Who Owns the Fix? Local Service vs Corporate Tickets

Jason and Melanie talk about the WinternetWeb name story, why names and reputations matter, and how trust is built when you cannot hide behind a brand or a ticket number. They break down real situations businesses face all the time, like a website that suddenly goes down, DNS getting changed, contact forms quietly stopping, security warnings that kill trust instantly, slow sites that make people leave, and last-minute updates for weather closures or urgent announcements.

Then they compare two worlds: the corporate response that pushes you to “submit a ticket,” “contact your hosting provider,” or “upgrade your plan,” versus the local mindset where someone notices, takes ownership, fixes it, and checks again later.

Miles closes with the bottom line: technology is not the hard part. Trust is.

🎧 Wired Together is produced by WinternetWeb Technologies, a family-run web design and tech studio based in Bracey, Virginia.
💻 Visit us at winternetweb.com 

Transcript

Melanie 0:05

All right. Welcome to season two, episode two of the uh Wire Together with Winternet Web. And we're kind of going in a bit more today with trust and accountability. Um big thing for definitely small business. Um business in general, the you're you're definitely selling trust, you're selling your accountability, you know.

Jason 0:32

Right, exactly.

Melanie 0:34

Uh so we're kind of gonna start off discussing like um what's in a name, you know, uh for which we call a rose, you know.

Jason 0:43

Oh right, I was like, yes, definitely Shakespearean, wouldn't we? Right? Yeah.

Melanie 0:48

Um so names are important. Uh naming something, branding something, you know, um it's always fun to kind of find the origin of names.

Jason 0:57

Sure. And we spend billions of dollars on it in corporate, you know, like what's gonna represent us?

Melanie 1:03

What is you know and you really stand tall on something and then you have to rebrand or rename um that gets really uh frustrating.

Jason 1:10

Right, cracker barrel.

Melanie 1:12

So, you know, um kind of wanted to start off a little bit with Winternet Web. Right. Um our names in our name's in the name. Our name is in the name, right?

Jason 1:24

It it's like it's in the name.

Melanie 1:26

And internet is also in the name, which is which is why it was named that way.

Jason 1:30

Between the W's, definitely. It just kind of um kind of happened.

Melanie 1:36

Early on, out of desperation. So right now it is winter. Uh winter is not my favorite.

Jason 1:45

It's cold.

Melanie 1:46

I don't like cold.

Jason 1:47

It costs a lot to heat the house, yeah, expensive.

Melanie 1:51

Um, I can't wear flip-flops. Yeah. You know, things like that. It really bother me.

Jason 1:56

You can. I still see people do it, but no.

Melanie 1:59

I do try to listen to Jimmy Buffett during winter time. Oh yeah. It just kind of makes me at least pretend cyclones.

Jason 2:06

It warms you.

Melanie 2:07

I pretend I've got warm sand under me.

Jason 2:09

Right. I kind of want to hug a palm tree right now.

Melanie 2:12

So, you know, uh, when you first told me your name was Winter, I still remember where we were walking.

Jason 2:18

Oh.

Melanie 2:18

At the dog pond.

Jason 2:19

Yeah, I'm Virginia Tech.

Melanie 2:21

Had no idea that would be my last name. But um, I think it was cool that we took something that kind of seemed maybe cold or distant.

Jason 2:30

Right, in many ways.

Melanie 2:32

And um, hopefully what we did was turn it into something that was, you know, about warmth and fun and something.

Jason 2:40

Right. Kind of gave a new energy, I guess.

Melanie 2:42

Right, and for Winter Netweb, something that you can count on. So that's kind of where I was um going with the the whole naming story.

Jason 2:50

Yeah.

Melanie 2:51

You know, hopefully, uh those who work with WinterNet Web, and uh they do say they do, right, you know, we're we're those people you can count on.

Jason 3:00

So yeah, I would certainly hope so. That's big for us. Service really is right.

Melanie 3:04

We're very service oriented, and and our name is in the yeah, when your name is on your business. It's on the cards on the car, yeah. Right.

Jason 3:13

It's on the LLC, it's on every bit of paperwork, the checks, what have you.

Melanie 3:17

But I mean we even have wine glasses with the name on them. Yeah, right, right. Oh, we've got all kinds of uh decorations we leave up all the time during the year. Yeah, we do says winter.

Jason 3:29

Yeah, like winter blessings.

Melanie 3:31

We don't actually have to put our winter decorations away. We can leave them up.

Jason 3:34

It's our house. And if you complain, you can help us.

Melanie 3:37

We're being lazy. I'm not sure.

Jason 3:39

The jury's still out, but it's I mean, when your name is part of something, it it is very different. I mean, you can't hide, you know, when your name is associated with what you're doing. You can't just say, you know, oh, okay, well, that's not me.

Melanie 3:59

The idea of trust and accountability. You know, we've got our name on it, um, our logo, our name, our brand.

Jason 4:05

Sure.

Melanie 4:06

And so uh for small town that really matters. Um, that you have built something that is through trust.

Jason 4:20

And a lot of times the name comes from a multi-generational stance.

Melanie 4:25

Oh, for many people. For most, yeah. But for many people, yes, um, the name, yes, has gone through generations in in where we live. But you can kind of keep that name up and um, you know our name.

Jason 4:40

Well, you have a tradition and a reputation that's already been built.

Melanie 4:43

Right.

Jason 4:44

And um, of course, there weren't there wasn't a winter here until I got here. Yay. Yay.

Melanie 4:51

And that's exactly what we needed.

Jason 4:53

And I mean we started it back in as you can see from the uh if you saw this from the post from in 2008, and we've probably gone through our own six iterations of the website. Um you know, I mean, obviously what people expect and the possibilities of a website changes with time, and we kind of um laughed and nostalgically looked at how our website was over the years, and it I I think we were just talking, kind of a reminder of I guess how far you've come, you know.

Melanie 5:26

Right.

Jason 5:26

It's like, wow, I remember that.

Melanie 5:28

Geez, you know, you kind of I kind of felt like today we were you know, we've always been pushing that boulder up the hill and and trying to to get there.

Jason 5:38

And that was the conversation this morning, yeah.

Melanie 5:40

Right, and and it was looking back, it was a reminder of, you know, you you don't always look backwards when you just got the mountain ahead of you.

Jason 5:50

Yes, exactly.

Melanie 5:52

And when you look backwards, you're like, wow, I've really come a lot further than I thought, you know.

Jason 5:56

When you realize how many friends and partnerships you've made. Yes. And um that's I mean that's the incredible part of it because I mean and I've worked in in corporate America. Um I won't even say I work, no, I'm kidding, no.

Melanie 6:10

It it's you used to work in RTP, that is definitely.

Jason 6:16

It's like I don't know. It's I don't even know how to put it. Um you just feel like you're yeah, you do feel like you're a number. And maybe others in corporate America have had a different experience, but I really th until you've worked small business and it is your name, it's what you're doing, your passion, you know, it it is different. I you know. But yes, it it comes with its own challenges and everything, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. You know, it's it's it's a part of you.

Melanie 6:52

Oh yeah.

Jason 6:53

You know.

Melanie 6:55

And you know, the build, uh a lot of people um start business. And and you know, the building of the business can be very tough. Um small business, especially you've got a small town or a small community where um you know you're not necessarily coming in new, but some that come in in the the newer sense, you know, um they uh just start off no real name to to jump on for small towns. Um the the kind of concept of if you build it, they will come.

Jason 7:35

Oh right, Field of Dreams, right?

Melanie 7:37

Yeah, the the the whole, you know, that only really works in the supernatural or you know, movie magic of Field of Dreams. Really, if if you build trust, they will come. And so that you know, I feel like that is the reality of the if you build. What you know if you're deciding to start something and you want to really um put it out there, the the main thing that needs to be built, and that's one thing we worry we worry about, we um work on and really consider when it comes to your website when we're doing uh projects for people, right? Is you need to make sure that right in the beginning of their first clicking on your website, first of all, you need to be able to navigate around and and that sort of thing. That's actually the ability to go through your website and navigate well is also building trust.

Jason 8:34

It is.

Melanie 8:35

Sometimes the first thing they see about you is your website, and the building of trust happens immediately, and so you want to make sure that the face of the business is there. A lot of times, if there's a many years or decades worth or even generations worth, sure, yeah, kind of want to go ahead and mention that. You want to make sure that's you want to make sure that's really clear and already set and stage and really early in the website, right?

Jason 9:02

Go ahead and let them know you've done this quite a bit. Exactly.

Melanie 9:08

You know, yeah, this isn't a one and done. We've had um years of establishment, years of clientele, right, the same clientele, because they keep, you know, yeah, enjoying who we are, and that's a wonderful thing. So that building of trust is um it doesn't matter if you're McDonald's or you know, tiny teeny tiny Winternet web. Right, you know, you need to build trust.

Jason 9:32

Right. I mean, it that really does kind of set the stage because it's and and again, if like you're talking about the multi-generational or you know, someone that's been in the industry for a while, and I was saying that 2008 is when we started, which um was it um gonna be 18 years now for us in April. For a web design company that's baby's getting old. Right, baby's getting old. Baby, oh Lord, the baby can the baby's gonna be able to vote. The baby can vote. Wow.

Melanie 10:00

Wow.

Jason 10:00

Yeah, the Winternet web be g b Winternet web babies getting old.

Melanie 10:04

It's really hard to say. Yeah, it is.

Jason 10:06

It is. But I mean uh when in the technology industry, I mean, we've seen how much things have changed uh in the past couple years. I mean, 18 years for a technology business is close to a hundred years of another industry. I mean, really think about it. I mean, painting and putting up walls. Yes, we had changes, you know, or a lot of changes in the the 40s, you had the gypsum boards and all that, and that was an improvement over the horse hair and plaster later. Then of course drywall became I mean, yes, there have been changes, but comparably, it's like it's like we're a hundred years in the industry.

Melanie 10:47

Right, technology has these like big boobs.

Jason 10:49

And you gotta you gotta stay with it, but yeah.

Melanie 10:51

All of a sudden you're doing almost at 180 and you're like, whoa, hold on, let me let me catch up. And you know, yes or hopefully, as we try, stay ahead.

Jason 11:00

Well, and but that's the thing, and I think you're right. It's it's one thing to know what you're doing, and yes, I mean, I I would say we do stay up with things, but equally important going back to trust. Um you can know what you're doing, not but not be reachable. You can know what you're doing, but um not have not to communicate. You can know what you're doing, put something together, but it not be effective. Or, you know, and if people don't trust that, trust is the biggest part. And I feel like our our business model that has evolved over those years has become a full service one. And um, you know, I know some web designers have had different relationships where it's kind of like, okay, well, you know, you do this, you do this, and you contact us if you need this. Well, when it's a full service model, you it's really becomes worry-free, and a lot of it is under our control. And I I don't mean control in the sense that, you know, well, it I guess when I'm getting at the end of the year, controlling what you're doing, you're controlling what we're doing on the back end to keep it. We we want to be able to have access because there are many times we fix things that we get identified through our process, we get a notification that nope, this isn't working right. We take care of it before you even realize it's gone down.

Melanie 12:26

Before your cup of coffee.

Jason 12:27

Right. And, you know, that that gets into how, you know, whose responsibility is it? Well, corporate America will say, well, one, they wouldn't even notice. You're just a vendor to them, and then you need to find out what the problem is and tell them, explain to them what it is in a ticket or whatever, and then you fall into their queue to hopefully it to get resolved. But if you don't know what's going on enough to explain it to them, you're gonna have this tennis match back and forth for several days until they finally go, Oh, well, now you need to do this, or okay, well, we'll get it taken care of. Fine. Now you're done. I mean, because we have access to everything and the knowledge of it, you contact us, say, hey, we're experiencing this, or you know, and it's like, all right, fine, I just need to go in and do this, or I'll go to bat for you, I will talk to you know, whomever's involved, and I'll get it sorted and then I'll get back to you. Right. So it's I don't know, it puts us more on the hot seat, but again, I would rather be there because I mean my name is on it, and if you've interested me to build your website, I'm going to bat for you. Right. You know, I'm taking care of what you need. So but so as far as the full service business model, um a lot of clients that we've learned over the years, you know, they they don't really want to build their own website. I mean, not obviously build it, but manage it, I guess I should say. We do have people that um want to be able to make changes, and we can certainly incorporate that into it. But a lot of our clients kind of say, hey, look, we have a little bit of an idea what we need, but you know, we know we need a website, we handle that for them, but they're like, we're too busy to maintain it.

Melanie 14:19

Right. We want to no-fuss.

Jason 14:21

Yeah, exactly. I mean, right. Just kind of want it want it to go. But with technology, I mean, obviously, problems at any point in time can happen. I mean, it as we've seen with the Verizon recently, I mean, something can go down. And because this went down, now this went down, now this went down, and it makes no sense. I can make the phone call in my house, but my husband can't. I don't have a husband. That was just an example that someone is telling me. Um so problems happen, even with even with good maintenance, stuff is going to happen because technology makes fast, accurate mistakes, as we know, and always at the worst time, um, which we you know kind of give to Murphy's Law.

Melanie 15:02

And a lot of people don't want to deal with the headache, and that's uh totally understandable, you know. You know, it's it's kind of like okay, I've got this much information, I know what I need out there. I actually don't know the rest of what I need to put on a site or whatever. So that's why our powwows are great.

Jason 15:22

Sure.

Melanie 15:23

We're able to really jump in and discuss exactly. Um, and a lot like our client Monday, uh, he thought based on the small amount of information he gave us.

Jason 15:34

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Melanie 15:35

That um and we completely built his site with things he had never thought of to actually put on there that was his services because we knew that it was his his services. And and he, you know, we did our research really well. Yeah, and he was like, wow, I gave you nothing.

Jason 15:54

I gave you nothing, and now we've really all of this together with how this was gonna go.

Melanie 15:59

Because he knew how busy he was.

Jason 16:01

I wasn't sure what you were gonna show me, yeah.

Melanie 16:03

And you know, that's great. You know, that the he was doing what he needed to be. Because his business wasn't our business, you know.

Jason 16:09

Honestly, you should be doing it. I've always said you are busy was very important. You were the master of your business, but I know what I know.

Melanie 16:16

Right. So and so what he was uh able to give us was great, and what we just dug for the rest of it, and um again, we're small town, yeah, we are very close, and and you know, I'm I'm very deeply involved from here and and that kind of thing. Yeah, and and you are very deeply ingrained. And so we know a lot of people and we know the things, um, a lot of the things that they are already doing because we know the culture.

Jason 16:44

Sure, exactly, and and we know the culture of that, you know.

Melanie 16:48

It was it for us, you know, the level of research was kind of entertaining. But it was also, you know, it was a great way to learn his business more.

Jason 16:58

Exactly.

Melanie 16:59

Um, which we love. We love a business that we've you know never touched. We've had to kind of jump into.

Jason 17:05

It's kind of like a vacation. It's uh we get to play.

Melanie 17:08

Right, we get to see what you um, but we were able to to you know help him fill it in a way that he showed his services in a way that he didn't even know was needing to be promoted, but it was, you know, it was a good way to you know showcase how much he actually puts into his business. Right, exactly. And he was putting so much in his business he couldn't actually put that together himself.

Jason 17:31

It seems almost unfair. It's like, you know, you wish you had time to do that, but I mean, I don't have I mean, I I have an HVAC system. I yes, I know how HVAC kind of works, at least in a you know, a a standard level, but I don't work on it. And I rely on them to, you know, if anything goes wrong and or to make suggestions and just say, well, here's what you need, and it's like fine, then you know, you're the expert there. Right.

Melanie 17:58

You know, but it's like certain things like that where you you know your craft.

Jason 18:02

Yeah, exactly. You know your craft. And I love it, you know. For sure. Exactly. But when something goes wrong, I guess it especially within our industry, when you know, if a site goes down or something, what matters is who notices first. And with that also who owns the fix. Again, our name is on our business.

Melanie 18:25

Who has ownership of the fix? I love that.

Jason 18:28

People wiggle away all the time. Well, you know, you you probably need to do this or I don't know, call call this or talk to whoever.

Melanie 18:36

I had the lovely experience of going to the DMV yesterday. Guess who has ownership of that fix?

Jason 18:41

Oh my gosh. Is the building still standing?

Melanie 18:46

Oh my goodness.

Jason 18:47

I didn't know what fix he meant. No.

Melanie 18:48

But yeah, that's that's a really important way to think is who has ownership of the fix. Right. Who is really gonna take that and say, you know what, this is mind fix. Right. That is hard to find.

Jason 19:01

Well, see, when you have a transaction, there's always the assumption that, okay, everything is working 100% right now. But when it doesn't whose problem is that? Oh, well, well, it's it's yours. You know, you need to fix it. Well, you may not know who do you call on? You know, how do you how do you get it taken care of? But with a small business and your name is on it, and of course you partner with people, it many times I feel like if it's the website and it goes down, I have the knowledge of it. I feel like the ownership to fix it is up to me because you know what am I gonna say? Hey, um, you need to fix your website, and here's what you know, if I know enough of what it is, I should do the legwork.

Melanie 19:52

It's our name on it, too.

Jason 19:53

It's our name on it, exactly. But um, and I know in the corporate world, a lot of times they treat situations like Like this, as um events, you know, because to them it's it's like a log event. And um, you know, it's okay, well, and there are reasons why they do that. There's a lot of volume and what have you, but it's not personal. To us, it's personal. It's our name and it's it's our people that we love that we built something for. But, you know.

Melanie 20:23

And and if you go any outside of corporate, yeah, because corporate will eventually fix.

Jason 20:30

Right.

Melanie 20:30

You show it, you uh put it in a trouble ticket or whatever. Um, and they will eventually kind of stir that the snooker.

Jason 20:43

The priority you'll go to two tier two, yeah.

Melanie 20:47

Apparently we we need to deal with the priority. Yep. Um, and then you've got like your more maybe like your DMV, your governmental, you know, where that is more more or less it's relying on you to fix.

Jason 21:02

Right.

Melanie 21:03

But they're gonna tell you every way that you can't fix it. Oh, right.

Jason 21:06

It's like you're wasting my time. Yeah.

Melanie 21:08

It's like, okay. So it's all on me.

Jason 21:11

It's all on me, but I can't do XY.

Melanie 21:13

But I'm gonna have all of the parameters given to me at one time.

Jason 21:16

Exactly.

Melanie 21:16

Okay, that'll work.

Jason 21:18

Yeah. So yeah, it's definitely events, I think it's for corporate providers, but someone that's local, you really feel like it's your responsibility. And um, so we kind of want to go through some common things that happens. You know, we we probably have about a hundred active websites right now. Um, and you know, we see things that come and go. So I think I'm just gonna discuss what the issue is and all that. And I would you, Melanie, would you be okay with um uh I guess performing the corporate response? Because I'm gonna talk about like what we would do versus scrambling, calling this number or sending this email in the corporate response what you would get. Sure. Okay. Alright, so one issue, of course, with websites and all that is you know, the website goes down, right? So from a client perspective, well, I mean, it was up yesterday, but today it won't load, and that's you know, a valid point, you know. It again, it works 100% until you sh done shaking hands, you walk away. So now what happens? So obviously, you know, the client knows they didn't do anything, um, but maintenance always occurs on it with technology, and um sometimes it yeah, updates. Gosh, I mean uh Windows updates, that's a whole nother episode or five. Um, and you know, cause a problem. But someone has to notice it and own it. Um a lot of times there's situations where I'll notice something and fix it before anyone sees it, only because I get notifications. But sometimes something will happen and a client will reach out to me and just say, I just got this screen as opposed to my website. What's going on? I mean, in fact, this I it was just last week a client sent me a screenshot of what happened, and I'm looking at it and I'm like, Oh, this is strange. So I did some research. I'm like, okay, so your domain name is with um a company that rhymes with GoDaddy. I mean, like, really rhymes with it.

Melanie 23:40

Um like you need to even drive. I know, I know.

Jason 23:45

And so I had, you know, I went to bed and used their credentials.

Melanie 23:49

You could have gone anywhere.

Jason 23:50

Went in, I know. I I already could have done something. But anyway, no, I'll throw them on the bus. Um and talked to their support and everything. Without going into all the details, please don't. A change was made in their DNS, okay, which is kind of like all the IP address pointings, if you will. So something happened, and all, you know, long story short, it was not pointing to the website anymore. So I'm going in there, I'm like, okay, so why'd this why was this change and blah blah blah? Told them exactly what it should be. I couldn't make the change through their account for some reason, something was blocked, so I'm like, fine, you need to do it. And they tried to put me through the ringer, and I'm like, no, you won't do this. This is my client's website. Um, in fact, no, um, I was um the client. I logged in as them. So I'm like, no, this is my website, and you need to fix this. And um they finally they finally did based on what I told them to do. So um, and everything worked out fine. But uh again, uh the alternative of that would be the business, the client trying to reach out. I don't know what's wrong, first off, because they may not. I doing some back-end research figured out what the problem was before I asked, but I mean that's why we're here. I mean, this industry is so jargonistic, and there are a lot of I call it the digital wire monster, there's so many pieces that work together.

Melanie 25:26

So, anyway, um Yes, I know some of the things that you say, and it's still so jargony.

Jason 25:33

It is that sometimes I know it is. Charlie Brown's teacher is so alright, so without that is what happened, and that is the huh story that worked out great. All right, now fixed for the client, yeah. Right, fix for the client.

Melanie 25:48

So instead of you being the client getting, thank you for contacting support, we see your website is currently unavailable. This appears to be caused by a third-party update. Please submit a ticket with the plug-in developer.

Jason 26:03

Wa. Oh gosh. Yeah, so yeah, that would be your corporate response for sure. Um, all right, so we're just gonna go into a couple examples here. Another thing that has happened, and in fact, a client that we're redesigning their website for now to hopefully resolve this problem, but your when your contact form on your website just silently stops working. Now, what happens when it breaks, from a client perspective, you think business is slow because you're not receiving inquiries, right? So there's no alert, you know, no warning or anything. And it really becomes missed opportunities because people may be reaching out saying, hey, look, I saw your website, I'm interested in this service or whatever, can you contact me at blah blah blah? But if you never get it, you're just going, okay, what's going on? I'm not, you know, getting these leads. And um so I mean, when you've built a website from scratch, and that's how we started, when you look at you know, the icon or logo that we have for back in 08, we started building websites from scratch. We eventually have now been using industry standard software, but only because it's very difficult to do it all by scratch now. But it allows us to really understand how everything works a lot better. So, um what would the corporate response be on that one?

Melanie 27:42

So if that's gonna be yeah, something that contact form goes down, they can call you. Jason, contact form went down. You know, or or am I not getting something? Or is that a lull, that kind of thing. If they notice first, sometimes we do. Um or oftentimes we do.

Jason 28:07

Right.

Melanie 28:07

And and what do you do? You can go in and fix, like you just said, you know, you know the code, that kind of thing. Right. Uh corporate response, say somebody else calls, and I mean somebody's trying to kind of get this done on the big end. Well, we recommend testing your forms regularly. Email delivery is not guaranteed due to spam filtering. This issue is outside our service scope.

Jason 28:32

Yeah, it sounds that sounds very comforting. And then you don't know where to go. Right?

Melanie 28:38

Right, and then they kind of just like poo-pooed on you.

Jason 28:41

They really did, right? Exactly.

Melanie 28:43

Hey, we have heard this one.

Jason 28:45

Oh, we have, yep. So now you continue to call.

Melanie 28:49

Yeah, exactly.

Jason 28:49

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, good try. You're still gonna hear from me.

Melanie 28:54

Right.

Jason 28:55

Alright, so if your website gets flagged for security or malware, um, this has gotten better recently for actual websites. Um, won't go into the details, I'll try to not drone as much. But um, you've gone to a website before, you see this browser warning saying this website may not be safe. Well, if that's your website from the person visiting it, I mean trust drops immediately. You go, oh. One, trust because I don't want to move forward.

Melanie 29:23

But two, if you're allowing this to be a situation, um what else creates an insecure website also? Exactly. It could be some sort of thing. But you will be very surprised what creates an insecure website. And when a website is insecure, so is the client.

Jason 29:40

Exactly.

Melanie 29:40

The client is all of a sudden very insecure.

Jason 29:42

It's like, well, maybe I don't want to eat it.

Melanie 29:43

Maybe I don't want to touch it.

Jason 29:44

Maybe I don't want to eat the food at your restaurant. Or well, or maybe I don't want to buy your product.

Melanie 29:49

But maybe I don't want to click on your site.

Jason 29:51

Right, but I'm just saying, but as far as the person visiting, if you're not keeping up with this, you've already started with a bit of mistrust.

Melanie 29:58

Exactly. So that's unfortunate.

Jason 29:59

It kind of goes into a lot of stuff. So, anyway, you know, that's something you want to take care of very quickly. I mean, explanations don't matter at that point in time. Just get it done. Um, but I mean, in that situation, babe, what would what would the corporate response be?

Melanie 30:14

Our scan indis indicates suspicious activity. Please upgrade your security plus plan to initiate remediation. Estimated response time is 48 to 72 hours.

Jason 30:26

Yeah, that's blink blink. Yep.

Melanie 30:30

Right. If they can blink, they can't blink.

Jason 30:32

I know, right? Blink blink. Right. I I know, yeah, right, the bots. Bots don't blink. Yeah. It's a bumper sticker, bots don't blink. Um, so I mean, we also have websites that become slow. And, you know, we're, you know, you've clicked on it, and it just takes, you know, while it's spinning. I mean, I know you've done it, and rule of thumb for many years has been if it takes more than three seconds for the site to load, human brain is already done. Either you think, okay, something's glitching, you're gonna hit back button and move on to the next one. You're not gonna sit there and wait because you know, there's so many other sites I can click on. So you're not gonna wait that time. And it's it's very important to make sure it loads quickly. And because I mean, obviously you wanna leave.

Melanie 31:18

And you again would be amazed what lags a site. Yeah, I mean, well, mainly a lot of image optimization isn't considered videos, but not just that, there's a lot of things that'll that'll lack site. JavaScript that uh issues, you know, again, it it and it it's great if you have the know-how to build it.

Jason 31:39

Yeah.

Melanie 31:39

Um, you know, go for it all you want, but as far as you know, certain yeah, certain sites where it's like, you know, well, well, I got this, you know. Yeah, and then you know, well, maybe there's some tweaks that would be helpful.

Jason 31:56

Yeah. Some people, you know, I I can build a site, but you don't realize maybe what decisions are. And if you're relying on a template or whatever, you may not realize a lot of the things related, you know, but um so yeah, and oftentimes the fix is simple, but if you know what you're doing, it's not something you want to face. But yeah.

Melanie 32:16

It can be difficult.

Jason 32:17

It can. So I guess in in that case there, um, what's the corporate response?

Melanie 32:24

Website speed can be affected by traffic, hosting resources, and third-party services. We recommend contacting your hosting provider for further investigation.

Jason 32:34

Oh, that sounds like you're not gonna get anywhere that day. And uh, I guess the last one we're gonna get into is, and this is kind of timely, uh, if you're listening here with in our local region.

Melanie 32:47

Um larger than local. Um, it seems to be Yes, it is a big swath.

Jason 32:52

They're looking at for changing.

Melanie 32:54

The four-letter word that starts with S. Oh, but in the play gonna say N O W. Okay. Uh is gonna be uh they say all over the South, but I think the bottles keep changing around, so we'll see. Yeah, and um we're all gonna be stuck or we're all gonna get nothing.

Jason 33:15

That's exactly right, which is usually the case. But the whole reason about that is talking about emergency changes that need to go live now. I mean, we have we have clients that may want to, you know, they have to close because of weather. And sometimes, hey, hey, can we get a banner? And we build this into a lot of our sites that we do, making it very easy to do so. Some of our clients manage it themselves, some of them reach out to us, hey, can we put this verbiage on there? So, yeah, weather closures. Um staff shortages sometimes show up, but that's another thing that it's like, hey, look, we got this going on. Can you let people know? Any last-minute change. But um, yeah, last-minute change in the corporate world.

Melanie 33:58

Last minute personnel change.

Jason 33:59

Well, yeah, that's it. You never know when that's gonna be. Exactly.

Melanie 34:03

And and something has to be timely sometimes, and it's not always timely.

Jason 34:07

I needed it done yesterday. Right. Right. So, what's the corporate response?

Melanie 34:11

Content updates are processed and the order received. Please allow one to two business days for changes to be reviewed and published.

Jason 34:19

One to two business days to review a last minute change. Yep, that sounds about right. So, but I guess those are some examples of some of the common problems. And I mean we could try to summarize what we've talked about. I mean, we talked about obviously our names on our business, uh, we are local, the advantages of that. We love dealing with, you know, local businesses and people that forefront service.

Melanie 34:49

We are uh ventured, we have definitely ventured out even in the international.

Jason 34:54

Oh yeah, no, definitely. Yeah.

Melanie 34:55

But with the because local's a mindset, I guess.

Jason 34:59

Local's a mindset.

Melanie 35:00

Not necessarily um because the even in the international cases, they were from areas where they wanted that real customer service.

Jason 35:11

Yes, they wanted the connection.

Melanie 35:12

And then they wanted that connection. You're exactly right. That is how they found us. Yeah. And then that was uh and we were s able to make connections with people that we have never actually laid eyes on. Sure. And unfortunately have never been to their uh beautiful establishment. Oh, I know. And you know But um that it it's a mindset. It is a mindset. It's not necessarily just localized as far as that's a good clarification. It's not that we do, because we do far beyond the local. Right.

Jason 35:41

It's not like we only deal with people 60 miles from us, no, but local in the sense that the more of that then our name is still on it, right?

Melanie 35:51

And whether you're from Jamaica, whether you're from London, right? We want to make sure that states away.

Jason 35:57

Yeah.

Melanie 35:58

When our name is on it, that still matters to us because our regular people are saying that too. So it's it's still our name still matters.

Jason 36:06

Exactly.

Melanie 36:06

And so that's a lot of um why a lot of people have found us through that.

Jason 36:12

That's right. So, well, I mean, uh we haven't had Miles in here yet, and I know Miles has been listening.

Melanie 36:20

So we let Miles listen and he stayed quiet. That's good.

Jason 36:25

Yeah, I know. He and we made him a lot to say, and we just, you know, um, we'll have some other games and segments, but we just kind of wanted this content put out there. So, um, you know, we're gonna get Miles a talk now. Um, hey, here's your moment with Miles.

Miles 36:47

What all of this really comes down to is this technology is not the hardcard. Trust is. Websites break, updates fail, forms stop sending, security warnings pop up. None of that is shocking. What people remember is how it felt in the moment when something went wrong. Whether they felt ignored, confused, or blamed, or whether they felt covered. In small towns, names matter because reputations last. You cannot hide behind a brand or a ticket number. Your name is attached to your work, your word, and how you respond when things break. That's why accountability is not a slogan, it's a daily practice. Corporate systems are built to process volume. They log events, they assign case numbers, they move problems along a workflow. That works fine until you're the one whose site is down, whose phone is not ringing, or whose customers see a warning screen. Local service works differently. Someone notices, someone takes responsibility, someone fixes it and then checks again later. Not because it's in a policy, but because it's personal. That's the difference between managing technology and standing behind it. Between being a vendor and being a partner, between a name that sounds cold on paper and a name people trust when it matters. At the end of the day, people are not buying updates or hosting or plugins. They're buying peace of mind. They're buying the confidence that when something goes wrong, someone they know has it handled.

Melanie 38:12

Oh. Well, that worked out really well. He was listening. I know.

Jason 38:17

I was about to say the same thing.

Melanie 38:19

Great job. A moment with Miles is a new concept that we came up with, and I am and shocked that he did so well.

Jason 38:26

I mean, it's kind of like your Jerry Springer's final thought, but it was uh a lot more eloquent and um probably a better better content anyway. But um, yeah, I was rather surprised by that.

Melanie 38:42

That was great. Good job, Miles.

Jason 38:44

Yeah, I know, good job. So, well yeah, I mean I just I think we pretty much covered this here. We've been going through, we made a Facebook post, so we're going through some of the pieces related to that, and um, we're gonna focus more on other areas of you know, I guess small business and I guess why we do what we do.

Melanie 39:05

And and connection.

Jason 39:07

And connection is always part of it. Yeah, I mean it's uh I don't know what I'll do without you in this business. I mean, we have certainly uh um you know it it it we call it the Winter Net Web Baby. We do, we made our baby. It's our third child, right?

Melanie 39:25

And it's actually like our first child, but well, yeah, technically it's our first child.

Jason 39:30

Yeah, 18 almost. Can't believe it. But yeah. So that's gonna wrap up this episode here, and we just want to thank everyone for their support. Um and it's you know, please, if you can, review and share uh these episodes. It really does help the algorithm with reach. We're seeing different countries, different, you know, cities that you know are seeing it, and uh really think that's because of your effort. And um but yeah, unplugging for now.

Melanie 40:04

But always stay connected.