As we all know its a fine line between providing support for your services and your services supporting certain pieces of software.

A client came to me wanting to know if a fairly generic photo gallery script would work on our servers, looking at what it required I was able to say fairly confidently that it would work.
ANYWAY, later on I get an email from him saying "how do I make this work on your server?" With my response being "please read the user documentation that comes with the software"

Where do you draw the line and how do you deal with clients trying to get you to help them out with their software?

As we all know its a fine line between providing support for your services and your services supporting certain pieces of software.

A client came to me wanting to know if a fairly generic photo gallery script would work on our servers, looking at what it required I was able to say fairly confidently that it would work.
ANYWAY, later on I get an email from him saying "how do I make this work on your server?" With my response being "please read the user documentation that comes with the software"

Where do you draw the line and how do you deal with clients trying to get you to help them out with their software?

I host with fluidhosting and can't recall how many times John, Dave or Hary helped me with an issue. Most of the time it seems to be John stuck with me. :D Sometimes I even felt a little guilty since they do have an item in their TOS (I think there) that says they charge to help. They do help, but I also brag about them, so it goes hand-n-hand.

On the flip side, I deal in software... I'll get some people emailing me about anti-virus or other software not even remotely related to my software... I help them anyway.

Basically it builds a good relationship with your customer. Of course, you don't want to be attempting to help someone build a custom script... but if it takes less than 30 minutes of help, that might pay off in the long run.

I host with fluidhosting and can't recall how many times John, Dave or Hary helped me with an issue. Most of the time it seems to be John stuck with me. :D Sometimes I even felt a little guilty since they do have an item in their TOS (I think there) that says they charge to help. They do help, but I also brag about them, so it goes hand-n-hand.

On the flip side, I deal in software... I'll get some people emailing me about anti-virus or other software not even remotely related to my software... I help them anyway.

Basically it builds a good relationship with your customer. Of course, you don't want to be attempting to help someone build a custom script... but if it takes less than 30 minutes of help, that might pay off in the long run.

I couldn't agree more. If it is something basic, then it's worth helping a customer because he will be happier in the end, which is good for any business.
For instance right now I offer dedicated servers, which are completely unmanaged (will be introducing managed too, due to people asking for this) and I found, that people buying those servers are no administrators and 99% of the time (there are really no hardware / network issues) I end up helping them configure the software on the server (which I don't have to do, but it feels nice to help someone when you have the time and it is good for a small hosting company like mine to get happy customers).

But I mean, yes, writing a custom script doesn't fall into any support category a hosting company provides, so this is a bit excessive. Installation and configuration issues I think are ok to help with.

I used to more lenient with this sort of thing, but after a while customers tend to take it for granted. Instead of seeing it as good service they think of it as standard service, and may even become indignant when you remind them that dealing with unsupported 3rd party software is outside the scope of the service you provide, and therefore costs extra.

Therefore, I stick pretty tightly to the TOS, and only make an exception if I know they will appreciate it and not abuse it.

I couldn't agree more. If it is something basic, then it's worth helping a customer because he will be happier in the end, which is good for any business.
For instance right now I offer dedicated servers, which are completely unmanaged (will be introducing managed too, due to people asking for this) and I found, that people buying those servers are no administrators and 99% of the time (there are really no hardware / network issues) I end up helping them configure the software on the server (which I don't have to do, but it feels nice to help someone when you have the time and it is good for a small hosting company like mine to get happy customers).

But I mean, yes, writing a custom script doesn't fall into any support category a hosting company provides, so this is a bit excessive. Installation and configuration issues I think are ok to help with.
Right on the nose. To me, It doesnt seem logical to potentially damage a relationship over installing a simple script or install something easy. For every little thing you do for your customers, your customers will do 10 more back. :P

I would help my clients if its something simple. But if its a costume script im sure there is Documentation for it and other support.

- Prilep :D

Right on the nose. To me, It doesnt seem logical to potentially damage a relationship over installing a simple script or install something easy. For every little thing you do for your customers, your customers will do 10 more back. :P

So, basically what you're saying is that the word gets out that you offer free debugging of 3rd party software/website development and programming time - and you get more and more customers needing this unpaid, free help. How is that helping your business?

Seriously, I am more than happy to point customers in the right direction. I'm even happy to do a quick 2 minute fix on something. However, I always make sure that the customers know that website development issues are *not* included with their technical support for free. Time is money and when you start handing it out freely, people expect and demand it.

--Tina

So, basically what you're saying is that the word gets out that you offer free debugging of 3rd party software/website development and programming time - and you get more and more customers needing this unpaid, free help. How is that helping your business?

Seriously, I am more than happy to point customers in the right direction. I'm even happy to do a quick 2 minute fix on something. However, I always make sure that the customers know that website development issues are *not* included with their technical support for free. Time is money and when you start handing it out freely, people expect and demand it.

--Tina

Well said, Tina. I couldn't agree more!

I also want to say that I learned from experience. I used to have the same attitude as many here, that doing a little bit of extra debugging here and there was building a good reputation and helping people in the process. However, after awhile I found that customers got very demanding with the free help. Its very hard, once you start, to back up and say "Now, this isn't included for free." You'll end up with a customer suddenly feeling like your service is slipping and not as good as it once was. Also, you'll find that you can't offer that kind of help by yourself - so you end up hiring another person(s) to take up the slack. Do you know of anyone who's going to work for free? You're now paying someone else so that you can give away services to your customers.

You have to look at the overall cost-effectiveness. Cost -vs- gain. Cost (time/money). Gain (more customers expecting free help).

--Tina

So, basically what you're saying is that the word gets out that you offer free debugging of 3rd party software/website development and programming time - and you get more and more customers needing this unpaid, free help. How is that helping your business?

Seriously, I am more than happy to point customers in the right direction. I'm even happy to do a quick 2 minute fix on something. However, I always make sure that the customers know that website development issues are *not* included with their technical support for free. Time is money and when you start handing it out freely, people expect and demand it.

--Tina
True, but I didn't hear you complain when I offered to help you when you took over Buy a Vps ;)

By no means will I debug someones script.. I code PHP and I completely understand how much hair I could loose if I started doing that.. What I do/would do is just simply help them install the script. If it doesn't work for me, I'll look and see if its a connection issue (wrong logins, etc) if it still doesn't work, I tell them to consult the vendor..

For instance; I just had a order for a Quad Core, Dual Xeon Server - the customer wanted HyperVM installed on it.. Since I am familiar with it, and they are not-so familiar, I will step outside my scope to give them a hand. They understand that I will not manage it and I will not manage their customers but I will be there to help support hypervm.

I am not suggesting helping with script debugging or providing programming help. The thing I was talking about is some configuration of the server. If programming help was requested I would have sent the customer to a site providing programmer help. Script installation I think is a bit different. In the initial post it was mentioned, that the script would run on the server (for sure), thus installing it would not need any debugging.
But, I think my perspective is a bit different. If I were providing shared hosting I might look at things differently, as you serve more people and get more requests. It is much harder to get the same amount of customers selling something expensive dedicated hosting. From my perspective it is good to keep customers happy, because I have few.

True, but I didn't hear you complain when I offered to help you when you took over Buy a Vps ;)



I never said that you should never help anyone for free. That's not my point at all. There are many times that I've given services away at no charge, to help out a person in true need. Helping people in general, in life, is certainly not the same as giving away your services on an ongoing basis to customers. There's a huge difference between good karma and bad business sense.

--Tina

Where do you draw the line and how do you deal with clients trying to get you to help them out with their software?
Each customer must be supported. IIf you want to grow you must find possibility to help each customer.
demand determines supply
You have to find a niche and concentrate on it.

So, basically what you're saying is that the word gets out that you offer free debugging of 3rd party software/website development and programming time - and you get more and more customers needing this unpaid, free help. How is that helping your business?

True, but I didn't hear you complain when I offered to help you when you took over Buy a Vps ;)



Classic... :D

I never said that you should never help anyone for free. That's not my point at all. There are many times that I've given services away at no charge, to help out a person in true need. Helping people in general, in life, is certainly not the same as giving away your services on an ongoing basis to customers. There's a huge difference between good karma and bad business sense.

You sound like a politician...

I fail to see how it is "bad business sense" to help a customer. As everyone has already stated, you can't spend five hours on an issue, but maybe 10 to 15 minutes. If the person gets abusive, then take action...

In business the 20/80 rule is always in effect. In my case, I might email Fluidhosting maybe once or twice a year with an issue that requires help... I'm hardly going to "take the business down." I doubt if most of their clients will... if asked to pay, I would... without issue. The requirement to pay is clearly listed on their site. But if asked to pay, I'd figure it was a complex issue.

Funny thing is that I'd bet my last dollar that you would help a customer if faced with this issue. I doubt if your advertising is: "host here, but we won't help you with a 10 to 15 minute issue." If that is the case, I don't see how you are still in business. I think you are getting "small issues" and "large issues" mixed together. On second thought, I really think you are attempting to play the "devil's advocate" role, and it backfired.

This thread is about helping people with THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE - which we don't do for free. Period. If you "don't see how we're still in business" - I can tell you that its reasons like that we are STILL in business. Because we know it costs money to run a tight ship. However, as I said, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't help people (customers or not) in need. I could pat myself on the back all day long over how I've helped people but this isn't what this thread is about. Its about debugging 3rd party software for free for your customers.

I'm not sure if you remember, but we took over the BuyAVPS fiasco at great expense and with the sole intent to get people's data back who'd lost it when the former owner stopped paying his server bills. We had 2 very generous people offer to help these people as well, Platinumn23 being one of them.

We're still not making a profit on it and probably won't for quite awhile. Maybe eventually we will (I would hope), but I don't know of any sane person who would take over a company knowing that there would be almost no customers with it at the dollar amount that we have invested in this. This is precisely the scenerio that I was referring to earlier about helping people truly in need. Again, this is not the same as giving away your programming/webdevelopment services for free, in hopes of gaining more customers looking for free programming/webdevelopment.

--Tina

Doing the odd job is fine. But you need to look into what resources you have available. If you/your techs have nothing to do, then it is OK to help out.

However if you are busy, then simply tell the customer that this is outside the scope of hosting support and point them in the right direction.

For us, if we get a ticket requiring custom work which is outside the scope of our hosting, then we kindly tell the customer. In some cases, we tell the customer that we will put the ticket in low priority and on hold. If a tech has time to attend to it, then they will, but we make it clear to them that they may never get a resolution on the ticket and it may be closed after a certain period of time.

In which case we may offer to do the job for a fixed fee. We may do it ourself, or subcontract it out to someone reliable we have on file.

But you need to be firm on your stance on what is covered and what is not if you receive too many requests.

If it's a case of simply installing / configuring a script then all of the info on their account and settings should be available to them through your control panel and support pages so you should be able to refer them to the relevant info.

Like Tina we went through this experience in the early days and I can promise you the more you help people the more they will take advantage - then you get to the point where they are relying on you for everything and are too lazy to do anything themselves, when you eventually *do* say no they get offended and threaten to bugger off elsewhere !

Many people open a hosting account that haven't any real clue what they're doing and it's these you really need to look out for as they will suck all of your time away.

Just point them to the info they need and let them get on with it, you then end up with happy customer that has learned for themselves and really acheived something and has the confidence to do it themselves next time. Do it for them and you'll be doing it forever.

(give a man a fish / give a man a net etc.)

Going beyond your defined service limits to help a customer will always help build a loyal customer base that refers other people to your service.

If you do go beyond your service limits, I'd make the customer aware of the fact that we do not provide installation/debug help as part of our service, but you are going to go ahead and help him anyway.

If that client consistently demands such services from you, start charging. But for 90% of clients, that wouldn't be the case and they'd be more than impressed by your service if you do help them out occasionaly

So, basically what you're saying is that the word gets out that you offer free debugging of 3rd party software/website development and programming time - and you get more and more customers needing this unpaid, free help. How is that helping your business?

Seriously, I am more than happy to point customers in the right direction. I'm even happy to do a quick 2 minute fix on something. However, I always make sure that the customers know that website development issues are *not* included with their technical support for free. Time is money and when you start handing it out freely, people expect and demand it.

--Tina

Agreed! :agree:

We are another host that used to help clients install and configure 3rd party software for free. We also used to help them setup funky mod_rewrites and assist with custom programming problems.

It started out innocently enough, until we were getting so busy I had to look into getting more staff, but my revenues had not increased at all. After looking into it, the same 2 dozen or so clients emailed on a near daily basis with stuff that was outside the realm of regular support.

We still go above and beyond the call of duty now and then. But we also actually charge clients for a lot of extra work now. It's not only had a significant impact on support ticket volume, it made a significant impact on the income stmt. And according to our recent customer survey, our clients are quite happy.

Hi

Doing thing for free is never a good policy. Tina is 100% percent right: a too good service can kill your business as fast as a poor service will do. But troubleshooting a 3rd party script for free, even if your TOS explicitly says you won't do those things, is good if you can turn it around; such as the customer perceives you are doing him an extremely unusual favour. The key thing is in those 2 words: unusual and favour.

Never let the customer get used to freebies. Complain a little bit, tell him the price of the service and offer a one time 'exception'. And then do it. This will make him feel unique and satisfied, and won't try to repeat it the following day. Which at the end, is what you are looking for: customer satisfaction and word of mouth.

Q

I think a big difference here can be seen in the posts by members who have a large customer base, and members who have a small customer base.

It is simple, quick and easy to provide software debugging service when you have only a few hundred customers.

But if you have more then that... it becomes a major issue, and it's not likely you are going to hire someone to do this work for free.

In other words, if you have the TIME to do it for free (fewer customers), then go for it. However, if your time is limited (since you have more customers and more "real" support to do), then you'd be crazy to give away this free service, since it will cost you slower support time for other customers, or you must hire someone to do the work.

I also want to say that I learned from experience. I used to have the same attitude as many here, that doing a little bit of extra debugging here and there was building a good reputation and helping people in the process. However, after awhile I found that customers got very demanding with the free help. Its very hard, once you start, to back up and say "Now, this isn't included for free." You'll end up with a customer suddenly feeling like your service is slipping and not as good as it once was.

That's an interesting point, Tina. Such free help may need to be given in a way that clearly indicates that it's being offered when it does not have to be, and strictly on a time-available basis.

Alternately, perhaps a small additional charge would be a useful way of policing the system? A flat fee, or a generated fee based upon the scope of the request?

-Mike