Bad customer service: Bluehost’s hairsplitting gives me the blues

by Christopher Elliott on October 5, 2010

I find it incredibly self-serving when a blogger leverages his platform for personal gain. So let me say this up-front: I’m not doing this to get anything, but rather to highlight a questionable customer-service practice.

One of my sites is hosted by Bluehost.com. Its rates are affordable, and its service is generally adequate. But during the last several months, I’ve experienced some “down” time. Bluehost offers “99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee.”

Today, after the site crashed during primetime, I decided to invoke the guarantee. Here’s the transcript of our online chat.

Bluehost: Welcome to our real-time support chat. Please keep in mind that I am on several chats at once. I may be a few minutes between responses. How can I help you today?

Me: My site is down.

Bluehost: Error establishing a database connection?

Me: Yes.

Bluehost: The admins are working on the server. It should be back in approximately 15 to 45 minutes.

[Note: 15 to 45 minutes is half an eternity online. It means I'm going to lose about one-quarter of a day's traffic. That's an expensive problem.]

Me: I have been experiencing quite a bit of down time on my server. To whom can I speak about getting moved to a different server?

Bluehost: We do not typically allow server migrations for performance based issues. We prefer instead to fix issues with your current server instead of moving you to another server. Server stability and performance are always our admins first priority.

Me: I’d like to speak with someone about migrating to a different server. Bluehost guarantees 99.9 percent uptime. My statistics indicate it is significant lower. Your policy is to guarantee 99.9 percent uptime, isn’t it?

Bluehost: We guarantee 99.9 percent network uptime as outlined in the Terms of Service. This is a server issue, not a network issue.

Me: As a consumer, I do not draw the distinction. If my site is down, the network is irrelevant. Please have a look at my file. You will see numerous queries about the server being down.

Bluehost: I apologize for the troubles. But I assure you we are doing everything we can to resolve the issue. I only see the server being down once in the last 7 days for performance issues.

Then the chat timed out. Bluehost obviously didn’t want to help me.

How could Bluehost have handled this differently?

First, the representative should taken a different approach to solving this. Instead of “apologizing” but then throwing the book in my face, he could have offered to upgrade me to a different server at a cost. That would have been an acceptable compromise.

Using phrases like “typically” and then only looking at one week’s worth of trouble tickets was also the wrong solution. If it is Bluehost’s policy to not move you to a different server, he could have simply sent me a link to the policy, which would have been incorporated in its terms of service. He didn’t do that.

Bluehost had an opportunity to turn me from a good customer into a better customer by upselling me to a less problematic, faster server. Instead, it told me to get lost. I expected better from the company and its visionary founder.

(Photo: san beiji/Flickr Creative Commons)

Tagged as: BLUEHOST, Customer service, FAIL

  • Steve Surjaputra

    If they keep giving you issues, I’d switch to a different company. I use ix webhosting to host 4 domains and I have hardly ever had any issues. I don’t even remember when they were down last.

    They also tell you about planned outages and they also assign a rep to your account.

  • Joanna Public

    Bluehost also likes to suppress negative company advertising. Tech Support is so poor, I refuse to waste my time contacting them. When I asked why this was so on Matt Heaton’s company blog, he pulled my entry without a response. When I asked on the Bluehost Forums why it was so difficult to reach a knowledgeable Tech Support person, I was banned from the forum.

    If I’m not mistaken, a few years back, a sports blogger (from Kansas?) had his website hosted by Bluehost. On one fateful weekend, the blogger’s website traffic increased so much the Bluehost server couldn’t handle the extra volume. And what does Bluehost do? They CANCEL the blogger’s account WITHOUT even notifying him.

  • Ed

    Hmm…that is the nature of hosting SLA’s.
    First of all, a 99.9% network uptime still gives 40 minutes of downtime a month! And like the person said, this SLA is *ONLY* for network uptime, not server uptime…*AND* the SLA doesn’t apply to scheduled downtime for regular maintenance! I’ve worked in the hosting field for 15 years and what you experienced is about normal as far as interactions go…
    You have to be aware of the type of person the IT field attracts. IT is not a field for touch-feely types. Logic and precision prevail over all else. Human interaction is generally avoided and is viewed as a necessary evil. Most people who work in the IT field experience a condition called Aspbergers…a high-functioning form of Autism. Google it to get a better understanding of this syndrome.
    People with Aspbergers do not think in contingencies, therefore, he could not offer you an upgrade because that path goes beyond the prescribed avenue that logic dictates. 1+1 will *ALWAYS* equal 2. What you were hoping for is 1+1 to be equal to an undefinable. That doesn’t exist to a techie…
    I do agree with you though, that the customer service person should have been better at interaction, and it’s the company’s fault for putting a “techie” in a customer service role…Techies should never talk to customers…unless they are talking to a techie as well. Techies tend to be blunt and pedantic with little regard to “feelings”. I remember one time working with a customer, he asked me what a specific service would cost if he added it to his contract…I told him that I don’t know because if it were up to me, it would be free because I would never get around to billing it…and besides, I enjoy my work and would probably not consider getting paid for something I would be doing anyway!…Luckily for me, the person I was talking to was a techie as well, and he understood my position! I did refer him to the correct sales rep though…

  • Mary Graham

    Wow, I had a similar experience on an on-line chat with Time Warner. Such an opportunity to make me happy instead of frustrated. I then realized I was having a chat with someone overseas who really didn’t understand a word I was saying. He was picking up on “buzz” words then copying and pasting. His answer had nothing to do with my question. Sigh…..I wonder if these companies realize how quickly bad customer service experiences get around these days. Thanks for the heads up on Bluehost!

  • Geoff Depew

    Chris,

    This might give you some ideas about what’s up with Bluehost:

    http://inetintegrity.com/weblog/?p=68

    Short form: they shut down a large, well-known podcast network for using “too much” of the unlimited bandwidth they advertised. You might be a victim of this. I’d take a look at possible alternate hosts.

  • Aglaia761

    I’m a FatCow user,

    The customer service is great, I’ve had responses at 3am in the morning to my issues. Asking for a supervisor does not cause people’s heads to explode..unlike some.

    And they are green, 100% run on Wind Power.

    Check them out

    Ag

  • RC

    Bluehost is a single level hosting provider, and like many a very cost effective one. I happen to use them (for mulitiple fairly low traffic business sites) and have almost since Matt Heaton opened shop. If you have a site that has very high traffic and you think you should be able to get by with any shared hosting provider that costs as little as $7 a month you’re a fool. When you are making a living from a site it’s time to move your site to a dedicated server or a vps. Cheap hosting is there to make it affordable for virtually any of us with a little money to spend to get a web presence. Once you’re beyond that you need to have an understanding of what your needs are and what $7 limits you too despite the mulitple hosting providers offering “unlimited” service for dirt cheap.

    Mr. Elliot before badmouthing something I suggest you have a full understanding of the business model and reality. I happen to enjoy your site but sometimes you just plain get it wrong. This is one of those times along with all those jumping on this bandwagon.

  • RC

    Reading everything I got a little turned around where I was. My response above was aimed more at Geoff Depew but it applies here as well.

  • RealityCheck
  • Kibbles

    Bluehost has terrible customer service.  I did not like their service at all – slow, cumbersome, froze up all the time.  I canceled my account within the 30-day time frame yet never received a credit as I should have.  A year later – I get charged AGAIN for a renewal on an account that should have been canceled.  They did back off the renewal charges but refuse to refund my  initial fee even though I canceled well before the 30-day time frame was up.  They claim I did not provide them with enough information to cancel the account, claim they sent me an email to which I never got asking for more information.  When this is explained to them – they still refuse to refund my money – over $200.  I see this is a habit with them – has happened to many other customers.  They are a ripoff company.  Not 1 person should use a company as such.  Anyone who does is just supporting a crook.  There are many other hosting companies out there who are far better to work with.  I see why there are websites such as bluehostsucks.com and others.  What a terrible reputation this company has.  Everyone needs to read up before they choose this company as their hosting service as I think if you do your homework – you will make a far wiser decision than I did.  If I can just keep 1 other person from getting ripped off – it will at least feel I did my part in helping others.  Bluehost must truly be having rough times as they obviously need take other people’s money in order to thrive.  Don’t let them take yours – fair warning. 

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