Hosting support can possibly best be compared to insurance. Most of the time you won’t need it but when you do, it will be critical.  Many people are sold on the benefits of cheap and free web hosting solutions only to find themselves up the creek without a paddle when things go wrong. Good hosting support is probably the biggest deciding factor when it comes to differentiating between a good and bad hosting provider. If you are relying on your website as a major marketing tool, you cannot afford to be without 24/7 support from your hosting provider.  Your website is being accessed by customers 24 hours a day from around the globe. If your site goes down and there is no support from your hosting provider after hours, you could be losing out on valuable business. Let's take a more detailed look at why 24-hour support is essential.

What Downtime Means for Your Business

It could just be for an hour a day but in terms of anyone’s business, that is far too long. For the period of time that your website is not accessible, you simply don't exist on the Internet. You may know that it's just a temporary downtime but your customers don't know this. If they search for your company and your site brings up an error then they could assume that you are no longer in business. Think of how many unique users visit your site in a month, and how many of those potentially search your site in an hour.  That's how much potential business you could be losing out on if your site is down.

Your Website Is Your Biggest 24/7 Business Marketing Tool

Many businesses are operating on a global scale. This means that when you have shut your doors for the day, your website is still working for you. Think of how often you go home and browse the Web in the evening. You may be looking for a holiday package, investigating new gadgets for your favorite hobby, or shopping online for books, videos or gifts. Any of these businesses featuring the products that you are looking for will need to be up and running if they are to be picked up on the search engines. The same applies to your business website. You cannot afford downtime as it can cost you valuable business.

Customers Have a Wide Range of Choice

Perhaps one of the most important reasons to have 24-hour support is that you want to retain your customers. If they try search for your website and come up with an error, they will simply take that at face value and move on to the next supplier. Seldom will they try contact you by some other means or think that your website may be temporarily down. Customers have such a broad range of choice on the Internet. Unless you give them a compelling reason to buy from you, there is no reason for them to exhibit loyalty to your business.

Why You Need Server Support When Your Website Goes Down

When your website goes down, it is really only your server host that will be able to tell you what the problem is. If you have shared hosting, it could be that one of the other websites on that server is using all the bandwidth. Or it could be that there is a more serious problem with the server. If there is 24-hour support, they will be able to investigate and address the issue immediately. This means that your website’s downtime is minimized. Hosting providers generally have diagnostics that they can run to identify and isolate the problem. But if your hosting provider’s support desk only operates during office hours, you could have a website that is down for 12 hours or more and that could be disastrous for your business.

What's the Difference Between 24-Hour Support and 9-to-5 Support?

Most often, hosting providers that have 24-hour support will charge a little more for their services but in the long run, it can be worth every cent. If you have a dedicated server, you will want that extra service guarantee. Most often, you will have an e-commerce site or user interface where your customers can log in. And that needs to be operating 24-7. The only way you can ensure that happens is to have a hosting package where you know you have 24-hour support. It can make the world of difference to your business.