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Support and Reselling
| Posted by dahammer2, 06-19-2002, 08:46 AM |
| Hello All
THere must be alot off small business people here who resell who don't have the capacity for a dedicated support staff.
I wondering what approach you take to customer technical support in this case?
Do you search for a reseller who provides support for your customers. Or while small do you simple offer business hours support (assuming your customers are in a similiar time zone)?
If your resell for hosts who provide unbranded support who are they, I'm curious about this.
For myself I have existing local clients (within the same city) who are loyal and signing them up to business hour support would not be a problem. Most will ring me between 7am - 10pm in any case. But I'm thinking I could branch out and who am I to refuse hosting requests from overseas customers?
Comments please?
Hamish
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| Posted by Everyday, 06-19-2002, 11:48 AM |
| You might just try telling them there is nothing other than emergency support between 10 pm and 8 am. Then just get your self a pager and link it to the server so if it goes down you'll be alerted.
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| Posted by DynastyHost, 06-19-2002, 12:28 PM |
| Customer support is a big issue for resellers. Some resellers do not have the experience needed to run a web hosting business, that is why they're running into problems. Others, are doing very well because they know what they're doing.
I have both types of resellers. The ones that are doing very well does not need to have a dedicated support team. They're using the online support desk or email support.
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| Posted by hostpath.com, 06-19-2002, 03:17 PM |
| Simple:
www.bobcares.com for 24/7/365 customer support for just $2.00 per account per month for resellers. Guaranteed 1 hour response and 6 hour resolution times. Imagine removing yourself almost completely from the support issues that go with running a hosting company.
I'm not affiliated with BobCares in any way, except that I have researched them thoroughly and find that they have a very satisfied customer base.
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| Posted by Everyday, 06-19-2002, 03:23 PM |
| I would do some searched on bobcares. We have picked up a lot of customers who's host used them. We've never used them but there have been some bad posts not here but in other forums about them.
Just do your research.
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| Posted by barrywien, 06-19-2002, 06:02 PM |
| Hello Everyday
I would be grateful if you could send me links to these negative feedback threads on this other forum you where talking about. We are thinking about signing up to BobCares at the end of the month and these threads could put us off.
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| Posted by hostpath.com, 06-19-2002, 07:35 PM |
| barrywien:
Make sure you look for the positive ones, too. I've done a load of research on them but you yourself should never make a decision without checking it out thoroughly for yourself.
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| Posted by Dave-A-M, 06-20-2002, 10:14 AM |
| dahammer2:
I am in the same boat you are. I have not put my live site up yet, but I do have a small local customer base already and like you said, business hour support with them is not a problem. I have been wondering the same question and the only solutions I can come up with is email support (response/resolution guranteed within particular amount of hour(s) is nice also).
I am still deciding who to join to resell with. Leaning towards pixelseven, but they do not offer any type of unbranded support (that I know of).
My guess is, if there is a major problem, a few hours downtime for example, shouldn't whoever you or myself is hosting with, get some answers from them, and pass that along to OUR clients?
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| Posted by Everyday, 06-20-2002, 10:32 AM |
| In all honesty guys unless you are portraying yourself as a much bigger company, which is entirely possible Simply put that there is 24 hour emergency support and then that tech support is between particular hours. Your customers will appreciate that rather than you saying you have true 24 x 7 support but really don't.
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| Posted by barrywien, 06-20-2002, 10:43 AM |
| You can employ people to do your support work for you even if you are a start up firm. Everyone wants dedicated support staff with a decent responce time but not everyone can provide it. I must agree with Everday, simple dont advertise 24/7 support as people will not be happy if they email a problem through at 10pm at night, and you do not reply until 10 the following morning, thats 12 hours of downtime if it was a server problem. I would publish a pager number, or get your emails redirected to your mobile device so you can come online and solve the problem as soon as you can. If not, then get something like BobCares.com to take care of your support problems.
Or if you are slowly expanding pay someone from a different country (different time zone) on a per ticket basis. If most of your customers are from your country then you will only get a few support problems during the night of which your support guy in the different country can handle them and you pay a small fee per ticket to him. That would probably work out cheap, but would probably expand as people signup to your service around the world.
thats my 2p for today Hope it helps
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