Re: UKNM: [Fwd: email acknowledgement from jungle.com

[Jon Curnow]

> Why do people seem to think it's acceptable to act like rank amateurs

> just because it's online?


I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "rank amateurs" but poor service still

common in many parts of our industry despite the fact most pitches

tell the client how an online presence can help with customer service.


And it's not just customer service. It's the service levels we give

each other.


You buy a service - be that hosting, mailing list management, stats

crunching, ad delivery, product fulfillment, whatever - and in a high

number of cases you get plenty of promises and in reality a 9-5

service. Something goes wrong outside those hours and there's an

excuse.  And I suspect many of us are guilty.


I used to work in another media environment where 24 hour operation

was also the norm. And if something went wrong at 2 in the morning

somebody was available - or at least on call - to fix it. In the 3

years I was there we never had a 100% service failure for more than

about 2 minutes. Sure, sometimes small elements failed but tried and

tested monitoring procedures provided backup so that the customer got

70% of the service.


I find this is not the case with online media. Servers go down at 2 on

a Sunday afternoon and it isn't easy to get somebody in to fix them.

Pipe to ISP fails. Sorry they're in a meeting?  Somebody messed up the

DNS records last night? Can it wait until Monday?  (All 3 responses

happened to me in the last 2 weeks) Where's the backup & redundancy

that's in the initial sales pitch?  I find the concept of a Service

Level Agreement pretty hard to swallow - I accept things go wrong and

I'm not in the game of trying to get compensation for every second

over the agreed levels that the service isn't delivered.  However I'm

slowly turning that way as it appears to me the only solution to some

basic failures where I believe there should be redundant systems etc.


Now it isn't everybody and as there are more and more online only or

online centric businesses then it will get better but there seems to

me a great reluctance to accept we need the professional service

levels other media already have.


Am I alone with this view/experience?


jon


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