With uptime, security and performance vital to websites and applications, customer support has always been a priority for the web hosting industry. While automation and AI are helping to improve support, these technologies should not be seen as a replacement for the expertise of skilled humans. 24/7 access to real-time, human technical support remains crucial to resolving complex problems and strengthening long-term customer relations.
Expert technical support
Automation is set to play an increasingly important role in many areas of web hosting, helping customers save time and money, boost security and improve performance and reliability. When it comes to technical support, however, human expertise remains critical.
The teams who deliver 24/7 technical support are trained specialists with deep knowledge of the technologies customers are working with and the provider’s infrastructure. Their extensive understanding of hosting enables them to troubleshoot advanced issues, whether it’s a website going offline, a cyberattack or a load-balancing problem.
While automation can be used for server monitoring, automated backups and resource scaling, and AI support tools can resolve a growing range of issues, human experts can better interpret a client’s concerns, diagnose problems, identify causes and quickly implement the right solutions – minimising a problem’s impact. Importantly, these interactions are personalised around the customer’s issues, providing reassurance and strengthening relationships.
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Different customers – different needs
Not all hosting customers have the same level of technical know-how or support needs. Small businesses may have limited technical experience and need help with basic issues like installing WordPress or setting up email accounts, while larger companies may require assistance with server configurations, infrastructure performance or business continuity.
A human technical support team provides both novice and experienced customers with assistance tailored to their specific needs and technical abilities. Not only do they possess the wealth of expertise to deliver this breadth of assistance; as humans, they can quickly ascertain a client’s level of understanding and provide support in a manner that they can understand.
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Human adaptability
Automated support tools can handle straightforward tasks, but they can struggle when clients use ambiguous language or make requests that they have not been trained for. For example, they may not fully understand or ask the right follow-up questions if a user types in ‘My site is acting strangely.’ In contrast, a human agent would be able to ask the right questions, helping them identify the problem and find the cause, for instance, whether the issue is down to a plugin conflict, an unexpected traffic spike or corrupted data.
Additionally, a human’s ability to understand situations and contexts enables them to adapt their support as conversations develop and new information comes to light. Automated tools, on the other hand, are programmed to provide assistance in predefined ways, making them unable to deal with needs that go beyond the scope of their training.
Migration assistance
Businesses moving to a new provider or upgrading their hosting solution can find migration technically challenging, especially if they lack in-house IT expertise. While automated migration tools can help many users, for beginners or those with complex challenges, expert human support helps make the process go smoothly, with hosts able to assist with website and application migration, DNS configuration and custom setup requirements.
Furthermore, a skilled support team will be able to identify and prevent potential issues during migration and quickly resolve post-migration problems.
Security support
Cybersecurity threats, such as a DDoS attack, malware infection or SSL certificate issue, can happen without warning. These require immediate action and can be worrying for customers. Today, automated systems play an important role in providing proactive security for web hosting users. Firewalls, intrusion and malware prevention tools and other technologies detect and block many forms of incoming threats automatically.
Human support teams, however, provide enhanced security above and beyond what automated tools can offer, for instance, they can adjust firewall settings, scan for malware and solve issues with SSL certificates. Equally importantly, if a customer does fall victim to a cyberattack, they can help implement disaster recovery plans to mitigate issues like downtime, data loss or reputational damage.
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The importance of 24/7 support
As issues can occur at any time, 24/7 support is crucial to minimise downtime. While automated support tools are naturally available around the clock, hosting providers that offer 24/7 human support provide a higher level of assistance, ensuring that all issues can be handled by a technical expert regardless of when they occur.
Conclusion
By ensuring that automated tools complement rather than replace human support, web hosting providers can deliver a better and more trustworthy service for their customers. Those who prefer to use self-service tools can do so, while those who need personalised support have 24/7 access to human expertise. Furthermore, automated tools can also help web hosts proactively fix issues before they become problems and provide human teams with the data they need to support customers more effectively.
Whether you’re a growing enterprise with complex IT needs or a beginner launching your first website, eukhost’s world-class 24/7 technical support is included as standard on all our shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server and cloud solutions. For more information about our solutions, visit our homepage.