I have been a crm developer for many years and I am throwing around the idea of developing a crm product specifically for web hosting companies. It would integrate marketing, sales, support and help desk functions, providing one view of the customer and catering conscientiously to web hosters specific needs and requirements.

Do you think something like this would be useful to you as a web hoster?

Would you pay for it? How much?

Are most web hosting companies too small to find use of such software?

What features would you want it to have?

Thanks for your input.

Sincerely,
Shanon

YES it would be useful. Take a look at the popular packages out there now: phpManager, PerlBill, ModernBill. These packages combine customer serveability with useability. There is always room in the market for more.

A feature I would like to see is same pricepoint as phpManager with recurring billing and domain registration integration. I hope I'm explaining things correctly or I'm at least on the right track. I'm tryping this through one eye....very sleepy.

I think if you want to target the companies that browse WHT, you're probably looking to get 50-100 USDs for it. Anything more than that and it's getting close to the cost of hardware which could help them host more sites.

CRM is useful and for some companies it can be an asset. But far too companies that I've seen don;t utilize it correctly and their "ROI" is probably negative.

I've done a bit of work with Siebel, GoldMine, ACT, and others. PRISM by inovaware is something that is geared to the hosting/ISP market but its way too expensive.

Somebody that can use a real CRM package is probably the size of Verio with tens of thousands of customers, but for small shops with less than 1000 customers, its really not worth the development investment.

"Somebody that can use a real CRM package is probably the size of Verio with tens of thousands of customers, but for small shops with less than 1000 customers, its really not worth the development investment."

Thanks Anantatman, that's kinda the feeling I'm getting. Taysoft charges $30 for phpManager. At those prices I'm probably better off flipping burgers. CRM packages generally sell for $1000s and require that for a ROI. It really is a lot of work.