I have a problem. Big deal you may say, we all have problems. But I will try to explain and then tie it in to being in business, staying on top of everything (because if you don’t, who will) and making sure your business runs as smooth as possible.

Sometimes it’s easy when you have a website to just forget about it. It’s always there. I have worked pretty hard to get stuff on there and set up a store and such. And when it’s working, it’s a wonderful thing. People can view what you offer all over the world and at any time of the day. How cool is that? However….when there is a problem, it can be a nightmare. Welcome to mine

When you have a store set up, you need what’s called an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate is digitally "signed" by a certificate authority that web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox) already trust. This allows the web browser to verify the identity of a secure site before sending private personal information, such as bank account or credit card numbers. I used to just have my web person do all this crap for me and never worry about it. But then when it expires, you need to get a new one and install it so people can safely purchase items. This seems easy but to anyone but a computer geek, it’s not so easy. That’s why I used to just have my web person do all this, but I like to have more control over things and also save some money by doing it myself. I did this last year myself and it went fine. But you can’t have an online store without one these days. You see, when an SSL certificate runs out, a visitor going to check out on somebody’s store will get an alarming error message that says….hey don’t buy here, this site is unsecured. So a customer gets out as quickly as possible. Well, I don’t want that to happen to me, so I remind myself to renew it around January 1^st. It happens that it runs out on the 10^th.

However, we have been moving and fixing up a new shop. We were doing all kinds of stuff to get ready for a January detail training class so I wasn’t concentrating on much else the last few weeks except getting this shop ready. When I finally remembered I needed to do this it was the day before the SSL was to expire. Great, I am just in time. I like to make a call and make sure I know exactly how to do this before I go exploring into my web hosting administrative program. I call the web hosting company and I tell them I need a new SSL (they never reminded me). I asked them how to go about getting a new one installed and asked them to walk me through the process. I wanted to do this myself because again, I like to control my own stuff and actually learn more cool computer stuff. The web host company says do this, then this, then this, paste the code (I actually do know what that means) and it’s done! Great, I am thinking. I did it with one day to spare. But it couldn’t have been that easy, could it? It wasn’t of course. Something happened where I never got emailed the very important code. They said I would receive the code in 24 hours. I never got it. Luckily I didn’t forget. I called back. I got put on hold forever then I had to explain everything. They say its installed and working fine. I asked “Are you sure?” I was supposed to paste a code in, after I received an email containing the code, and I never got it. They said it was OK. It wasn’t. I tried to buy something off my site and I got this gigantic red error message saying my store is unsecured. Holy shit! What’s going on? Nobody can buy anything. The old SSL had now run out and the new one wasn’t up there. But the key thing here is that I (and nobody else) had to stay on top of this. I tried to see what a customer would see and I didn’t like what I saw. But the web hosting company never actually checked. I guess they were too damm busy or they just don’t give a shit, or they think like computer geeks and not smart business people. That’s the problem also. So I inform them it’s not installed. So another day had gone by and I was making another long and exhausting call to tell them they were wrong.

They give me a ticket number (kind of like a repair order) of the whole issue so I can call back and reference if needed, but they said they would look into it and get back to me. This started Monday, the 11^th. By Wednesday (after not hearing from them of course) I call back. I tell the entire story to somebody else who puts me on hold to read the ticket. I am on hold and on the phone for another hour. They tell me that there was a “free” SSL installed but it had a different domain address (that’s why it’s free) than what a visitor gets taken to in my store. Luckily I understand “domain” names, and URL and such. This “free” SSL would mean a visitor checking out of my store would manually have to type in the URL or domain into the address bar to get to that secure part of my site!!!! I am so appalled that these idiots would actually think that a customer would ever do this, or know how to do this. So I calmly (well…. not really) explain that this is not what I want and that 99.999999999 % of everybody on the planet would never do what he explained to me. So I told him that I needed an SSL so your average customer can just buy a fucking product without being a computer geek! The way I figured out I still had a problem was by seeing all the error messages when I try to buy something. My question to these technical geniuses was, why can't you “pretend” to be a customer and see what I am seeing and every visitor to my site would see. Its not rocket science to check it out, right? Was I asking too much?

So this guy (another technical support guy) says I need to purchase an SSL so a customer can buy something “easily”. No shit Sherlock. I am WILLING to pay for it. Just tell me how I can fucking do it. He tells me this and that, and by now I am an expert at navigating the administrative part of the web hosting site. I buzz through it and BUY the new SSL as I thought I had originally done. Again he says I will get an email with the code that needs to be copied and pasted in the box before it’s installed. OK no problem. But now it’s Friday evening the 15^th. I have just taught a class for the last 2 days and I am tired and this is the last thing I wanted to do, but you do it because you have to. So I get the email with the code. I go back into admin (I know exactly where I need to go now because I have dome it like 5 times) and I paste the code in exactly how they told me to and I click “next step” to finish the process and end the nightmare. Oh, but not so fast. A big red error message comes up that states the code is not for that domain name. What??? You are kidding me right?? But I can’t proceed so it’s on the phone again. It’s now Saturday the 16^th at 6PM. Like I need this shit. I go through another explanation to another technical guy who puts me on hold and I end up on the phone for another hour. They again say THEY will take care of it and install it themselves without anymore issues. I am hopeful (what else can I be?) but not really confident. I don’t ask for a phone call back (I know I won’t get one) but I wait for an email saying it’s fixed. I do get that email early morning on the 17^th. Great it’s fixed! But the first thing I do is go to my site, pretend to be a customer and try to buy something and go to checkout. It’s still fucked up! This time I get an error message that states that the SSL was posted for another websites’ address. What??? These guys installed it, not me. How did they fuck it up again?? Now I am really pissed off. It’s Sunday and the only saving grace is that they are open 24/7. I guess they have to be if they fuck up this many times! I have a couple of different domain names that point to my site (now I sound like a compute geek) but that means that my site looks the same with 3 different names that can be typed in. So I am assuming that they posted the SSL to the wrong domain. That’s my hope anyway.

So another call, another long time on hold, another explanation telling them what happened and how unhappy I am. Luckily I had enough self control not to curse them all out. There is still yet another technical, computer geek problem. I won’t go on to explain that. But I finally got some kind of manager person to help me but it took 4 more days to get it fixed correctly. I was on the phone every single day with these guys for a week and a half trying to get to the bottom of it all. Who knows how many people tried to buy something and backed out when they saw a big red unsecured error message? I know I would have. They didn’t quite seem to understand that so much….or care so much. I learned a bunch of new computer stuff from this mishap as well as a much more important lesson. You really need to stay on top of things yourself. If you get lazy and assume somebody else is taking care of it….you could get screwed.

Why did I share this story? I debated about telling you readers that for a week and a half my store was unsecured. That’s not something people want to hear and I didn’t want to advertise it. It’s not good for business. However, it will bring me to my next article about how many other jobs you do (and hats you wear) as a business owner. You always need to stay on top of things. Always! You can’t assume people know what they are doing until they prove it to you and you can trust them. You need to learn different things and be aware of so many other issues that are involved in owning a business. Yes, we got into detailing cars and hopefully you love doing that. But if you think that all you will ever do is detail cars if you own the business, you better read this again! There are so many things that you need to be aware of….other than detailing cars. You can save so much money, learn so many new things, develop new skills and broaden everything in your life by getting involved in other operations of your business. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. I will talk about that in the next blog. I hope you had a few laughs. It wasn’t really that funny to me but maybe it made a good story. Thanks for reading

To visit our detailing website servicing Alpine NJ and surrounding areas, please visit www.njautodetail.com or our training, products and equipment site at www.kleencarauto.com