Competing with oversold companies

I run my webhosting company off a VPS server. <<snipped>>
I am continually confronted by customers woundering why I offer so little diskspace whenc ompanies like ******.com are offering 1TB for a few dolalrs/month. I dunno how to convey the message that anone offering 10GB/month for 1-3$ is a completely oversold host. Only solution I can come up with is oversell my own stuff, but I really dont want to. Any advice?





Last edited by anon-e-mouse : 12-27-2008 at 05:15 PM.

Explain to them how ***.com company will be suspending their account for the slightest overuse of their system and other things along that line.

I remeber seeing once someone made a nice guide that explained how people offering "unlimited" or crazy high amounts were rediculous. Anyone have a link to it?

My firm targets a different segment than yours (namely dedicated and soon VPS) but the challenge is the same. You have two options at this point: either you play the game or hang on to a certain model but back it up with action.
So what are the main things that customers look for in a host?Quality of support
Price structure
Available resources

Instead of promising 1TB space and 10TB bandwidth, Focus on providing quality technical support. Get tickets answered promptly and fully. Be friendly with customers. If a customer is short on space for example don't push for a package upgrade. Be generous and give them an additional 50MB for free without involving sales/billing. There are many other things you can do to make the customers like your firm.
This becomes a chicken and egg problem. How do you show generosity? Good support is difficult to convey through a Web page for instance. Well that's when you have to be creative.
Best





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One statistic you can use is the customer's actual usage. Chances are they don't use anything near what the oversellers claim to offer, so you can speak to them about real usage - where the theoretical possibility of vast storage and bandwidth at the overselling host is reduced to no actual advantage - and then move the conversation to the stability and reliability of a host who does not oversell.





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Quote:



Originally Posted by brianbak


I run my webhosting company off a VPS server. http://stealthyhosting.com
I am continually confronted by customers woundering why I offer so little diskspace whenc ompanies like ******.com are offering 1TB for a few dolalrs/month. I dunno how to convey the message that anone offering 10GB/month for 1-3$ is a completely oversold host. Only solution I can come up with is oversell my own stuff, but I really dont want to. Any advice?


Overselling isn't all that bad. You may want to give it a shot. Many people will argue that “overselling” equals poor hosting service but this is actually not the case when it’s managed correctly and the proper staffing is in place. Even though these types of packages are not suitable for high-traffic websites, most webmasters know their website capabilities and know if their website is suitable for a shared hosting package.
That's just my thought on it.





Last edited by kazila : 12-25-2008 at 11:49 PM.

Hi,
It takes a lot of experience and cash to do overselling well.
I'd recommend competing on quality support and customer service.





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I would just explain to the client about the overselling in a nice friendly manner. Maybe you should find a few helpful links in these forums to provide to your clients if they ever ask about companys who oversell. I've done that in the past and I believe they were able to understand overselling afterwards. However, it won't convince them to definitely purchase hosting from you. It is just a method to inform your clients about overselling.





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