Hi guys,

I think I've found that nightmare client.

We do not offer phone support. Like a lot of small hosts, we cannot afford to do so. He demands phone support.

We recently moved onto new servers, investing in the lovely control panel Helm. Not good enough for him.

I spent two and a half hours talking him through setting up his email through the move- even almost hand delivering email from the new server while the nameservers propigated. Still not good enough

Him: Why was I not given prior notice of this move?
Me: We emailed you a week ago. We emailed you again yesterday with comprehensive details and guides to help you through. We're at the end of an email, livechat and forums.
Him: Couldn't you have done this at the weekend?
Me: It wasn't possible because of the sheer volume of accounts

We were moving over just over 400 accounts from servers with no control panel (fasthosts) to Helm. That meant transfering all the data, backing it up, setting up all ODBC, stats etc by hand, providing the customer with full details passwords.

Could any small company do that in a weekend?

The guy then emails me this morning with another complaint. He's received a spam email this time, and he's now suggesting we give out his details to third parties.

ARGH!!!! :angry:

And best of all, we're hosting him for free. For a (and in heinseight a costly marketing gimik), we offered a deal whereby if they bought a domain through us we gave them free hosting for 12 months.

They get no less support than anyone else, there are no popup ads. We try very hard, and 99% of these people are very happy. Not this guy!

We don't do free hosting anymore.

I'm stuck with him. He doesn't have a clue about the internet. Moving him to another provider would be a nightmare.

I suggested to him he needs a paid provider. I know he's not going to understand this and get angry.

Help!

Send him a termination of account email ;)

Refund the domain payment - recommend a paid host, and send him on his way. Your losing too much money supporting him. He's not worth it.

Give him no reason - suggest that he has a month to find the new host. Ingore email's from him than on.

For example I had a customer send in an issue to our support dept. that said he was having issues with ASP - I asked questions to zone in on the problem - none of my questions were ever answered he just kept updating with it's still not working, etc. I ended up just cloing the ticket off with "Please open a new ticket - or answer my above questions"... I was getting pissed off big time with this customer - some customers arn't worth the $10/month (or whatever ;))

Or free...yeah.

It opens up a whole issue for me. Providing the free hosting when we first started (18 months ago now - eek!), really was a good thing. We got the interest, and I can name so many clients it's actually been a PLEASURE serving for free. I know they'll renew on a paid package, good business.

But then there's been the couple who have ruined it. This guy is one of the main reasons we stopped doing the offer. I couldn't stand the prospect of any more of his sort.

Guys like these want something for nothing, and are the type that quite frankly turn the business world into what it is- because the business world is wary of these kind of person.

Going from your AUP

CreativeSell reserves the right to cancel the service and access to the service at any time. In this event customers will be entitled to a pro rata refund based upon the remaining period of membership. If a customer contravenes CreativeSell's terms of service a refund will not be issued in the event of a cancellation.

I would invoke that

Rus

Every reason to get rid of him ;)

I support you 110% - i've done it before too.

Ouch and so demanding. I guess there are some people who are like that, you try to do something nice and not only do they not appreciate it, they demand more but not willing to pay squat for anything.

The only problem is, this guy is too THICK to understand. I don't joke when I say getting the domain in his ownership would take weeks. Telling him where to go is one thing with a termination notice. Actually getting rid of him is another thing!

See in his little head, he paid £8.95 for his domain. I am quite sure he cannot differentiate between domain registration and a hosting account :/

Send notice, disable the account. Whats there not to understand?

Rus

. . . We do not offer phone support. . .. . . He demands phone support. . .Just say no. He's gotta go.

LOL, just got a reply from him:

"Didnt realise the service was for free - thought I was paying an annual
charge"

As I thought!

Incidently he's worried about spam appearing in his inbox. Aren't we all!!?

Originally posted by [inx]Olly
LOL, just got a reply from him:

"Didnt realise the service was for free - thought I was paying an annual
charge"

As I thought!

Incidently he's worried about spam appearing in his inbox. Aren't we all!!?

Even if he thought he was paying an annual charge, the cost of a domain for one years hosting isn't worth the time you are spending on him.

Sorry mate i have to disagree 100%, if he was paying $1000/month would you be singing a diff tune? yes.... you offered free hosting, you made your Bed now your have to lie in it. Actions have conquered, just because he is not paying is no reason to cannel his account and don’t like the new panel.

We offered free hosting with no guarantees.

This guy wants round the clock support and monitoring. If he values his email that much, then he should consider paying for it.

If a supermarket are offering free samples, I'm not going to spit it out in their face because I don't like the taste. I take it for what it is (free) and move on.

And note, we haven't put a foot wrong. The guy is accusing us of selling his email address (doesn't bother to read our privacy policy). Nothing we do IS right. If he was a PAID customer, no-one takes that kind of treatment. And how many free hosting companies do you see offering ANY kind of support, compared to the round the clock support we've kindly given him off our backs?

I've dealt with one or two customers like that before. Two options:
Ignore some emails - this can however damage the rep if u offer quick support etc. But the effect is, slowly and gradually, he'll stop emailing. He may even cancel which can be a good thing. Alternatively, delay responses. Let him know that you prioritise your support to make it more efficient. Deal with real problems, and then deal with him when u got the time.

Clearly state whos fault it is: It looks like he's just looking for some1 to blame. If it's not your fault, make it clear whos it is. It's even better if its his. For example on the spam situation, he most probably entered his e-mail on another site and it got distributed.

Be firm with the customer: Let him know that his requests aren't practical. Educate him maybe. Make him aware that he is being a pest, and let him know that you don't tolerate unfounded accusations. Tell him to go educate himself. Instead of answering things directly, just give him a link to the appropriate webpage which could help him out.

Obviously, he paid for the domain and expects quality support. But when the customer doesn't allow you to provide quality support, its another story and can damage the support you give to others. Whats the opportunity cost of having this client? In your eyes, is it actually worth having him? If not, be firm, but polite and professional when letting him go.

Originally posted by bradshaw
Sorry mate i have to disagree 100%, if he was paying $1000/month would you be singing a diff tune? yes.... you offered free hosting, you made your Bed now your have to lie in it. Actions have conquered, just because he is not paying is no reason to cannel his account and don’t like the new panel.


Agree, you should say in the start:

Hello

We give free hosting if you get domain from us, but do NOT expect any kind of support!

Well, mabye not like that :D but something like that.

We did....

So if you did what is a problem.

Just tell him:

Ok when we did you acount, bla, bla, bla


OR


You can do some support on him, but offer him limited support. If he doesn`t like it he will go, but do NEVER, NEVER, say to your customer to go!! That can cost you many customers. One bad letter in news group or something and you are done. (If you are a small host)

Another option is to offer a paid support plan for your free accounts... Add a service for $9.95 per month and define what it buys you. Then tell him you won't offer him any support at all without that plan. In this way, you give HIM the option of having no support, or paying for it. Of course, in this case, you don't want him to buy it... my guess is that he won't.

Originally posted by bradshaw
Sorry mate i have to disagree 100%, if he was paying $1000/month would you be singing a diff tune? yes.... you offered free hosting, you made your Bed now your have to lie in it. Actions have conquered, just because he is not paying is no reason to cannel his account and don’t like the new panel.

You have a minimum level of support you offer (well not you but whoever) and every customer should get the minimum level you give everyone, but nothing says you can't give more than minimal support to someone paying high dollar and refuse to give EXTRA support to someone paying very little. As long as everyone gets what you guarantee at the minimum.

And from this account this guy is not only asking for but basically demanding extra, however to be devil's advocate he might not know any better and I would spend some time explaining how it works and what he can and can't expect at this price. We've had more than a few customers we've had to educate on what we do and don't supply them, most are fine once they know the ground rules, and a few have gotten pissed and left, this is how things work sometimes.

Go ahead and get set up so you can release the domain to him ... do this now. Pay for it if you have to, what would it cost to transfer the domain? A few minutes of your time? $10? $30? $100?

Whatever the amount is, figure out what he COSTS YOU in man-hours - give him his domain, AND a refund and send him on his merry way.

I would take the honest approach - sometimes it pisses people off, but if you give him his money back and the domain for free what can he do? Tell him that while you do your best to provide the technical support he requires, you feel his needs would be better satisfied by a larger company. Recommend a couple of hosts you don't like (haha) and let him go.

Recommend a couple of hosts you don't like (haha) and let him go.
Hehe ;)

Originally posted by [inx]Olly
...
And best of all, we're hosting him for free. For a (and in heinseight a costly marketing gimik), we offered a deal whereby if they bought a domain through us we gave them free hosting for 12 months.
...


I enjoyed reading your post, and indeed, this was the best part :D
Since you already went beyond what you offer, tell him once that you can no longer support him. Or ignore his mails, like someone said - this will take care of the problem within a week.

regards,

Transferring the domain is easy, just open up a UKReg account in his name, transfer the domain to it and give him the login details.

With UKREG, don't you have to stick in CC details first though?

Get rid of him, we've recently been moving accounts and had some customers who have been having a lot of "problems" with things, and the spam issue etc but they are all paying customers and get the support they pay for.

One major reason why i would steer clear of offering free hosting, the only people i have given free hosting to is friends and even they can be a complete pain sometimes.

I've "fired" maybe 4 or 5 clients in 4 years. In every case it was worth it.

I had one of them talk bad about us, I'll live with that.

It shouldn't matter if it's a free or paid account. You should offer every client the same quality of service. However, you should be realistic and make a simple business decision, does this client cost me more than I make or does this client damage the quality of support I can offer all of my clients.

In this case, it sounds like he's already used a years worth of support, why would you hang on to him. You will just keep losing money even if he pays. Not good business, it damages you as a company and could threaten your other clients.

I still say the best way is to make him think he's outgrown you ... tell him that you feel his needs would be better met by a larger company, give him his domain, and send him on his way.

I doubt he would bash you for that.

If time has come for you to separate your relationship let the client know in a short but simple way:

Hello x:

For the past (year, month, whatever) we have provided you with free hosting. Currently we are no longer providing this service. Over the past (year, month, whatever) we have both mutually benefited from our business relationship but it appears at this time we must discontinue our relationship. From your past communications it appears you are generally dissastified with our services and while we respect your opinion we disagree with your conclusions concerning our management of your hosting. As such as of (some date) we are terminating our services for you.

We will provide you hosting for the next week (or whatever short period of time) so you may adequately choose another host and transfer DNS information. After that time we will reclaim your space on our servers. While we do not easily come to this conclusion it appears we would both be better off with this solution.

Sincerely,

xzy host

--You also might want to give them a couple other free hosts and a couple other paying hosts for them to choose from.

Originally posted by tazd9t9
One major reason why i would steer clear of offering free hosting, the only people i have given free hosting to is friends and even they can be a complete pain sometimes.

Even friends? Friends are the worst! Especially when they deliberately act extra-difficult in order to "train" you to deal with your "real" customers. :D

Hi,

Even if he is ready to pay you for hosting infuture. whether, will it be possible to provide round the clock phone support for him at that cost. Hope either you have to make him understand or simply send a termination notice

Regards