New client comments

[k9education]

Ordering and checkout went smoothly and I loved the ability to choose from the 3 server locations. My account was activated within a couple hours at most. I'm anxious to get everything moved over from my previous host so i can get back to living life. I don't really know why I began a career in computers as I've grown to hate them. :confused:

I forgot how limited cPanel is compared to Plesk. ugh. Plesk has its own set of issues though which wouldn't fit into this post. This isn't a knock at you guys. cPanel is easier to learn and hence is more popular. I just wish they would would move it out of the pre-school phase.

Now for the suggestions regarding improvements that Cody was begging for:

(1) The entire legal section is a mess. There are typos, missing words, bad grammar, improper formatting, etc. It looks very unprofessional. If I didn't know Hawk's rep prior to visiting your website, I would have moved on to another host.

(2) The knowledgebase is practically empty. When a customer asks a question that is sure to come up again, someone should add it to the knowledgebase. It will save you and the customers time in the future. I know, I know ... almost no host actually does this but a few do and it's quite useful.

(3) The ticket system leaves a bit to be desired. With other ticket systems, I can see the entire conversation on 1 page as the ticket progresses. Here I need to open every single email to keep up with the conversation and even then I can't see my own text.

(4) There are 4 emails that are sent once an order is placed and paid. It's not going to kill anyone but it is annoying. One all-inclusive email would be good or even 2.

(5) Live server load averages would be nice on the server list page. Many hosts freely display this information these days and if your loads are good, then all the more reason to display them.

(6) Why is there no link back to Hawk Host's website once I visit the support section, forums or the blog section? These sections should have a link back or be in an iframe if necessary. Website rule #1 is to keep the user on your site.

[Cody R.]

1) Very good point, I'll see if we can have this revised sometime soon - it doesn't really reflect us well

2) This has been our Achilles heel for some time.. the dreaded knowledge base. We've been slowly working on it and have been focusing on revising it for ages. Hopefully we can really hunker down on this soon so we can have a more robust system. It doesn't help we're not horribly fond of Kayakos KB solution (well the default template, which is more of our fault).

3) I just looked into this - if you e-mail a department it sends you an initial e-mail saying a ticket is created and provides you with a link to view it. Subsequent replies don't have this look some reason - we're looking into adding it now. So you can view the whole thread at once - the replies only has the latest reply. We may switch it so each reply has the whole thread.

4) It is a bit convoluted - there is indeed room for improvement. I'll see if we can get this to 2~ e-mails. One for the initial order receipt and such, then the welcome e-mail upon setup.

5) I suppose we could do this, though it's something that we believe isn't necessary. If you're a customer you can view them very easily within cPanel or via SSH and if you're concerned we would look into it. Another reason we shy away from this is people are under the impression anything above the load of "1" is insane.. but they don't quite grasp what this number means and how the server specifications change their meaning.

6) No excuse here - We'll add this shortly

Thanks for all of the suggestions - overall I'd say you're right on just about everything .

Cheers!

[k9education]

#5 .. You're absolutely right - not necessary and certainly not for an existing customer. I would have liked to have seen them prior to signing up but I can see your point about some people's impressions about server loads. It really depends on the system specs. 5+ years ago if my shared server went over 2, things went to hell in a handbasket. Now quad cores are standard and loads of RAM to boot so it's a bit of a different game.

I would also like to thank Tony for helping me sort a 0-byte file issue with some files I uploaded to the server which prevented my sites from working. He mentioned that he couldn't find my class definitions and I kenw I had them in my local backup ... light switch went on and lo and behold, 0-bytes on the server. Re-upped and all sorted.

Edited January 25, 2010 by k9education