I think we should start discussin membership critria. I've visited verihost.com and listed their "comprehensive" membership criteria below:

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These are the necessary criteria for consideration and approval as a certified member of VeriHost.

VeriHost Criteria
· 24 Hour customer support
· A minimum of an email based system for customer support and response.
· Online self-help section available to customers
· 24 hour or less setup time of all accounts.
· Business registered in state of residence or governing authority.
· Financial Institution and proof of a business account.
· Test and/or verify the integrity of the claimed network connectivity.

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I think you'll agree that ours needs a little more thought......

Members should be assessed and scored to the criteria regularly. Only by regular reviews can you assure that the host is still complying to the good business practices. Wirh VeriHost and the Guild you feel that once the host has paid to get in then they are in for life and can do whatever they want afterwards.

So, regular assessment must be high on the list.

Heres the WHG criteria, a bit more comprehensive than Verihost


THE WEB HOST GUILD APPLICATION

* - Must answer yes to be considered for guild membership
! – Must provide information, but no minimum requirements
# - Providing this information is optional, but assists the
board in weighing your application

I. Company/Contact Information

1. !Company: _______________________
2. !Contact Name: _______________________
3. !Title: _______________________
4. !Street Address: _______________________
!Street Address: _______________________
5. !City: _______________________
6. !State/Province: _______________________
7. !Zip/Postal Code: _______________________
8. !Country: _______________________
9. !Phone: (___)__________________
10. !FAX: (___)__________________
11. !Email: _______________________
12. !URL: _______________________

II. Technical Support

1. *Pager or human available 24/7 for emergencies?
__YES __NO
2. !Guaranteed response time on emergency support requests?
__YES __NO
If yes, what is the time? _____________________
3. !Guaranteed response time to emails to technical support?
__YES __NO
If yes, what is the time? _____________________
4. *At least 8 hours a day direct telephone support available?
__YES
__Phone support with authorization from email support
__Less than 8 hours a day of direct telephone support

Please list your telephone support hours and summarize your telephone support policy. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________

5. *Incremental backups at least once every 24 hours, with full backups weekly?
__YES __NO

* - Must answer yes to be considered for guild membership
! – Must provide information, but no minimum requirements
# - Providing this information is optional, but assists the
board in weighing your application

6. #Is there a page on the site for customers to check network/system status?
__YES __NO

III. Background

1. *Has your company been in business and incorporated at least 12 months?
__ YES __ NO
If so, how long has your company been in business?
__YEARS __MONTHS

2. *Do you offer a 30-day or longer no-questions-asked money back guarantee?
__YES __NO

3. !Are you a reseller?
__YES __NO
If Yes:
1. *Do you offer full-time hosting support?
__YES __NO

2. *Who is providing your services? (Provider must meet WHG criteria for reseller to qualify).
Company: ________________________
URL: ________________________
Contact Email: ________________________

4. !References: Please provide the names and contact emails of professional web sites currently hosted by your company.

Company: ______________________________
Contact Email: ______________________________

Company: ______________________________
Contact Email: ______________________________

Company: ______________________________
Contact Email: ______________________________

IV. Reliability

1. !Please outline your connections, T-1, T-3, etc. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________

2. !Please identify your Internet backbone providers, with contact information for verification purposes. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
* - Must answer yes to be considered for guild membership
! – Must provide information, but no minimum requirements
# - Providing this information is optional, but assists the
board in weighing your application

3. !Please outline your backup power plan. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________

4. #Do you have a written Year 2000 Compliance Plan in place?
__YES __NO

5. #Are the downtime statistics for the past year posted on your site?
__YES __NO

6. #Please provide information on the speed of your internal network. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________

V. Features

1. #Can clients use their own CGI scripts?
__YES __NO

2. #Do you offer auto-responders?
__YES __NO
If yes, how many? Extra charges?
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

3. #Unlimited alias forwarding?
__YES __NO


4. #Please explain the various accounts available, as well as "extra" features available, and upgrade/expansion options. (if not enough space, attach an additional sheet)
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
____________________________________________

5. #Do you offer DNS parking?
__YES __NO

6. #Do you offer a web-based account management area?
__YES __NO

7. #Do you offer a secure server for E-Commerce?
__YES __NO
If yes, please explain any additional charges:
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
* - Must answer yes to be considered for guild membership
! – Must provide information, but no minimum requirements
# - Providing this information is optional, but assists the
board in weighing your application

8. !What server OS platforms do you offer?
__NT __UNIX

VI. Usage/Access Logs

1. *Are access logs available for customers' information?
__YES __NO

2. #Is log analysis software provided?
__YES __NO

3. #How long are logs kept?
__30 DAYS OR LESS
__31 DAYS OR MORE

VII. Payment Options

1. !What payment options are available? (select all that apply)
__ONLINE __CHECK/MONEY ORDER __DISCOVER
__VISA __AMERICAN EXPRESS __MASTERCARD

VIII. Comments

_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________

IX. Customer Support

By applying for entrance into the WHG the host provider agrees to the following:

1. The WHG has the right to send customer support emails under alias to test response time, quality of the response, tone of the response, etc.
2. The WHG has the right to sign up for an account under an alias to test the signup process, to ensure that all features offered exist, test customer support, to test refund policy and procedures, etc.
3. Monthly periodic NetMechanic server checks to test the following:

Host Ping Time
DNS Lookup
Connect Time
Download Time
Number of Timeouts


Web Host Guild
10001 Northwest 50th Street - Suite 111 - Sunrise - Florida - 33351 - (954) 578-7022

Date:________
Company:__________________ URL:________________
Contact Person:__________________
Phone #:__________________ Fax #:________________
E-mail Address:__________________
Street Address:__________________
__________________

City:__________________ State:__________________
Zip:__________________ Country:__________________

Check:
Amount of Check $250 Date received:
Check #:
Bank drawn on:

Membership Order:

Initial Application Fee $250.00

The WHG accepts payment only by check. All funds must be transmitted in United States currency only. The initial application fee is non-refundable, regardless of whether or not you are accepted into the WHG.

Cancellation Clause:

The Board of Directors reserves the right to terminate any Guild member by a majority vote of the Board. If such termination occurs, we will refund your membership dues for a prorated amount based on the elapsed time you have been a member of the WHG up until the date of cancellation.

Assignment:

You may not assign this agreement, in whole or in part, without Sumo, Inc.'s written consent. Any attempt to assign this Agreement without such consent will be null and void.

Governing Law, Arbitration, and Venue:

This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida. Any disputes arising under this agreement will be resolved by binding arbitration, to take place in Broward County, Florida.

By signing below, I affirm that all information provided on this application is true.

Client Signature:_______________________________________ Total: $250
*Please sign and mail with check payable to:
The Web Host Guild - 10001 Northwest 50th Street, Suite 111 - Sunrise, FL 33351

Looks good!I like that one!

One thing that needs to be defined is Technical Support.

We've been letting the end users define Tech support for our industry as "if anything is wrong that is computer related, I can call you 24/7 and ask you if your server is down, and you'll troubleshoot it and talk me through fixing it", they also call to receive training on things such as FTP, setting up new software, etc.

In the software and hardware industries, technical support is defined very differently-it's been defined by the industry, not the customers. There are very defined levels of support personnel.

If you are calling to report a problem with the application or the equipment, you can call technical support free.

If you are looking for troubleshooting, setting up the application, or training, you normally get the first 30 days free and after that, you either pay as you go via a 900 number, or give them your credit card number before you get put through to someone-unless you have purchased a supplemental support contract, then you have x amount of support time to use (normally during a one year period).

There are usually several levels of support staff at software/hardware companies. Front Line support that can answer common questions, reset passwords, etc-they also do triage. Anything they can't answer gets escalated to one or two levels of support engineers with increasing levels of expertise.

In our industry that would give us Front Line for triage, password resets, restarting a server, and informing the customer as to whether or not there is an outage or a problem with the service. Most hosts have this level of support (either by phone, online chat, or email). Front Line support should be included for all hosting plans.

Level II Support is troubleshooting, cgi script debugging, training, etc. Anything that is related to the services provided, but is not a problem that the provider is responsible to fix free of charge. Level II requires a higher-end person to handle it.

Level III support is basically consulting-where they want something done and the provider does it for them (i.e. custom script development, configuring web servers, database administration, etc.)

There also needs to be a definition of 'emergency'. There are certain QoS issues inherent in various levels of service. If you are contracting for service with an uptime of 99%, you can expect that the server will be down on average 7 hours and 26 minutes per month. A server going down isn't that much of an emergency at that level.

Server/network emergency pager notification to a person should be handled under Reliability (oh how I have learned to hate Spyhunter)

_____Automated pager notification by server/network in case of outage?

_____Is 24/7 emergency response pager/telephone service available?

_____Guaranteed response time to emergency response pager/telephone?

Terms and exceptions:



so I'd like to see the criteria under Technical Support as:

II. Technical Support

Level I Front Line Customer Support

___Business Hours (specify) ____ 24/7

____ IM/ICQ ____phone _____email

____Guaranteed response time to email


Level II Expert Support

___Business Hours (specify) ____ 24/7

___ Included in basic monthly charge?_______exceptions

____Per incident ____900 number ___ other (specify)

____Is a supplemental support contract required?

Contract Pricing and terms:



Level III Development

____ Rate per hour

Services provided:

Web development/cgi script development/database application development/Custom server configuration

I've worked in the Field Service industry. Support contracts usually have a response time clause. There's the standard default (i.e. someone will respond with in X-hours) and various higher levels up to say "Response in 30 minutes"). Of ocurse customers pay more for faster response (though unfortunately don't always get it but that's another issue).

I think when it comes to a real-time service like hosting and something that is often business mission critical you need try 24/7 response to inquiries. That doesn't mean you can fix it immiedately (depending what the problem is) but you do need to get a reply out to the customer ASAP.

Can you give some specific examples of how this should work outside of business hours?

What sort of problems would fall under this heading? How would you define an emergency?

Well Phoenix.. yeah defining "emergency" could be quite a task, as it could be anything for anyone...for example

- Server down could be an emergency for the client who has his 1000K visits an hour running on that server

- no ftp access could mean, no updates for a daily updated site
(just like the problem i am having with my host, with no reply)

Anyone else....please post the most common emergencies you have come across..

It's easier to define emergency in the health care field-when loss of life is imminent then it's an emergency, everything else can wait until the doctor has time. Although that doesn't stop people from jamming the ER's with a host of minor ailments including colds, or (and this really irks me) calling for ambulance transport because they don't have a car and for some types of coverage, there is no charge, they get there faster than a taxi, and the EMT's are not allowed to refuse you transport even if they are not needed.

Upon reflection, it would appear that the same situation could be an emergency for some customers but not others. Also, you have to look at accountability, especially when you factor in PEBKAC issues, which are the most common type of 'emergencies' that we see.

If Spyhunter notifies us that that disk space is getting low or that a particular test was failed-that's an emergency to us, because it sets off an alert and then we have to hop to it and get the problem looked at (disk space issues can be due to a customer's ftp site becoming a warez site, or someone deciding that a shared hosting server is their personal file server, or some other problem other than needing to reallocate sites around because they've outgrown the environment) and resolved. the customers don't see this as an emergency because these are transparent to them.

If there is an unplanned outage, then it's an emergency both to us and the customer, but having the customer notify us that there is an emergency and then expect a response within x minutes usually means that they are tying up our phone lines at the same time we are dealing with the problem-their assumption is that we don't know the problem exists, so they are being helpful by reporting it.

However, if a client calls and says that their site is down and it's an emergency there are no problems regarding the service we provide, and then we find or they admit that their site is down because their designer or someone else with administrative access made some mistakes while FTPing (that's fairly common, as is getting a request to reboot a customer-owned server that's stuck on 'are you sure you want to change the IP address on your NIC card' and the cursor hovering over OK-DOH!) that's not truly an emergency for us, because it is not something that we are accountable for.

Unless, a customer has a supplemental support contract and then we treat their PEBKAC issues as emergencies and then we have set response times depending on their contract.

Different types of hosts who have different types of customer expectations are going to have different types of emergencies, and different sets of customer expectations. A B2B host is going to deal with a very different set of issues from a B2C host.

i think the most important thing is that these things be clearly defined in plain english in the TOS used by the provider and displayed on their support page of their site so that there are no 'grey areas' that are open for abuse on either side. As well as providing the organization with their support policies.

what about certification? I mean thats an added plus right...

Certification/Licensing would be an additional step. And it would require that examinations and/or inspections be performed. It is common in the service industry that some form of certifcation or licensing be required in order to do business.

Hairstylists/barbers
mechanics
Lawyers
Doctors
Taxi drivers

That is a step that should be part of the five-year plan and definitely in my vision for what the organization should be for this industry, but it won't be able to be enacted immediately. The organization would first have to be recognized as the regulatory body for the industry.

That may require some sort of official charter from a government agency, or it may not. I've got it on my schedule to research, though.