We recently upgraded our web server to a dedicated package with 1&1. After being moved to the wrong type of server, we called 1&1′s customer service department to try and have the issue resolved. Our experience with them was so bad, I’ve decided to write a short article about the importance of customer service and the consequences that even one bad customer experience can bring.
Our Attempt to Upgrade Our Hosting Package with 1and1
The issue, in a nutshell, was that we were misinformed about what server package we were being upgraded to. Being a customer with 1&1 Internet for about 6 years (transferring the account from my old web development business to Deversus in between), we’ve grown to the point where we require a dedicated web server to meet our needs. I used 1and1′s Switch Package feature via their control panel to process the upgrade. The Switch Package experience was awful, at best. It gave a terse listing of the available servers and their associated costs, with no description or links to indicate what the server package contained. After Googleing the package of interest (the 1&1 Dedicated Server Dual-Core M Website), we decided to go with that (as a caveat, the Dual-Core M package description we read was from the 1and1 UK website and is no longer on the US website).
Three days later, the upgrade was complete — sort of. It was at this point that we realized we had been upgraded to 1and1′s “dedicated managed server” and not a “dedicated root server” like we were expecting. We hadn’t a clue that there was even such an option. While one could blame us for not doing our due diligence to make sure of what we were getting, the general lack of information throughout the process was simply unacceptable.
Our Attempt to Resolve the Issue with 1and1′s Customer Support
I first e-mailed 1and1′s support@1and1.com address to inquire about the issue and attempt to have the managed server changed to a root server. After being told that there is no way to stop the upgrade process or change to a root server, and that I would need to purchase a separate server and migrate the files myself, I decided to call their customer support team.
It was downhill from there. I was transferred a total of 7 times, back and forth between departments, and placed on hold for 45 minutes. After trying to escalate the issue, I was told I would have to call their Germany office (which conveniently, was closed for business). The primary conflict was surrounding the fact that their Dual-Core M Website package was apparently no longer available. I was told that I would need to switch to a lesser package, in which case the server paled in comparison to the Dual-Core M, albeit for $10 less per month. Or, switch to the Dual-Core M package — a similarly spec’ed server — for nearly twice the price. Long story short, the best they could do was offer one month free for the Dual-Core L package, which I decided was petty. After an awkwardly long silence, I let them know that we would be pursuing a different hosting provider.
The Moral of the Story
As I so politely asked the 1and1 CSR, “what would you do in this scenario if you were the CEO of 1and1?”, there exists a big picture mentality that most customer service teams are simply not trained in. While perhaps insignificant to the overall profitability to their company, our $59/month over the next five years translates into $3540. This assumes, of course, that we don’t upgrade or add more servers to our account. Not to mention, being a custom software development company who deals with numerous other large companies with extensive server requirements, we are able to bring a lot of potential new business to a company like 1and1. Or what about the fact that I had such a bad experience that I felt compelled to write a blog article about the importance of customer service and the consequences a bad experience can have?
While I don’t hold any one of the individual CSRs I spoke with at 1and1 accountable for the inability to resolve our issue, I am in disbelief that it is possible for a behemoth of a company like 1and1 to instill such shortsightedness into their employee training.
I know that at Deversus, we value our client relationships because they are our lifeblood. We go out of our way to make sure our clients are happy with the work we do for them and if there is an issue, we do anything within reasonable means to resolve it.
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As I think I mentioned to you guys awhile ago, I used to have a dedicated server with 1and1 for a few years. One day the machine suffered a hardware failure and ended up being offline for a couple of days — without looking up the specifics, I recall it being a combination of their tech support being unreachable and then unacceptably slow to resolve the issue. I canceled the account a couple of weeks later, and moved to SevenL.
Cases like these go to show that the big companies aren’t often the best, and while cheap rates are good when things are running smoothly, ya get what ya pay for.
b
A customer of mine had their own root server with 1and1. I got a call to investigate why none of their websites were working. After a bit of investigation, I realised I was looking at a half re-installed machine.
It turned out that there had been a media failure on 1and1′s cluster thing where they keep their root servers, so 1and1 had replaced the faulty disc and kicked off a system re-install for all root servers that had space on the faulty drive – WITHOUT EVEN TELLING US.
1and1′s re-install didn’t work properly so there was bits of the new drive and bits of the old drive showing through.
Of course we didn’t get the whole story straight away. They tried to blame it on us for the first few calls my customer made and it was only after I had pieced together what had happened that they actually got anywhere.
That was with the hosting people, and a story like that just wouldn’t be complete without a 1&1 Customer Experience horror story so this is one of mine:
http://www.bigsoft.co.uk/blog/index.php/2009/06/10/1-and-1-worlds-worst-customer-support
Cheers,
David.
I’ve been with 1&1 for many years, too. I recently ran into an issue with memory errors and found that since I have a shared hosting plan, I’m limited to 30MB of RAM for PHP for all the sites I have in that package.
So, I concluded that to get the additional RAM that I required, I was either going to have to pay to upgrade to a dedicated server plan or just set up and maintain my own server temporarily using LAMP. When I went to 1&1′s dedicated server page, I saw the dual-core M plan for $59.99 per month (by the way, this is on their .com site which I presume is in the U.S.).
Unfortunately (or fortunately), when I clicked on “Switch Package” in the 1&1 Control Panel, the M plan was not listed as a server option – but the L plan for $69.99 was. I then searched for “1&1 dedicated server dual core M” and “1&1 dedicated server dual core L” to see if I could find similar product/service pages on 1&1′s site to allow me to compare the features of the two packages.
My search led me to your post and, based on my own experiences with 1&1, it is very easy for me to believe that your story of frustration with their incompetence and/or indifference is genuine.
Prior to reading your post, I was considering contacting 1&1 to see how I could get one of my packages upgraded to the dual-core M deal. I would then close many of the shared hosting packages I currently pay 1&1 for – transferring the domains to the dedicated server.
Now that I’ve read your post, I’m searching for other hosting companies that are known to be responsive to their customer’s needs – and, like you, I’ll be warning all of the future Web hosting seekers who ask me for my opinion — if you plan to grow or believe you’ll ever require customer service then 1&1 is not the host for you.
(I’m currently paying for several 1&1 packages totaling over $1300 per year plus I have almost 100 domains. Even with about 30% of the domains included in the package prices, I’m still paying 1&1 over $500 a year more for domain registration services.)
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