No mater what Web host you visit these days, it seems like everybody and their grandmother is making the same promise. They will give you on demand 24/7 hosting support. It has become a statement made in almost every other industry, so I do not see why Web hosting should be any different. So what does it mean, how do Web hosts use it and what is the future of it?

The idea behind 24/7 support is simple. Give people Web hosting support any hour of the day and on any day of the week. Some Web hosts even go a little further by tossing in 365 as well, for the number of days in the year. For the most part, it is sales jargon. True, many places might work as hard as they can to get you that support, but when you add up the results you get more promise than help.

For an example, lets say I put in a help desk ticket to my Web host at 1:00 PM. Now depending on how difficult that question is, you might not even get anybody to read the request for an hour or so. To be fair to the Web hosts out there, let us say that they took 30 minutes to find somebody who could help me with my problem. It is now 1:30 PM. Now some problems could be fixed in a mater of minutes, some might take a few hours and some might even take a few more days. Maybe I forgot to tell them something in my first response, so they have to ask for more information. As you can see the time adds up pretty quickly.

Now why is this such a nice selling point for the Web host who delivers 24/7 support? It is because as the consumer, we feel like we are being taken care of. We don’t think about the time it takes to resolve a problem, we just like to know that somebody is there.

Where is the future in 24/7 support? I think the act of seeing it on a Web host’s Web site will diminish over time. As we move into the future, I think more and more people will expect to be getting it automatically. You don’t sell a car because it comes with four tires. You are expected to get four tires with a car, it is part of the deal. I think 24/7 support will go that same route as well.

Tags: hosting, support, jargon, gimmicks