Migration disruptions anger Melbourne IT customers

Web hosting company Melbourne IT is in damage control mode after a botched migration led to disruptions to customers' websites and email accounts.

A number of angry customers are threatening to leave as a result of problems arising from Melbourne IT's migration to a new platform, Fairfax Media reported.

The problems have also left Melbourne IT's customer service staff overwhelmed, leading to managers manning the phones to field enquiries and complaints, the report states.

Some customers have complained of having their email accounts or websites offline for up to a week, and of spending up to two hours or more on hold waiting to talk to support staff.

Melbourne IT has been migrating its 350,000 customers to a new platform since June but has run into problems with the transition, including stability issues with its email service.

The company’s CEO Martin Mercer acknowledged to Fairfax that it does not have enough support staff to deal with all the calls.

But he said the company is not planning to hire more as by the time they were trained the issues causing the spike in calls are likely to be resolved. Instead, team leaders and managers are helping to field calls.

Mercer also stressed that only a “very small proportion” of the customers being migrated are encountering the issues, and only a very small number of those have decided to switch providers as a result.

Image courtesy of Martin Cathrae under CC