http://www.hitboxprofessional.com

A little short note of supplement to HitBox US-based customer service and contract/payment policy is due this time as well.
Hitbox is one of the best online services providing live web traffic statistics for web sites.

While Hitbox does remain, at least for users with good bandwidth (high speed connection to the Internet) an extremely valuable and cost-effective service, it does not stack up well to users outside the U.S. with lower than 56 Kbps connection lines, and looking for a company truly caring and helping its customers transparently.

Hitbox customer service shines only on sign-up.

Their customer support system is absolutely inaccessible requiring further sign-ups and logins outside the three ones provided to Hitbox accounts to normally access their data.

The impossible looping maze that Hitbox/Webside Story has created around their customer support service online is a clear, outstanding example of how customer support systems can actually work against a company interest and reputation. If you are an Hitbox customer and you have tried to access the help facilities you know well what I am talking about.

Two years ago like today HitBox discourages people from using or even being able to access the customer support knowledgebase by providing a barrier to entering the system that goes unmatched in my humble experience with online service providers.

If you, like me, are paying old rates and fees that DO NOT correspond to what a new user would pay for the same Hitbox service, it means that this company considers their older clients not as valuable or precious as getting new ones.

If you have not read my previous short article about Hitbox poor customer service, you should know that I have found myself being charged USD $ 89/month for a service that today is sold by the same company at $24.95. My guilt is only the one of having signed up for a service before the price went down!

So I gather that what we, penalized customers are to do is to close the account and to open a new one to be able to access and pay a more reasonable price.

As I have two web sites utilizing this service I decided to close at least one of the two accounts, as a sign of protest and as an act of defense of my own little budget.

But also this one has not proven to be an easy task to handle with the US corporate customer service of HitBox. In fact, I have been unsuccessfully trying to close my account n.WE520221OHFD.

I have requested help online but Customer Service Europe has transferred me to the US. The US has kept me on hold for quite a while only to refer me to an email address of Christina Jones at cjones@websidestory.com to whom I have written to but from whom I have had no reply.

I have also written emails to Sales and Customer Support with no feedback or reply whatsoever after 72 hrs.

Finally a one line email came saying that the service had been closed. No cheers, no thanks, no nothing. "We have closed it, get off our back now" I felt it saying to me, though this wasn't written in that email.

How I felt? I leave it to you, as much as I leave to you the humble request to become more aware of certain aspects of service provision which come to the surface only when trouble knocks at your door. I rather have some less features, and pay a bit more, but feel that I have a partner supporting me and listening attentively to my real needs and request.