I had been a customer - for a decade or more - of a company that WP Engine acquired. A couple of years after the acquisition I began to get persistent - VERY persistent - calls and emails from their ‘product specialists’ who were determined to get me a “better deal”.
It turns out that their idea of a better deal was to move me onto a more expensive plan with lower limits than the plan I’d been on for 10+ years. They kept trying. I kept saying “I’m not interested”. But I got tired out of their constant spamming. So I left.
Over my time with them I’d spent somewhere in the region of $40k I think. I referred a fair few people to them as well. Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things I realise, but you’d think it would count for something. Apparently not.
I’m no longer a customer of WP Engine. I could have stayed another ten years. I’m taking my next $40k and spending it elsewhere.
I was a customer of that same company that was acquired by WPengine. It had the highest ever performance benchmarks and customer approval until WPE got hold of it. I had also used WPE a couple of times earlier in its history. The service has always been bad. The business model has increasingly become squeezing the customer far beyond the point where any meaningful quality can be delivered. This year support has turned from aggressive upsells to aggressive blaming the customer for simply running the same software they've had in place for over a decade. WPE has a lot of shared hosting hidden behind its marketing cover. Classic old multitenancy problems. No one with any technical awareness and experience in WP hosting will say different. I ran into a former Flywheel tech at WCUS and heard their story of the dumpster fire that is WPE from the inside. Not surprised they fired a contributor from saying WPE as an employer discourages contributing to WordPress.
I really loved Flywheel. Everyone I interacted with from sales to support was extraordinary. It must have been very sad for the folk working there to have the company gutted by WPE.
It turns out that their idea of a better deal was to move me onto a more expensive plan with lower limits than the plan I’d been on for 10+ years. They kept trying. I kept saying “I’m not interested”. But I got tired out of their constant spamming. So I left.
Over my time with them I’d spent somewhere in the region of $40k I think. I referred a fair few people to them as well. Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things I realise, but you’d think it would count for something. Apparently not.
I’m no longer a customer of WP Engine. I could have stayed another ten years. I’m taking my next $40k and spending it elsewhere.