Last week my business was taken out of commission for three and a half days owing to a huge outage at my former hosting provider. I promised you that I would tell the whole story and also that I would tell you who the provider in question was.

The summary of the tale can be found over here, and I’m not going to say it all again because with just one click of your magical mouse you can go read it for yourself without me having to repeat it. If you want the sordid details, go read the whole thing. If you want the summary version, just stick around here.

Here’s the Cliff Notes: The provider was WiredHub, and I am talking about it not because I’m out for revenge or holding a grudge, but because I think it’s important to spread the word about gross failures of customer service like the one I experienced.

First, I think it’s important for companies to know that they cannot treat their customers badly and expect that there will be no ramifications. The natural consequence is that people talk. What’s the old expression—make a customer happy and he tells one person, but make him unhappy and he tells ten? There’s a reason that happens. And while I understand that no one is perfect, no company is perfect, there are certain rules of engagement which I think are basic courtesy. If you screw up, apologize. If you can’t do that, well, people are going to talk about you on the internet. Sorry.

Second, I did learn some important things through this experience that I think everyone running her own business needs to consider. In the last week I’ve had to reevaluate how I handle backing up my data, how I select who I’ll trust with my websites—while I’m not quite ready to consider this a “blessing in disguise,” I’ll cop to being grateful for some of the changes I’ve made. If you’re in business for yourself, consider this a cautionary tale. What are your disaster recovery plans if the unthinkable happens? If you don’t know the answer to that question, start thinking.

Additionally, perhaps the clearest lesson I get to take away from this experience is that you cannot underestimate the impact a colleague or business partner may have on your ability to conduct your career. I put myself in a position where I hadn’t adequately researched my hosting provider, and their failure brought my business to its knees. Conversely, my new service provider went above and beyond the call of duty in getting me up and running again, and I am now singing their praises to anyone who will listen. (Need hosting? Go to Fusix! We love Fusix!) And Work It, Mom!’s own Nataly let me—nay, encouraged me—to use this space to vent, to post deals while Want Not was down, and generally do whatever I needed.

All of that is part of the story, too. I think that it’s important to share our experiences, in general (why else does a writer write?), but for solopreneurs I think it is especially important to communicate to one another where we’ve been let down, and where we’ve found support. This is how we can improve our community for everyone.

And now… let us never speak of it again.