Our team follows a systematic approach to identify and resolve issues as fast as possible on your behalf. We prioritize getting the site back up and running as soon as possible, as well as discovering the issue and ensuring it doesn’t cause more problems in the future.
Our response process
We monitor all care plan sites 24/7 and typically identify issues before our partners or their clients do.
Our on-call team is distributed across time zones to provide coverage:
- Daily coverage: 6:00 AM to 3:00 AM ET (3:00 AM to 12:00 AM PT)
- Response times: During covered hours, we begin investigating immediately. Between 3–6 AM ET (12–3 AM PT), there may be delayed response times as this falls between our team coverage windows.
Here's what happens when we detect downtime:
- Immediate triage: We verify the issue is genuine and not a false alarm.
- Root cause identification: We determine exactly what's causing the downtime.
- Communication and resolution: Depending on the issue, we either fix it directly, contact you, or reach out to your client with next steps.
We create tracking tasks for all incidents, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Partner involvement
As a rule, we try to follow the most efficient route so that a site is restored as quickly as possible. Sometimes this means communicating directly with your clients, but you’re never out of the loop!
- You’ll receive Slack notifications for incidents on your client sites.
- We’ll loop you in when we need your input to resolve an issue or if we can’t reach the client directly.
- You can always check incident status in your Slack list.
See How we use Slack for communication and management for more about how to view active tasks in Slack.
How to help us help your clients
To ensure the fastest resolution:
Keep client contact information current in the Partner Portal.
Help us reach clients who aren’t responding to our outreach.
Include alternate contact methods (i.e. phone numbers) in case email is down.
Respond promptly when we reach out via Slack.
Common causes of downtime
While there may be unique issues that cause a client’s site to go down, most often the cause falls into one of the following categories:
Domain registration issues
What happens: The domain name has expired or is about to expire, taking down the entire site.
What we do:
- We look up the domain registrar and verify it matches what's in our Partner Portal.
- We reach out to your client directly from your white-label email address with renewal instructions.
- If we don't hear back within a business day, we follow up.
- If still no response, we'll reach out to you via Slack to see if you have alternative ways to contact them.
When we contact you vs. your client: We contact the client directly for domain renewals, but will loop you in if we can't reach them or if the situation escalates.
Hosting problems
What happens: Issues with the hosting provider, whether due to billing, server problems, or capacity limitations cause a site to be offline.
What we do:
Our response varies based on the root cause.
For billing issues:
- We contact your client directly from your white-label email with login information and payment update instructions.
- We follow up daily if we don't hear back.
- If still unresolved after multiple attempts, we reach out to you via Slack for alternative contact methods.
For hosting provider outages:
- We verify the issue with the hosting provider's support team.
- We notify your client from your white-label email that their host is experiencing issues.
- We monitor until resolved and send confirmation once the site is back online.
For capacity/DoS issues:
- We contact the hosting provider to confirm the cause.
- We gather site statistics (disk space, bandwidth, traffic).
- We reach out to you via Slack with a recommended hosting plan upgrade, including pricing.
- Once you approve, we contact your client about migrating to our hosting for better reliability.
- If they approve, we handle the migration process.
When we contact you vs. your client: We contact clients directly for simple billing issues. We contact you first for capacity issues and hosting migrations to align on recommendations and pricing.
SSL certificate errors
What happens: The site's security certificate has expired or isn't properly configured, causing browsers to display security warnings.
What we do:
- We attempt to manually renew the certificate through the hosting control panel.
- For sites on Valerian hosting, we work directly with our hosting support team.
- For external hosts, we contact their support team to resolve.
- If we can't resolve within 15 minutes, we notify your client from your white-label email that we're investigating.
- If still unresolved after 45 minutes, we escalate internally and keep everyone updated.
When we contact you vs. your client: We handle SSL issues directly with hosting providers and notify clients of the investigation. We only loop you in if we need escalation or if there are unusual circumstances.
Security issues
What happens: The site has been compromised by malware or hackers.
What we do:
- We use our security tools to automatically clean infected files.
- If automatic cleaning fails, we file a ticket for manual cleaning by our security provider.
- We update all plugins, themes, and WordPress core.
- We change admin passwords.
- We notify your client from your white-label email about the incident and resolution.
- We re-scan the site after 4 hours and again the next day to ensure it stays clean.
- If the site is re-hacked, we add additional security layers and investigate further.
When we contact you vs. your client: We contact clients directly about security issues and their resolution. We only loop you in if issues persist after multiple cleaning attempts.
DNS configuration problems
What happens: Issues with domain name system (DNS) settings that tell browsers where to find the website can cause disruptions.
Most commonly, this occurs when DNS records have been modified incorrectly, either by the client, their IT provider, or during a service migration. Less frequently, it can be caused by DNS provider outages.
What we do:
- We identify where DNS is hosted using WHOIS lookup (checking nameservers).
- We determine whether it's a provider issue or a configuration problem.
For intermittent outages (site goes down and comes back up repeatedly):
This typically indicates a DNS provider or domain registrar issue. These can take up to 24 hours to fully resolve.
- We contact the DNS provider's support team to confirm if there's an ongoing outage.
- We also verify with the domain registrar's support if needed.
- We notify your client from your white-label email about the provider issue.
- We monitor until resolved and send confirmation once the site is stable.
For persistent outages (site stays down):
This usually means DNS records have been changed or configured incorrectly.
- We escalate internally for advanced troubleshooting to identify which records are incorrect.
- We notify your client from your white-label email that we're investigating.
- We may need to ask if anyone made recent changes to DNS, domain settings, or hosting.
Common DNS mistakes that cause outages:
- Changing nameservers without updating DNS records at the new provider.
- Deleting or modifying A records that point to the hosting server.
- Incorrect CNAME records for www subdomain.
- Enabling CloudFlare proxy (which causes conflicts with our hosting’s built in CloudFlare service).
When we contact you vs. your client: For provider outages, we notify clients directly and keep you informed. For configuration issues, we may reach out to you first to understand if any recent changes were made (hosting migrations, SSL updates, etc.) before contacting the client. Complex DNS troubleshooting often requires internal escalation and may need input from both you and the client.
Communication Flow
Contacting your client first is sometimes the quickest route to a solution. However, we’ll sometimes start with you when it’s difficult to get in touch with a client or when we need information that your client isn’t likely to have.
We contact your clients directly when:
- Domain registrations need to be renewed.
- Hosting or domain billing needs to be updated.
- Security issues are detected and cleaned.
- Technical issues are being investigated or resolved.
We contact you first when:
- We need alternative contact methods for unresponsive clients.
- Capacity issues require hosting upgrades or migrations (to align on pricing).
- Complex technical issues require escalation.
- We need partner input on recommendations.
We never want you to worry about what happens when we communicate directly with your clients. You can be assured that we always:
- Send communications from your white-label email address (you’re always CC’d).
- Maintain your brand voice and relationship.
- Keep you informed via task tracking and Slack notifications.