. I had to pull strings with senior management to get help. It just kept getting worse. Now we’ve wasted hundreds of hours and are moving to a (hopefully) better host.
My big mistake: Clearly something had changed, and I missed the collapse in service and attitude.
Lessons:
- Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Don’t let past quality blind you to current problems.
- Bad support at the bottom is a sign of deep rot at the top.
- You don’t owe loyalty to a vendor who fails you. They owe loyalty to the customers who have stood by them year after year. You keep them in business.
- When you’re upgrading is when you should get the most fantastic support — because you’re giving them more money, and they should be thrilled. If it’s hard to give a company more money, something is very wrong.
The moment you realize they don’t care is when you should run away.