If  you  run  any  type  of  business  and  have  a  website  then  you  know  how  crucial  it  is   for  your  site  to  be  up  and  running  at  all  times.  Unfortunately,  there  are  times   when  your  site  may  go  down.  When  this  happens  you  want  to  have  a  good   support  system  in  place.  Of  course  customer  support  is  an  item  that  you  should   consider  before  selecting  your  web  host.

Here  are  a  few  things  to  take  into  consideration  when  looking  for  a  web  hosting   company,  when  it  comes  to  customer  support.

1. Contacting  Support  –  do  you  have  more  than  one  method  for  contacting   support?  Ideally  they  should  have  a  live  chat  and  phone  support  along  with   email  support.

2. How  long  does  it  take  to  get  a  response?  This  is  critical  to  know  and  can   affect  the  amount  of  time  your  website  is  out  of  commission.  If  your  only   method  is  to  email  them,  you  want  to  know  how  long  it  takes  to  receive  a   reply.  Ideally  before  you  need  to  use  this  method.  Test  out  their  response   time  by  emailing  a  few  questions  to  them.

3. Does  the  company  back  up  your  site  automatically?  This  is  not  something   that  all  hosting  companies  do.  Even  if  they  offer  this  service,  you  should  get   into  the  habit  of  running  your  own  backups.  You  can  schedule  this  as  a  daily,   weekly  or  monthly  occurrence.

Sometimes  your  website  will  go  down  because  you  did  something  wrong  inside   your  site.  This  might  be  trying  to  upload  software  or  a  plugin  that  caused  a   conflict.  Or  your  web  host  may  have  taken  your  sites  offline  because  you  used  up   your  quota  of  bandwidth  or  disk  space.  As  you  reach  your  limits,  some  companies   will  notify  you  that  you  are  reaching  the  maximum  amounts,  while  others  will  just   take  your  sites  down.  This  is  something  that  you  should  be  aware  of  and  you   should  be  checking  your  bandwidth  usage  regularly.

Communicating  with  support  is  a  two  way  street.  If  you  experience  any  issues  or   have  concerns  then  send  in  a  support  ticket.  Ideally  your  hosting  company  will  do   the  same  for  you,  if  you  are  using  up  too  many  resources  they  should  send  out  a   warning  first.     Get  into  the  habit  of  performing  regular  backups  and  saving  a  copy  on  a  USB  Stick   or  on  a  separate  drive.  This  way  if  something  happens  to  your  site,  you  can  easily   restore  the  latest  version.