Hosting is an essential part of the success of your digital business. With many providers in the market, it can be challenging to figure out which one offers the best plan for you. You must be sure that the services they offer fit your business needs. If you feel that your current hosting provider is no longer meeting your business needs, reassessing your hosting provider may be your only solution. Keep reading to find out what signs to look out for!

When is it Time to Migrate?

There are many different reasons you might want to move to a new web hosting provider. In this blog, we will highlight the top three reasons you might have for changing your web hosting provider:

Frequent downtime issues

Today’s customer is always online, meaning that if they want to access information online, they will do it through multiple devices.

Downtime affects your website’s user experience and searches engine results positions. It shouldn’t be taken lightly. If your site is experiencing frequent outages, your users will come to find they can’t rely on it to be available when needed.

You need more space

It’s important to figure out what flexible hosting plans the hosting provider offers, especially if your business has grown exponentially, or if you expand your business in the future you may need to find out what flexible hosting plans the hosting provider offers. Depending on the growth that you expect from your business, it’s important to think about how much storage and bandwidth you will need. You should have the ability to scale up (or down) based on your business needs. This way you can change hosting plans whenever your business needs to change to and upgrade services instead of migrating to a new hosting provider.

Poor customer service

When it comes to customer service, you should look for technical expertise and service reliability. A skilled, dedicated support team can make all the difference can help prevent minor incidents from escalating, and can help businesses maintain day-to-day operations without disruption.

Does the provider offer support? On-site support availability means quick response to emergency reboots or other issues, particularly if the staff is not located near the facility or cannot get to the facility.

This can also help prevent minor incidents from turning into larger issues. Support technicians should be available 24/7 by phone, email, or web-based support portal in the event of a problem.

Ready to upgrade or need help with a plan for your business? Contact TurnKey Internet today for a FREE consultation with our cloud hosting experts! Visit our website at turnkeyinternet.net or call us at 877-539-4638

If you run or manage a business and want to get the best possible results, building and maintaining your reputation is a vital part of the process that you can’t afford to ignore. The way that your prospects view you and the products that you sell will impact your bottom line, so you won’t want to take any chances.

If you would like to frame yourself in a positive light, earning 5-star reviews will do the trick and inspire other people to buy from you. Although getting good reviews can seem like a daunting task if you don’t know what steps to follow, you can do so without trouble when you craft and implement a proven plan.

Seek Feedback

Some business leaders make the mistake of paying too much attention to their companies and don’t focus enough on the needs of their prospects. You will want to understand your potential customers and what they expect from you if you would like to achieve lasting success. After someone buys one of your products or services, encourage that person to provide you with honest feedback.

People value their time and won’t always want to give their opinion to you, but you can incentivize them by offering discounts and coupons. A few shoppers will always give negative feedback and others will always say that they are happy with your service, but you can monitor their feedback over time to get a clear picture of where you stand.

Use Feedback to Improve Your Business

Getting feedback won’t do you much good if you don’t take it into consideration. If a lot of your customers mention something that they don’t like about your business, changing it can improve their experience and show that you value them. For example, you can speak with your staff about being friendly and welcoming if your customers feel as though your staff is too dismissive.

The ability to look at your business objectively is critical if you are interested in making improvements. You will probably get feedback on products or services that your customers would like to buy from you, and adding those items to your inventory can work wonders when it comes to earning 5-star reviews.

Deal With Customer Complaints

No matter the quality of your products or level of dedication, you are not perfect and will encounter unhappy customers on occasion. The way that you respond to them will play a role in the type of reviews that they will write, so knowing how to resolve disputes is essential when you care about your reputation. When people first come to you with a complaint about your products or services, the first step is to show them that you understand and care about the way they feel.

You can then work with your customers to find a viable solution to their problem, and you will want to follow up at a later date to ensure that they are pleased with the outcome. Since most businesses don’t take the time to follow up on customer issues, doing so will make you stand out from the herd.

Show Your Customers That You Care About Them

If you would like to get tons of 5-star reviews, showing people that you care about and appreciate them is one of the top ways to reach your goal. Some business owners wait until their customers are upset to show them that they are concerned about their well-being, but you don’t want to fall into that trap. You can use loyalty programs to reward those who keep buying from you.

Free items, discounts and special offers are just a few of the things that you can use to show your customers how much you care. You will also want your employees to treat each customer with respect at all times, and they will notice the difference. Some business owners offer exclusive discount cards to their long-term customers, and you can do the same when you want to make them feel important.

Encourage Happy Customers to Post Reviews

When you are striving to earn 5-star reviews from people, happy customers are your most valuable resource. By default, a lot of people only go online to write a review when they are unhappy with something about your business, but you can combat that problem by speaking with customers who are pleased with your products or services.

Begin by letting them know you are happy that you were able to meet their needs, and you can then ask them to write an online review highlighting their experience. If you go out of your way to meet the needs of your customers and to ensure that they are thrilled, many of them will be glad to return the favor.

Be Active Online

Since more and more people are using the internet every day, having a strong online presence is a great way to show people that you care about your reputation. You can use social media to stay in touch with your past customers and to reach out to new ones, and you will create a positive impression if you follow the correct path. Post content to see the type of material that gets the best reaction, but you can also use social media to respond to questions and concerns.

If you maintain a positive and upbeat tone online, people will like and trust you, enhancing their odds of writing 5-star reviews. Facebook is also a useful tool for getting feedback and helping people with support issues. Since your answers are online, other users can benefit from them.

Final Thoughts

Since people trust the opinions of other consumers, earning positive feedback is a powerful way to enhance your profitability and attract new customers. Encouraging your customers to come to you with their concerns is a good place from which to start, but you can also improve your results by showing people that you care. When you combine those methods with the other advice in this guide, you will achieve impressive results in no time.

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In today’s increasingly digital environment, everyone has literally become a critic. Taking to websites such as Yelp, Amazon and Google to air grievances, modern consumers are pulling no punches when it comes to their concerns. If your business delivers less-than-stellar service on any particular day, you can expect to hear about it. Back in the old days of even the 1990s, this wasn’t the case. You could afford to make little mistakes without having the entire universe hear about them. However, this is no longer the world in which we live, and every business owner needs to develop a strategy for dealing with their online reviews.

Don’t Take It Personally—The First Rule of Dealing with a Negative Review

Businesses have bad days, but so do customers. Unless you know the client personally, you cannot assume that they weren’t also having a bad day. When you’re both having a bad day, then sometimes this negative energy can amplify, resulting in a negative review. Seeing a one-star review is enough to make any business owner’s blood pressure rise. Keep in mind that the first negative review hurts the most; it will become easier. However, if your business is going to be successful by any measure, it is imperative that you create a strategy for dealing with negative reviews.

A Silver Lining to Every Bad Review

Anytime a customer reviews your product or service, you have an opportunity to take in feedback that you wouldn’t have received otherwise. Maybe you own a boutique and one of your employees could be doing a better job. Obviously, he’s not going to tell you that he’s behaving in an unprofessional manner when consumers walk through the door. While it can be easy to write off reviewers as crazy or irrational, take time to digest whatever was troubling them. Is it possible that there could be some truth in it? How can your business absorb this feedback in a productive way and move on?

While some reviewers will do a “drive-by” one star and not really tell you what was bothering them, others will offer nuanced feedback that can help you to improve your business. Some review sites will allow you to click on the customer’s profile and see the other reviews they’ve written. This helpful tool will allow you to see if they are just a disgruntled person in general. If you see that they reviewer has lambasted other companies without much to back them up, then this is a review you probably shouldn’t take as seriously. However, if yours is the only one-star review amid a selection of glowing reviews that the consumer left for other businesses, then perhaps you should take a closer look.

Investigate

Your default position should always be to assume that customers are leaving legitimate reviews and telling the truth. If, however, you suddenly notice a spate of targeted reviews that seem engineered to take you down, then it’s time to report them to the website. Although sites such as Yelp have put up safeguards to protect business owners from this type of online harassment, not every method is foolproof. If you believe that something may be awry, then reach out to the review site with your specific concerns.

Keep in mind that they receive complaints like this all day, and state your case succinctly. Most websites will investigate the issue and then get back to you within 24-48 hours. Although they may be able to rule in your favor from time to time, you should always assume that the review is going to remain. To protect free speech, many sites tend to lean on the liberal side when analyzing reviews. Also, remember that reviews are their business. Unless something is patently offensive, it’s usually not advantageous for them to remove reviews.

Decide What Your Reply Policy Is

Some people, such as self-published authors on Amazon, generally make it a rule not to reply to bad reviews. In this case, writing back can often be seen as antagonistic—and just may win you even more online critics in the long run. But if you’re running a restaurant that just received a complaint about unsanitary conditions, then it will look extremely unprofessional for you not to reply.

Some business owners will choose to reply with their email address, reaching out to the customer in an attempt to resolve the situation. If they make the appropriate kind of apology—and perhaps offer something in return—many customers will change their reviews and praise the company for addressing the problem. There is a fine line with this kind of customer service, though. You’ll want to make sure that you’re not giving away products because of extortion-type reviews. Carefully examine each particular situation, and see if there’s any way that you can make it better. When future customers see that the business pays attention to reviews—and goes out of its way to address challenges—they are often very impressed.

Your Product or Service Isn’t for Everyone

One thing to keep in mind is that your business can’t possibly please everyone on the planet; it’s impossible. Even the best companies in the world have some awful reviews, as do some of the best novels ever written. If you’ve ever wondered about this, then look up your favorite novel on Amazon. You will realize that you are in excellent company when you see that even Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway have some awful online reviews critiquing their famous books.

The fact of the matter is that negative reviews are going to happen. Try not to react emotionally, and move forward with the information that has been provided to you. Eventually, if you know that seeing such reviews can be a trigger, you may decide that you only want to read your reviews every few months or so. Develop a plan for addressing this part of your business, and then execute it. Since some negative reviews are practically a certainty, realize that it is how you respond to them that will determine your company’s ultimate success.

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Griffin is from Williamsport, Pennsylvania where he joined the United States Army as a Signal Support Specialist. He learned many aspects of the Technology field during his six years of service. With two tours overseas, Griffin was able to perfect his craft in installations and in radio communications. Upon returning home, Griffin went to college to learn more about technology. He recently graduated with his first degree in Mobile Applications Development, and did not stop there. He is currently finishing from his second degree in Networking.

I wanted to learn as much as I could possibly learn, but the only way to gain a craft such as this is hands on experience. I was given a flyer for a job at Turnkey Internet. I was very excited to get an opportunity to work for the company. There is so much knowledge within Turnkey Internet. I love the people that I work with. It is a very personal work experience, and I have been able to learn so much from the employees. I did not go out and find myself a job, but instead I found myself a home with Turnkey Internet. Follow Us :
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Randi comes to us from the snow making capital of the world, Hunter Mountain, NY. Randi has always had a strong fascination with electronics and how everything works. What makes it go from point A to point B. What happens if we modify the algorithm?

Unlike most children, Randi’s least favorite Holiday growing up was Christmas. Randi’s brother always received electronic toys. Powerized car and trucks, flying helicopters, a hover board. Randi was left with Barbies and play sets.

Randi’s brother would get bored with the electronic toy and go play with another. At this point, Randi would take the toy into her room to try and figure out how it worked. The toys always ended up in a hundred pieces on her floor. She had to figure out how the toy worked. Never being able to put it back together, she was grounded by dinner each year. Randi didn’t want to be a doctor, no need to take Barbie apart.

Knowing Randi’s strong desire to understand how things work and her love for electronics, it was only natural her parents pushed her to attend a technical school. Randi studied at the Withlacoochee Technical Institute in Florida. Then continued on to attend Mildred Elley and the Sage Colleges of Albany her in NY. Randi graduated at the top of her class with a degree in information technology. Follow Us :
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Howdy do Turnkey Lovers,

It’s Jeremy here again. I had a bit of a brain block when writing this post. I wasn’t exactly sure what to share with guys.

We’ve chatted about everything from cPanel hosting to reseller hosting and even if the Internet will die. However, I have to apologize. Me being from the deep south, Georgia to be exact, we have this little thing called Southern Hospitality.

For those of you who do not know what that is, lets just call it manners. That guy who passes you on the streets and says, “Hey, how you doing?” to the guy who holds the door for you when you’re entering a venue.

That leads me to my apology as I’ve never introduced myself. I’m Jeremy Walker, slayer of tickets and women hearts. Born and raised in this little town twenty minutes out of Atlanta called Inman Georgia. Now, I won’t bore you with telling my life story here as this isn’t the venue – but it leads to the core of where I speak from, and always keep a customer is always right attitude to assist people.

I wanted to actually share more about my love for Turnkey and technology. I began working at Turnkey in the summer of 2010. I was year removed from my junior year of RPI(Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst.) I had a taken a year off and needed to find some work. I tried my hands at Staples, and other retail shop opportunities – but never found the right fit that challenged and excited me.

I had grown up in technology and knew that items they wanted me to sell, but found it rather unrewarding to put politely (I am after all a southern gentlemen, so i’ll simply say that!).  One day, I felt I was wasting my potential. I had went through 3 years at RPIand I didn’t want to just be selling things I didn’t believe in. Enter, TurnKey –  I’m cruising craigslist for potential opportunities and stumble across this aid for a computer technician.

One email later, one phone call, and an interview later and Turnkey had its new Hosting Evangelist, neither of us knew it yet though at the time! Now, I worked before in my  life, but I wasn’t in such a  professional environment where you weren’t face to face with a client all the time when helping them.  This was new territory for me. I was actually working in my chosen career choice with a Tech company that was rapidly growing. Cloud, Shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS(virtual private server), DNS etc. were all new things for me – but logical tie ins with my technical experience.

My education up to this point was more theoretical based then hands on. Sure, I had dual booted my machine at home and built web sites and facebook pages at RPI and even had an internship as a systems engineer my freshman year at RPI, but none like Turnkey.

It’s been a fun, stressful, awesome, rewarding, education and any other adjective you want to use.  The key here was I was part of something, and really got to interact with you (the clients, and potential clients) to see new challenges, opportunities and ways of using technology every day.  For someone invested in technology their entire life, and career / education path – the diversity of technology uses, and challenges can be one of the biggest perks to the job.

I’ve grown the most at this company by learning more about offering Hosting, ISP(Internet service provider) collocation, green energy datacenter services – all have added to my knowledge of this beautiful creature of the Internet. Seeing the industry from this side has been quite a rewarding experience.  And the best part, over the last years I’ve moved through the customer service ranks, to the engineering ranks and now after learning more and more about the technology and working with clients to see all the different challenges that come with it, I get to write to you guys about great ways to leverage the technology.  I get teased as our Hosting Evangelist – out there on forums, and our blog – but that’s ok.

Now, we’ve been properly introduced. I hope you’ve enjoyed this encounter as much as I did providing it.

Until next week Turnkey Lovers Follow Us :
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I wrote a blog a while back about giving great customer service.  I’d like to take a moment and touch on an even more important point and, that is. how to GET great customer service.  There’s an old saying that is as true today as it was the day the phrase was coined:  “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”.  When calling customer service for any company you do business with – and it doesn’t matter if it’s your hosting company, the power company, the phone company, the manager at your local grocery store or whatever – there are some things that need to be kept in mind by the person who is expecting/needing assistance.

First and foremost, know what it is you need help with and take a minute or two prior to calling, speaking or writing, to figure out the best, most concise way to get that point across.  I will keep most of my examples within the scope of internet/network/server customer service only because I’ve been involved with it for 14 years.  Here’s what normally happens on a phone call:

Customer:  I’ve been with your company for 15 years now why all of a sudden am I having issues?

(buzzer sound from half time at a basketball game goes off in CSR’s head – CSR = Customer Service Rep).  Customer never told the CSR his/her name, account id, or any other identifying information, so CSR has no way to look account up and get background information while customer continues to talk – thus slowing down the process.  Additionally, customer did not state specifically, or even vaguely in this instance, what the issue is.  And, just for the record, these conversations actually take place on a daily basis.

CSR: I’d like to help, may I have the last name on the account, email address on the account or domain name associated with the account so I may pull your records up? Customer: Smith

Ok, hopefully, you’re seeing where I’m going with this.  These types of conversations get nowhere and take 4 times longer to get to the root of the issue and resolve than they need to.  The customer continually demands to know precisely when the issue will be resolved (as you’re still looking the account up and haven’t even yet been told what the issue is).  This is *not* how to get good customer service.

The truth of the matter is, CSR’s exist to give all customers 100% of their attention and assistance whether the customer has been with the company for 15 years or 15 minutes.  Stating how long you’ve been with the company is totally irrelevant.  Most customers think it’s relevant because they do not understand the role of the CSR and, that is, to give ALL customers 100% attention and assistance in a polite and professional way.

You (the customer) want your issue resolved.  Be concise, be specific.  The more concise and specific you can be with the information that you provide to a CSR, the quicker your issue will get resolved.  This does not mean recounting a story that began 12 years ago and somehow morphed into an issue with the company you’re currently with.  Again, supply only relevant, current information.

While you may be frustrated, taking it out on the CSR is often counter productive.  For instance, the CSR’s are human beings, just like you – while trained to handle the toughest of situations, they too have feelings, emotions and while they are there to help you 100%, when you are rude, or short (which is what happens when you let the frustrations get the best of you) – you end up alienating the CSR.  Even with the best of training by the CSR, when they get verbally abused, or insulted, or talked down to – they subconsciously may not give the extra 10% (110% now!) to help you get this situation resolved as quickly as possible.

CSR’s exist for customers.  You pay them, perhaps indirectly through your purchase, memerbship and/or subscriptions – and they are thre for you.  The key is to knowing how to maximize that to navigate to the solution you both want, a happy client with any issue resolved quickly and professionaly.

So, to summarize, some of the best ways to get the absolute best from any CSR (regardless of whether it’s your grocery store, insurance company, mechanic, hosting company or the utility company) is to remember the following:

1. Be specific and concise – afterall you have better things to do and you want your issue addressed as quickly as possible.

2. Be nice – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

3. Leave irrelevant information out of the conversation – it’s wonderful that everyone in your family, back to your great-great-grandfather has been with the company but, that has nothing to do with getting your issue resolved.

4. Have information readily available that identifies your specific account.

5. Just use good old fashioned common sense.

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Social media is here to stay. It’s about as mainstream as mainstream gets and pretty much everyone has realized the import of the medium for businesses. As a marketing tool, it’s invaluable, though not without its pitfalls. I have written before about how to use social media to grow your business, market products and run specials. Today I am going to talk about how to use social media to build your business’ reputation with customers.

Interacting with customers in a public way is commonplace on the Internet, but on social networks it gets personal. Social networks, by their very nature, encourage participation, interaction and conversation. For individuals that makes keeping active friendships easier. It keeps families closer. It provides a forum for debating the issues of our day. From a business perspective, it presents a potential problem. In some cases, without the proper forethought, monitoring and attention, that problem can be devastating.

For a business, customer service is a cornerstone of growth. Without good customer service any business can fail, and fail fast. With social networks, customer interaction becomes virally public. In the old days, a customer might complain on a forum or on a blog, but today they complain in a Facebook feed… YOUR Facebook feed… and everyone sees it in real time. How you handle that complaint will define your customer service to existing and potential customers. This makes developing an internal customer service policy for social networks paramount. But how many companies are doing this? Is this critical element of social media business being ignored?

On a social network, a snide remark from a tired employee can influence thousands of potential customers. Incorrect information can snowball into a support nightmare in minutes. Every single interaction is being watched by your customer base, your bread and butter. If you’re not coaching your employees on how to handle social network interactions, you better start… fast.

One way to handle this is to restrict access to your social network account. Only give access to employees you trust, who understand the importance of decorum. It is also very helpful to develop a standard policy for social media interactions that focuses on openness, honesty and fairness. The good side of this kind of transparency is that customers can see when one of their own is being unreasonable just as easily as they can see everything else. If you handle interactions admirably, you will build trust, a kind of trust that no amount of traditional marketing can create.

So the social media of our times is one of the most useful and personal tools we’ve ever had for business. It crosses the divide between personal and commercial, paving the way for companies to build relationships like they used to in the mom and pop businesses of old. But with that incredible access comes great risk. Developing a strategy for social media interaction today will help protect your company tomorrow. Follow Us :
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