What if you have 250 clients on a server, how many support e-mails will you get a day(assuming there has been no major disaster with the server)? Would it be around 2%, 20%, or what?
And how long on average does it take to answer the e-mail?

P = Percentage of E-mails daily
T = Time in minutes it takes to answer an email

((250 * P)*T)/60 = Total time in hours it takes to answer support emails per day

any one want to give it a try?

It's impossible to calculate because neither P or T is a constant....

No, they are not constant. But, by asking a number of people to share their experiences, we might be able to come up with an approximation.

The support equation is that a guy with with 250 clients with a stable server would average like 60-75 tickets a month if they are using cpanel. Alabaza it is lesser (around 40-60). Some other panels and no panels it is higher.

Also the average time to solve an issue ranges from 25-40 minutes. Now this may seem high but usually the client writes, then tech writes, then client says thanks and asks another set of questions so it takes longer.... ;)

This may vary from month to month but over a period of one year this is quite correct.

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Originally posted by bobcares
The support equation is that a guy with with 250 clients with a stable server would average like 60-75 tickets a month if they are using cpanel. Alabaza it is lesser (around 40-60). Some other panels and no panels it is higher.

Also the average time to solve an issue ranges from 25-40 minutes. Now this may seem high but usually the client writes, then tech writes, then client says thanks and asks another set of questions so it takes longer.... ;)

This may vary from month to month but over a period of one year this is quite correct.


Great number! What better person to answer this question than the technical support person himself :)

Actually it is very interesting to compare various control panels in term of required customer service effort. I think nobody has done this before (at least not publicly available).

Now I'm going to count our numbers to see how we compare with cpanel or alabanza :)

The number of requests per users is also very much influence by a couple of other key factors.

First, how good a job you do of setting up and maintaining your servers.

Two, the quality of your on-line help and knowledge base.

Three, the ease of use of not only your control panel, but also any additional tools you include in your plans.

By doing things professionally and right up front, selecting the right control panel, offering the right options, you can influence the number of support requests greatly.

Also, add in dependence on the platform...sort of like CP, but some difference.

Additionally, length of time customer has been with host has a very large influence.

Some numbers from market research we conducted.

Overall averages...

First month average about 1 incident per customer.

Second month about .5.

Third month about .3.

Beyond third month about .2.

But when you look deeper at specifics, numbers get wild.

Lowest incidents per account we found were at a Cobalt Host. Spread over all customers they were averaging around .12 incidents per account. Key was great setup, only one supported product, and very good knowledge base.

The high was at a Windows 2000 Host catering to large, sophisticated users with lots of ASP, MS SQL, and ColdFusion. They averaged 3 incidents per account per month.

Now when you compare to price, keep in mind the Cobalt average price was around $5, the Windows 2000 host around $100. But another factor, the Windows support required a higher level of knowledge and experience and the average Windows support took twice as much time. So, all factors considered you get the following.

The Cobalt .12 incidents per $5 spent. Cost/incident $4.00. Support as % of Sales dollars =
.12 x 4 / 5 = 10%

The Windows 3 incidents per $100 spent. Cost/incident $12.00
Support as % of Sales dollars =
3 x 12 / 100 = 36%

Overall average- .25 incidents per $20 spent. Cost/incident $8.00
.25 x 8 / 20 = 10%.

u should put not more than 90 users domain name in a server box. In terms of bandwidth and server throughput, 250 users in a server will definitely decrease the quality of service, performance and server reliability.

just have bobcares.com take care of ur support :-P

Originally posted by Joelly
u should put not more than 90 users domain name in a server box. In terms of bandwidth and server throughput, 250 users in a server will definitely decrease the quality of service, performance and server reliability.

It all depends on the specification of the server, and the kind of sites on the server.

Granted, a lower-spec server, with 90 high-traffic, script heavy sites will be about the maximum.
But a higher spec server can host 250 domains with no problem, if they are lower traffic sites.

Regards
Matt