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  1. #1

    * How to recover from bad reviews

    Fist don't let it get under your skin, just remember your not going to please everybody so try your best to improve your company and products. Remember you are here to please the customers and in the big picture you will overcome your problems and build as you go. Your company is an extension of yourself but your company is not only you it is a mix of your products and your expectations of your clients. Keep posting, try new ways to provide customer sanctification and just remember the customer is always right.....

  2. #2
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    No, the customer isn't always right and in this industry in particular, that attitude will land you in hot water fast.

    Customers need to know that you are clued up and have the knowledge, experience and clout to provide the service they are paying for.

    It's about keeping the customer who has submitted a negative review on-side. Never think of a (genuine) negative review as a bad thing. It's an opportunity and unique insight in to what needs improving and how.

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    If you have suspended a user they might get angry and lie about you. So you have to treat every review different.
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    Always reply to every review good or bad if possible and be honest and put your side accross.

  5. #5
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    Well for someone to offer this advice yet they did not recover very well from this poor review

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1150093

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    Most -ve reviews and customers are end result of selling cheapest and trying to win the market. Avoid that and you will prevail.
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    Quote Originally Posted by markgrannum18 View Post
    ...your company is not only you it is a mix of your products and your expectations of your clients...
    I do not believe the customer is always right but I see many moaning at being suspended for not being able to use the quotas they paid for in good faith and have every right to complain.

    Quote Originally Posted by markgrannum18 View Post
    Your company is an extension of yourself...
    Hosts not offering unlimited storage and bandwidth is a move in the right direction to cut down complaints.

    Greed kills!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Martin-D View Post
    No, the customer isn't always right and in this industry in particular, that attitude will land you in hot water fast.
    The phrase doesn't literally mean the customer is never wrong, it just means you should treat the customer as if they are right and do what you can to rectify the situation, even if you know they are wrong.

    Yes a customer may be wrong but wrong customers have money to spend as well.

  9. #9
    I treat my customers as family so if they not happy I am not happy. I am now using Kusia advice by not trying to selling cheapest. Reviews help you to look at your company to see what is good and what needs improving, hostgator gets bad reviews for overselling but they provide 8 million domains and help lots of people in other ways like jobs, and business opportunity such as luring how to be a reseller. Wisenerl feel free to come back down to earth its only one customer, one review I expect more in the future. Enjoy

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by byezan View Post
    I see many moaning at being suspended for not being able to use the quotas they paid for in good faith and have every right to complain.
    Can you point to one of the "many" for an example of being denied hosting resources while abiding by TOS with an up-to-date account? (not counting host error).
    Last edited by Collabora; 05-05-2012 at 09:53 AM.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Collabora View Post
    Can you point to one of the "many" for an example of being denied hosting resources while abiding by TOS with an up-to-date account? (not counting host error).
    It's not hard top find examples of what they meant, heck the first page of the shared hosting links to this thread:

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1152162

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    Quote Originally Posted by markgrannum18 View Post
    Wisenerl feel free to come back down to earth its only one customer, one review
    lol, that kind of goes against what you posted in starting this thread? You responded to a negative customer review as if he had told you everything was fine when it fact it was really not.

    You either have a serious issue in understand English or are unable to actually see when something is not right, or both.

    You have a very long way to go before you should even be offering hosting services never mind posting advice or suggestions. Spend more time listening.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    The phrase doesn't literally mean the customer is never wrong, it just means you should treat the customer as if they are right and do what you can to rectify the situation, even if you know they are wrong.

    Yes a customer may be wrong but wrong customers have money to spend as well.
    If you bring on a customer just for the money, you're going to have problems, no doubt about that. You can't give every customer what they want or need, if you try, you will fail. The best you can do is figure out exactly what niche you fill, exactly what kind of customers are a good fit for you, and stick to it. The best time to save yourself from a negative review is during presales. It's pretty easy to spot a customer that won't be a good fit for you, and if you encourage them not to sign up, you can save yourself a huge headache down the road. The customers I've signed up against my better judgement tend to use up 10x, 20x or more of my time compared to a typical customer, while also being less satisfied and more likely ultimately to cancel their services (or be kicked out by us). If you discourage these customers from signing up in the first place, by pointing out that your service doesn't sound like a good match for their needs instead of saying "sure thing we can handle any request", you make your life better and their life better, and potentially avoid a bad review before it happens.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    The phrase doesn't literally mean the customer is never wrong, it just means you should treat the customer as if they are right and do what you can to rectify the situation, even if you know they are wrong.
    I disagree. There is a right way and a wrong way of telling a customer they are wrong, it doesn't have to be a negative response or condescending. Your customers need to know that you're switched on, that their data/business is safe in your hands. If you're just sitting there kissing ass constantly they wont feel reassured and will move elsewhere. No-one likes a kiss-ass.

    I've told customers on numerous occasions that they were wrong despite them being 110% sure otherwise. If you take your time explaining the problem, perhaps even where they went wrong, and how it's fixed (then fixing it yourself) not only are they happy the problem was resolved, but they learn a little in the process making your life easier in future because next time, they'll know what to do themselves.
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    If you bring on a customer just for the money, you're going to have problems, no doubt about that.
    There is too much fear here of a negative review, it is not the end of the world and potentially a massive chunk of your customers will never even see it, it's simply a chance for you to show that you are professional and you can actually end up gaining customers from a negative review.

    If you plan to keep a business at a select few people then sure enough you can turn away customers just because they don't seem 100% what you want, but if that attitude keeps up your business will never grow to be as successful as it could be.

    I'm not saying you will never refuse business, there are many valid reasons to refuse a sale but IMO "you don't think they are perfect for your business" isn't one of them, it just shows you need to reach out further.

    The point of business is to make money, not friends. You may make friends along the way but you are in it to make money, no matter how else you sugar coat it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin-D View Post
    If you're just sitting there kissing ass constantly they wont feel reassured and will move elsewhere. No-one likes a kiss-ass.
    Great customer service is not the same as ass kissing, far from it. I can speak to a customer and explain why they are wrong without actually telling them they are wrong. People complain mostly because they think they have been wronged and someone simply listening to their queries and telling them they will bear them in mind is a great tool.

    I'm not saying you should tell them they are right either, right or wrong should never enter the conversation. Any other business works on this principal, too many people here just think being rude to the customer and cutting ties with anyone who complains in the best option and that is wrong. Your business needs constructive criticism to succeed, these people are the ones paying your wages so if they are unhappy, it's your job to help them to a resolution.

    Complainers are normally the ones who tell other people. Talk to a complainer and get them to a resolution that is good for you and them and you are much more likely to end up with them telling people about their good experience instead.

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    I'm not suggesting being rude or outright confrontational is the correct course of action. Essentially you're saying the same thing as me just in different words

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by markgrannum18 View Post
    I treat my customers as family so if they not happy I am not happy. I am now using Kusia advice by not trying to selling cheapest. Reviews help you to look at your company to see what is good and what needs improving, hostgator gets bad reviews for overselling but they provide 8 million domains and help lots of people in other ways like jobs, and business opportunity such as luring how to be a reseller. Wisenerl feel free to come back down to earth its only one customer, one review I expect more in the future. Enjoy
    When a negative review brings up valid points that need to be fixed, it is important that the host fixes those issues.

    I read the negative review about your SonWebHost brand in another thread:
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1150093

    The reviewer says the following negative points: (these are copied and pasted from the other thread)
    1) Their system is not ready for customers. None of the functions in the reseller panel worked.
    2) They only offer 1 template. Centos 5.7.
    3) They use Pentium 4, 3ghz dual core from 2004. (Northwood) for their vps nodes.
    4) amount of ram didnt match the info

    Those are pretty brutal. The quote about you telling the OP to install debian over CentOS using SSH was my personal favorite part of the thread. I needed a good laugh, and that comment delivered. But seriously, the thread is beyond a simple negative review. The OP laid out a case for why SonWebHost is not ready to offer services in this industry.

    To which you replied:
    "Thank you gentlemen for your review I look forward to providing long lasting and better service to you and your associates."

    The proper answer would have been a detailed explaination of how you were going to immediately improve.
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  18. #18
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    After all these years a few things I have noticed over here and the way I counter them personally and boils down to the following.

    1. We are here to make money and its pure business, so make sure you do by marking up good profit and not underselling or undercutting profits.
    2. Always deliver what you promise and advertise if not then you are not following point 1.
    3. Dont try to hide behind your computer and sell online only. Go local thats your main bread and butter and long term customers.
    4. Earn good and invest good in technology, and customer service.

    Follow above all and you will never see a negative review.
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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kusai View Post
    1. We are here to make money and its pure business, so make sure you do by marking up good profit and not underselling or undercutting profits.
    2. Always deliver what you promise and advertise if not then you are not following point 1.
    3. Dont try to hide behind your computer and sell online only. Go local thats your main bread and butter and long term customers.
    4. Earn good and invest good in technology, and customer service.

    Follow above all and you will never see a negative review.
    I agree with everything you said other than the very last sentance. No matter what you do and how much you provide or how far you go for a customer, some people are just never pleased. You will get negative reviews at some point, if you don't have any it's because:

    1) You are not big enough yet.
    2) It is out there, you just haven't found it yet.
    3) Your customers are mostly offline, in which case they are telling their friends rather than posting about it, which can be worse.

    There is nothing wrong with a negative review if you handle it correctly.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    There is too much fear here of a negative review, it is not the end of the world and potentially a massive chunk of your customers will never even see it, it's simply a chance for you to show that you are professional and you can actually end up gaining customers from a negative review.
    I said you'd have problems, one of which *may* be a negative review, but as you said, that's probably the least of your concerns. I've had a couple of customers where we've put 40, 60 hours, something stupid like that, into fixing a problem they're having, and, hitting a dead end where it requires their cooperation to fix the problem, their only response was "fix it better", I kid you not, that's an exact quote. Even at the prices rackspace / liquidweb charges, they'd lose money on that kind of customer, not to mention the impact on employee morale and retention.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    If you plan to keep a business at a select few people then sure enough you can turn away customers just because they don't seem 100% what you want, but if that attitude keeps up your business will never grow to be as successful as it could be.
    I absolutely disagree. About 5% of my customers take up 50% of my time. Unless I really have a good reason for doing business with that 5%, if I can avoid them in the first place, or "encourage" them to leave once it's clear they are in the 5%, I can cut my workload in half. It's much easier to find a new customer than it is to find an employee willing to work for next to nothing just to support the unrealistic demands of a handful of customers. It sounds extreme, but that's honestly the tradeoff you have to make, and I think it's pretty obvious which of the two options will better allow your business to grow and be successful.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    I'm not saying you will never refuse business, there are many valid reasons to refuse a sale but IMO "you don't think they are perfect for your business" isn't one of them, it just shows you need to reach out further.
    There is no better reason to turn away business than a poor fit for your services. If you already know ahead of time that their expectations for service are far different than what your company provides, count yourself lucky that you can avoid the business relationship up front rather than try to adjust their expectations down the line or agreeably end the relationship when the time comes. If someone comes into a shoe store asking for lemons, you don't say "hey, no problem I think one of our employees has some lemons in the back they brought in with their lunch", no, a smart businessperson says "sorry we sell shoes, you might better be served by a grocery store". You can't be everything to everyone. If you want to succeed you need to focus. And that focus, on offering a particular product or service that is a great match for a particular kind of customer, also means focusing on those kinds of customers who are a good fit for what you're selling.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    The point of business is to make money, not friends. You may make friends along the way but you are in it to make money, no matter how else you sugar coat it.
    I like a lot of my customers, but I assure you that making friends is not the point of my enterprise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    Great customer service is not the same as ass kissing, far from it. I can speak to a customer and explain why they are wrong without actually telling them they are wrong. People complain mostly because they think they have been wronged and someone simply listening to their queries and telling them they will bear them in mind is a great tool.

    I'm not saying you should tell them they are right either, right or wrong should never enter the conversation. Any other business works on this principal, too many people here just think being rude to the customer and cutting ties with anyone who complains in the best option and that is wrong. Your business needs constructive criticism to succeed, these people are the ones paying your wages so if they are unhappy, it's your job to help them to a resolution.

    Complainers are normally the ones who tell other people. Talk to a complainer and get them to a resolution that is good for you and them and you are much more likely to end up with them telling people about their good experience instead.
    What if you cut cut off 75% of your problems by simply suggesting to 5-10% of your sales leads that you aren't a good fit for them? For example, someone needs a lot of bandwidth and you don't have great prices on bandwidth. You have two options, you could offer them a discount to try to get the sale, or you could quote the full rate on bandwidth, knowing it is not competitive and they won't be ordering from you. It's your choice whether or not you make that sale, and your choice should have to do with whether or not the customer seems like a good fit for your services. There's been a number of customers who've come to me saying "I've heard you give fantastic support. I'm really sick of liquidweb, check out this thread where I B* them out. I want to sign up with you." I go look at the thread, horrified, knowing that the absolute best service I could have provided under the circumstances detailed by the client was no better than what liquidweb had been doing for them. In fact, I'm almost certain this customer would have been far more disappointed in my service than Liquidweb's, based on their description of the events that unfolded. In a situation like that, you would be insane to bring on the customer, you absolutely should let them know that your services are not a good fit for their needs, and be firm about it, and count yourself lucky you found this out ahead of time.

    My customers are fantastic, and I love my job. I work hard to keep it that way. If I stop loving my job, how am I going to do good work for my customers? It doesn't take many "bad" clients to hate your job. Absolutely the best thing I can do for my business is avoid the types of customers who are not a good fit for us.
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I said you'd have problems, one of which *may* be a negative review, but as you said, that's probably the least of your concerns. I've had a couple of customers where we've put 40, 60 hours, something stupid like that, into fixing a problem they're having, and, hitting a dead end where it requires their cooperation to fix the problem, their only response was "fix it better", I kid you not, that's an exact quote. Even at the prices rackspace / liquidweb charges, they'd lose money on that kind of customer, not to mention the impact on employee morale and retention.



    I absolutely disagree. About 5% of my customers take up 50% of my time. Unless I really have a good reason for doing business with that 5%, if I can avoid them in the first place, or "encourage" them to leave once it's clear they are in the 5%, I can cut my workload in half. It's much easier to find a new customer than it is to find an employee willing to work for next to nothing just to support the unrealistic demands of a handful of customers. It sounds extreme, but that's honestly the tradeoff you have to make, and I think it's pretty obvious which of the two options will better allow your business to grow and be successful.
    Quite simply, that is business.

    They are paying you for the services and saying you would rather they left because they started using support a lot is just wrong. You offer support and unless you have limits they are breaching by asking unrelated or too many questions, it's your business policies that are wrong, not the client.

    If you are spending 60 hours supporting them and not getting the responses you need but continuing to work on the issue, it's your customer service/communication/technical skills that are lacking. If you can't afford to provide extensive support to 5% of your customers on top of normal support operations, you don't have enough support staff or they are not quick enough at answering queries.

    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    What if you cut cut off 75% of your problems by simply suggesting to 5-10% of your sales leads that you aren't a good fit for them? For example, someone needs a lot of bandwidth and you don't have great prices on bandwidth. You have two options, you could offer them a discount to try to get the sale, or you could quote the full rate on bandwidth, knowing it is not competitive and they won't be ordering from you. It's your choice whether or not you make that sale, and your choice should have to do with whether or not the customer seems like a good fit for your services.
    Your responses make me think you deal with a lot of one man operations and not actual decent sized businesses.

    What if you turn away a customer when really you know nothing about them and they could have been a great customer giving you large amounts of trouble free service? You are making judgements on who you want to do business with and filtering out only who you think is a good client and that is filled with so many flaws.

    The person you deal with could be one of a team of people who will be great clients or you could speak to someone who you think will be a great client and they could just be the purchaser and not the one you will be in contact with.

    Also, if you know they will not choose you at your normal prices then you are pricing yourself too high. You shouldn't have to give discounts just to be competitively priced. I'm not saying you should drop to unrealistic prices, but you should always be competitive with your prices. By competitive, I don't mean cheap, I mean purely that you should be on par with your competitors.

    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    There's been a number of customers who've come to me saying "I've heard you give fantastic support. I'm really sick of liquidweb, check out this thread where I B* them out. I want to sign up with you." I go look at the thread, horrified, knowing that the absolute best service I could have provided under the circumstances detailed by the client was no better than what liquidweb had been doing for them. In fact, I'm almost certain this customer would have been far more disappointed in my service than Liquidweb's, based on their description of the events that unfolded. In a situation like that, you would be insane to bring on the customer, you absolutely should let them know that your services are not a good fit for their needs, and be firm about it, and count yourself lucky you found this out ahead of time.
    This is one of the situations why I said there are many valid reasons that yes you should tell them you don't think they are a fit but that is not the type of situation I talking about previously.

    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    If someone comes into a shoe store asking for lemons, you don't say "hey, no problem I think one of our employees has some lemons in the back they brought in with their lunch", no, a smart businessperson says "sorry we sell shoes, you might better be served by a grocery store". You can't be everything to everyone. If you want to succeed you need to focus. And that focus, on offering a particular product or service that is a great match for a particular kind of customer, also means focusing on those kinds of customers who are a good fit for what you're selling.
    Bit of a far fetched example don't you think? I never suggested you should provide car cleaning or window washing, I said you shouldn't just be elitist and turn away customers based on some pre-determined notion that you have of what a bad customer is. They are not requesting something you don't provide, they are requesting something you do provide but just that they may actually use something like support a lot.

    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    My customers are fantastic, and I love my job. I work hard to keep it that way. If I stop loving my job, how am I going to do good work for my customers? It doesn't take many "bad" clients to hate your job. Absolutely the best thing I can do for my business is avoid the types of customers who are not a good fit for us.
    Hating or loving your job doesn't stop you doing the work. Are you saying if you wake up one day and realise you hate your job you will not longer be able to do good work for your customers? That wouldn't fill me with much confidence in your company.

    To be honest, the impression I get from your posts (whether right or wrong) is that you are not interested in people who actually use your services, you want ideal clients who pay for you to support them but never actually use it. That to me screams a lot about your business and I think you should read your own posts and see what you are posting in a public forum about your company.

    If you offer it and they use it, they are not doing anything wrong and you should not make it out that you are doing them a favour by providing what they are paying you for.
    Last edited by Wullie; 05-05-2012 at 04:35 PM.

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    Quite simply, that is business.

    They are paying you for the services and saying you would rather they left because they started using support a lot is just wrong. You offer support and unless you have limits they are breaching by asking unrelated or too many questions, it's your business policies that are wrong, not the client.

    If you are spending 60 hours supporting them and not getting the responses you need but continuing to work on the issue, it's your customer service/communication/technical skills that are lacking. If you can't afford to provide extensive support to 5% of your customers on top of normal support operations, you don't have enough support staff or they are not quick enough at answering queries.



    Your responses make me think you deal with a lot of one man operations and not actual decent sized businesses.

    What if you turn away a customer when really you know nothing about them and they could have been a great customer giving you large amounts of trouble free service? You are making judgements on who you want to do business with and filtering out only who you think is a good client and that is filled with so many flaws.

    The person you deal with could be one of a team of people who will be great clients or you could speak to someone who you think will be a great client and they could just be the purchaser and not the one you will be in contact with.

    Also, if you know they will not choose you at your normal prices then you are pricing yourself too high. You shouldn't have to give discounts just to be competitively priced.

    I'm not saying you should drop to unrealistic prices, but you should always be competitive with your prices. By competitive, I don't mean cheap, I mean purely that you should be on par with your competitors.



    This is one of the situations why I said there are many valid reasons that yes you should tell them you don't think they are a fit but that is not the type of situation I talking about previously.



    Bit of a far fetched example don't you think? I never suggested you should provide car cleaning or window washing, I said you shouldn't just be elitist and turn away customers based on some pre-determined notion that you have of what a bad customer is. They are not requesting something you don't provide, they are requesting something you do provide but just that they may actually use something like support a lot.



    Hating or loving your job doesn't stop you doing the work. Are you saying if you wake up one day and realise you hate your job you will not longer be able to do good work for your customers? That wouldn't fill me with much confidence in your company.

    To be honest, the impression I get from your posts (whether right or wrong) is that you are not interested in people who actually use your services, you want ideal clients who pay for you to support them but never actually use it. That to me screams a lot about your business and I think you should read your own posts and see what you are posting in a public forum about your company.

    If you offer it and they use it, they are not doing anything wrong and you should not make it out that you are doing them a favour by providing what they are paying you for.
    I can certainly understand your cause for confusion here given what I've said. We offer unmanaged services. We often choose to provide customer service above and beyond what unmanaged normally entails, but ultimately our customers are paying for hardware, network, etc, not for a technician to be available for 40 hours to solve one problem that they have. We do not offer or claim to have "™" support, be it Fanatical™, Heroic™, or otherwise.

    We really have two options here. One, I can train my staff to provide zero leeway on providing service beyond what an unmanaged provider is expected to provide. Favorite phrases include "maybe you should try googling that", or, "I regret to inform you that your request falls outside of our support boundaries". Mmmm, that just sounds customer friendly doesn't it?

    The second option is to be willing to do a little extra for people, but not be willing to let it get out of hand. Just because I helped someone install some software that I was *not obligated to help with in the first place*, should not mean that I have become their slave, available to answer every and any question that comes along, fix any problem they should be able to fix themselves, and be available to them in unlimited quantities at any hour of the day.

    More than half of my customers, probably over 75%, I only ever speak to them to give them their login details and answer their presales questions. They benefit from knowing that if they do have some sticky problem, I'm here to provide support for that once off issue. They also benefit from the lower price of unmanaged service, and understand that in general, they're expected to handle their own services. That works really well for most customers. Should this kind of customer have to pay an extra $200 / mo, more than doubling the price of their service, so that I can hire extra staff to deal with that "5% customer" ? No, clearly not. For one, I wouldn't have those "95%" if I doubled my prices, and frankly, I wouldn't have the 5% either, because that 5% wants everything for nothing.

    It's true that I could take your suggestion and I could simply wait for the 5% customer to present his unreasonable demands and simply tell him -- after I already have his money, after he's a customer -- that what he's asking for is outside of acceptable and reasonable support boundaries. Then he can either suck it up, or he can leave, or maybe he can write a negative review, ask for a refund, any number of unpleasant things. It makes far more sense to me, to spot that kind of problem up front and deal with it before they become a customer, either by setting appropriate expectations, or, failing that, discouraging them from signing up for service.

    I know it sounds like this is some impossible task: "oh gosh how can you know who is going to be an impossible customer or not ahead of time, you'll be turning away good business". No, no you won't. It doesn't take long before you figure out who is going to expect you to be their full time IT staff and who simply needs a reliable server and maybe the occasional support request.

    Here are some helpful red flags you may watch out for:

    "I'm not really familiar with the command line, can you install a GUI for me to manage my minecraft server?"

    "I've never run a hosting company before, but I figure I can simply undercut all of my competitors on price and take over the market that way. By the way, can you help me install gamecp?"

    "I run a shared hosting company and I'm really unhappy with X hosting company because of Y reasons. Can you help me migrate all of my cpanel accounts? And your service is managed, right?"

    "You know I could get a much better price from OVH or Volumedrive. Why are you so expensive? Can you match their price?"

    "My last host suspended my server for nonpayment, and I really need to get set up asap!"

    "I'd like to run raid 0, but I don't see it on your order form"

    All of the above are clear signs that you have some work to do in presales before you can consider the customer, either educating them so that they can make decisions that don't end up biting both of you in the ass, set expectations accordingly so that you avoid becoming their dedicated IT staff, or politely letting them know that your service is probably not a good match for them. If you don't deal with these problems in presales through education, setting proper expectations, or politely declining to provide service, even just 5 customers like this can come to consume the entire working hours for a single full time support employee.

    As to loving / hating my job, I may be dedicated enough to plow through and keep showing up to work, after all, it's my company, but what about my employees? Dealing with unreasonable customers is a huge drain on morale. At the very least, you're going to have far worse employee productivity, which is a double whammy because these customers demand so much more from your employees. It's a recipie for burnout and turnover. Much easier to replace a potential customer than replace and retrain an employee.

    As much as you might argue otherwise, unhappy customers and unhappy employees are simply not worth it for your business, and it absolutely is your job to avoid both of these problems. Even if the customer is paying you money, sometimes you simply have to fire a customer. I don't think anyone here would argue with that. The assertion I make that seems to be particularly controversial is that you can and should solve this problem before they become a customer in the first place. Presales is like a job interview for your customers. They want to see if they want to do business with you, and it is similarly your responsibility to see if you should be doing business with them. This really should not be all that controversial, after all, most sales organizations have a process they call "qualifying" the client. I.E. making sure that the clients needs match what the company actually has to offer. If I want to throw a rave at a church, well, the church may normally rent out space, but obviously I am not a good match for them. Would it be better to turn me away as a client, or better to wait for the cops to show up before they throw me out on the street in the middle of my event?
    Last edited by funkywizard; 05-05-2012 at 05:05 PM.
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  23. #23
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    I can certainly understand your cause for confusion here given what I've said.

    ...
    The problem may be one of your own doing though.

    From your own site:

    Access to expert help and advice from people who love servers.
    Whether you love the nuts and bolts of servers, or you just want your hosting taken care of so you can get back to running your business, you'll be in good hands with I/O Flood.
    Only further down this page do you actually mention that it is unmanaged. I had to actually look about your site and missed it the first time.

    If you are targeting only people who want unmanaged services, you need to make that clear on your site so you filter out clients.

    I don't see a problem with filtering out clients that are clearly expecting something you don't provide, but that was not even close to what I was talking about previously when you quoted me.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Wullie View Post
    The problem may be one of your own doing though.

    From your own site:





    Only further down this page do you actually mention that it is unmanaged. I had to actually look about your site and missed it the first time.

    If you are targeting only people who want unmanaged services, you need to make that clear on your site so you filter out clients.

    I don't see a problem with filtering out clients that are clearly expecting something you don't provide, but that was not even close to what I was talking about previously when you quoted me.
    Thanks for pointing that out. I'll make sure to take another look at our marketing materials to make sure that what we promise is in line with what we offer. Although we certainly don't offer managed service, we do try to offer better support than you'd expect from an unmanaged host. So far we've found terms like "semi-managed" really don't do a good job of expressing exactly what a customer can expect from us, and so we've defaulted to just offering unmanaged support and if a customer needs more help than that, we like to pleasantly surprise them. At the same time, claiming to be unmanaged (as is the case on our order forms and at least a someplace on our website), if someone expects us our $100-$200 / mo servers to come with a dedicated support technician just for them, we can point out that we really only offer unmanaged support and that anything beyond that is on a best-effort, no-promises basis.

    So far this approach has worked much better at both setting realistic expectations and exceeding those expectations than our previous attempts at "semi managed" or "managed" services which we used to provide. As the point of this thread is how to avoid / respond to negative reviews, I feel this is relevant in that vein. First, underpromise and overdeliver. Second, set realistic expectations at the outset. Third, avoid customers who are clearly not a good fit for your services. Fourth, you can't please everyone, I find it works pretty well to just give refunds to people who are clearly dissatisfied and wish them well at their next hosting provider. It's pretty rare that you'll get a negative review if you do all of those four things, at least, unless you really deserve one.
    IOFLOOD.com -- We Love Servers
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  25. #25
    I looked at the concerns of the client I was presented with, I rectified the problem with the company by removing the offer to the public, submitted a refund right away to the client, did not bicker about the statements he made if there right or wrong, nor do I plan to dispute one persons misunderstanding of an issue. This was a vps reseller plan I was introducing and setting up for low end users I would have made 2 dollars on each vps he was getting 5 of them so I could have made 10 dollars but looking at the amount of problems involved I just pulled the offer and now I am offering more reasonable sales, That is all it is, I don't brow beat issues I put my sails up and keep riding the wind...

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