My Website is Gone - Lessons Learned From a Past Client

Lessons Learned From a Past Client

Yesterday I received a call from a distressed past client. It seems their website was no longer up and she wondered if we could help. It took a bit of effort to determine how the website was "lost" in the first place, but we finally deduced: 

1. Client was hosting with their IT tech support company who offered remote tech support on a per computer basis ($100/each). The hosting, apparently, was just a courtesy service.
   Lesson Learned:  Keep your professional service contracts and hosting contracts separate. Your website should be hosted by a reputable hosting company. Hosting fees are down right cheap so you don't really need to bundle these in to any other service contracts.
2. Client determines paying $500 a month for remote tech support is "robbery," given that they never used nor needed the service, thus terminates contract and unwittingly cancels hosting as well.
   Lesson Learned:  Understand the implications when cancelling a service BEFORE you do it. In this instance, the vendor probably would not have shut down the hosting account had there been a dialogue exchange of some sort.  
3. Client now wishes to have website put back up. I advise they still need a web host. Client doesn't know what a web host is. Says all this techno mumbo jumbo is just too confusing and overwhelming.
   Lesson Learned:  Clearly ignorance is not bliss. By not understanding the bare minimum of what is needed to have a website presence, you are subject to unnecessary hours of frustration and are susceptible to be taking advantage of.  
4. After we explain the need for a reputable host, we further explain that they will also need to have access to their domain registrar to change the domain name servers (DNS). We ask client if they have this information. Client does not. Fortunately for this past client, we keep careful records and were able to provide them this information.
   Lesson Learned:  Your domain name is a business asset and should be treated as such. Keep a file that contains where you purchased your domain name, the user id and password and when it expires. While you're at it, make sure you keep your hosting details in this same folder. You don't have to understand all that it takes to get your website on the Internet, but you at least need to retain the critical information that is needed to achieve this (domain and hosting information, at a minimum).  
5. Client then goes on to say that they used to rely on other people to take care of these matters. Then, their business went a little sour and people left and along with them went the knowledge of exactly what vendors were used for what services (domain registrar, hosting, IDX and more).
   Final Lesson Learned:  Bad idea. If your website is an integral part of your business, and it should be, you need to be in control of this critical information. Without it, you could be subject to a lot of unnecessary headaches, expenses and the topic of an article on our website.