Results 1 to 20 of 20
Thread: Level of support
-
10-06-2013, 06:01 PM #1Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Level of support
Getting bombarded by some clients requesting help. Normally, I just fix the issue but some questions are starting to turn from hosting support to WordPress support? While we can handle just about anything I want to make sure we get paid for non related hosting stuff.
How do you all handle level of support? What support for your clients do you offer for free and what is paid support?
Thanks for your help!WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 06:04 PM #2Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
- Location
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Posts
- 607
Level of support
I have the same issue with a few clients, but it depend on the situation. I will provide a lot more free support to a $100/month client over a $1.50/month client.
██ HostUS - Premium Hosting Made Affordable
██ TEN Worldwide locations spanning USA, Europe & Asia Pacific
██ Own ASN, Own Network, Own IPs - AS7489 & AS25926
-
10-06-2013, 06:09 PM #3Aspiring Evangelist
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
- Posts
- 353
Re: Level of support
We get alot of script based support, for most things its a 2 minute fix that we just get on with to go above and beyond. However you do occasionally get clients that think its your line of duty to create them a website, continuously fix bugs with their scripts, don't understand why you can't transfer their Moonfruit website etc. That's where we draw the line and charge on an adhoc basis it just totally depends!
██ • North Hosts Limited - Company Number 8808995 Affordable UK Web Hosting
██ • Shared • Reseller • VPS • Dedicated • 24/7/365 Support • Instant Activation
██ • Trendy Site Builder • CloudFlare • Softaculous • Seo Tools • cPanel
-
10-06-2013, 06:23 PM #4Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
Yeah, this client is just a 10 dollar shared client. I've done a lot for her but now I'm done. The recent issue she had is her theme provider said to remove a line of code and it broke everything. She also had permissions issue. I had no problem with the permissions issue because I just login as her and reset them but the other issue I had to track down though the logs to figure it out.
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 06:38 PM #5Aspiring Evangelist
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
- Posts
- 353
Re: Level of support
Is the customer grateful for the help or do they expect it? Personally id charge for any other modifications - your her webhost not her Web designer.
██ • North Hosts Limited - Company Number 8808995 Affordable UK Web Hosting
██ • Shared • Reseller • VPS • Dedicated • 24/7/365 Support • Instant Activation
██ • Trendy Site Builder • CloudFlare • Softaculous • Seo Tools • cPanel
-
10-06-2013, 06:53 PM #6Junior Guru
- Join Date
- Jul 2009
- Location
- Texas
- Posts
- 232
If it's simple things like creating a php.ini file or database connection it's all fine just let them know development falls outside the scope of support. You'd be happy to help with any service issues but when it goes into detail with mods or programming issues maybe just google the problem for them and point them to the article about the issue.
█ FusedServers.com - Shared and Dedicated Servers
█ Softaculous, CloudFlare, cPanel, 99% Uptime, MySQL, PHP, Dallas, Tx.
█ Sales@FusedServers.com - Shared and Dedicated Web Hostin
-
10-06-2013, 07:00 PM #7Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
I don't mind doing the work for them as paid support on those issues. We also do website design and development so it's not a big issue. Just trying to figure out what is the best approach to say this is free this is paid.
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 07:03 PM #8Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 07:05 PM #9Aspiring Evangelist
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
- Posts
- 353
Re: Level of support
██ • North Hosts Limited - Company Number 8808995 Affordable UK Web Hosting
██ • Shared • Reseller • VPS • Dedicated • 24/7/365 Support • Instant Activation
██ • Trendy Site Builder • CloudFlare • Softaculous • Seo Tools • cPanel
-
10-06-2013, 07:29 PM #10Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 08:27 PM #11Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Location
- Cybertron
- Posts
- 10,484
-
10-06-2013, 08:55 PM #12Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-06-2013, 09:27 PM #13Junior Guru Wannabe
- Join Date
- Oct 2013
- Posts
- 55
Is your website clear enough on drawing such lines? Maybe improving descriptions would help prevent this. Or a Welcome email could state it etc.
I'm thinking maybe even doing a sequence of emails (like an autoresponder series) with say 3 emails send in 3 days, sending information about support and usage of host/websites:
First email - Welcome email
Second email - Resources about hosting (sending links to vids on how to use hosting and pointing out important things)
Third email - Website maintenance Resources (sending links to Youtube vids about Wordpress from someone else not you, etc).
Maybe this could be a good way to make it easier!
-
10-07-2013, 11:07 AM #14Quality Web Hosting Matters
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Servers
- Posts
- 1,590
Sales are easy , support is not Deal with it. In the web hosting (may be all services related businesses) customer service is really important.
█ QHoster.com - Web Hosting with DDoS Protection | Shared & Reseller in Europe/North America
█ Linux/Windows RDP VPS 13 Locations : UK, US (5 states), Mexico, Canada, Bulgaria, Lithuania,
█ Italy, France, Germany,Netherlands, Switzerland, Rissia, Singapore | OpenVPN/PPTP Enabled
█ INSTANT | PayPal, Skrill, Payza, Bitcoin, WebMoney, Perfect Money, Ukash, CashU, paysafecard
-
10-07-2013, 11:17 AM #15Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-07-2013, 11:27 AM #16Junior Guru
- Join Date
- Aug 2002
- Posts
- 217
Be sure your terms of service are clear, and then have a candid conversation with your customer. Most customers will start out looking for all the 'free' support they can get, but are quite understanding that they are not paying you to debug others code. Particularly if you can explain to them that the problem is from the code in the theme that they just updated, and they should really be getting support from the theme developer in that instance -- they will likely understand that. However, be reasonable and set some rule of thumb. Eg, if you can fix their problem in under 10 minutes, then you'd be happy to help them out even though it goes well above and beyond your posted terms of service. Anything beyond that and they'll either need to pay your posted support rates or get support from the developer.. Chances are very good that they will still be grateful for your offer of free support services but it will get into their learned behaviour that if their developer introduced a bug, their developer is the one that they should contact.
Datarealm Internet Services, Inc
SSD Shared Hosting | VPS | Dedicated Servers | Colocation
sales@datarealm.com
866-WEB-HOST
-
10-07-2013, 11:48 AM #17Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Mar 2013
- Posts
- 565
Re: Level of support
WordPress Hosting
Shared / White Label Reseller WHM | SSD Cloud | CloudLinux
www.LarisMedia.com Wordpress & Magento Website Design
-
10-07-2013, 12:01 PM #18Newbie
- Join Date
- Jul 2013
- Posts
- 28
Re: Level of support
I'm working as a support engineer for Web hosting company across the globe for the past 3 years.
Normally for codin issues I will let the customer know that "our support is limited to debug the coding issues. You need to contact the developer to fix the third party coding issues".
There are few customers who don't have a developer and they will be expecting our valuable solution. For such customers I will inform him that "Im trying to solve the issue out of the limited support procedures. It will take some time to fix the issues apart from regular issues. Kindly hold on for further updates".
This is one such way you can get enough time to solve the coding issues if you want, else define your support system limits by adding it in the signature section.
<< Signatures are to be set up via profiles only. >>Last edited by writespeak; 10-08-2013 at 11:14 AM.
-
10-09-2013, 04:58 PM #19WHT Addict
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- South Florida
- Posts
- 108
We sometimes run into the same problem because we do website design / development and hosting. We have an unwritten rule that we will usually help someone for free if the fix is less than 15 minutes. We further qualify that by saying if one customer asks for quick little fixes on a regular basis then we will let them know and suggest they batch out the work and pay us. For the most part we rarely have a problem but you always have to be up front and let them know that you are doing something as a Free as a Courtesy for hosting with you. This way they do not expect it to be free if it happens again.
Michael Caputa – President – Web Results Inc
REAL RESULTS FOR REAL REWARDS
www.webresultsinc.com | follow us @webresultsinc
design | hosting | e-commerce & shopping carts | app development | fax-to-email | announcer pro
-
10-11-2013, 03:41 PM #20Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Sep 2013
- Posts
- 985
Generally, when using such a service, people rush into it a little and this is why such misunderstandings about the level of support continue to happen. What can we do from the position of web hosts?
Well for starters make sure that you clearly explain your products and services on your website. Provide any information about features and extras that can be purchased in the package. If the customer is on chat/phone, make sure to understand their project, identify their needs and explain exactly what YOU can do for HIM.
Even if the customer signs, unsure of what level of support they should expect, they will probably need it pretty soon. Once contacted via phone/chat/ticket, take your time to identify the issue and see if its within the scope of services you provide. For the purpose of the story, lets say you are a Hosting provider only. So if the customer issue is hosting related, of course try to provide the best support. If its outside the scope, lets say a development issue of some sort, make sure to give the client information and explanation so they can understand WHY is it a development issue and HOW are the problems clasified basically. At this point, still try to be helpful and try to find some helpful tutorials or articles that may prove to be an extra help and that should be it. Further requests, if possible for you to meet them, should have its price and the customer would be aware of that (even if it takes 3-4 different cases for them to understand ).
So its really a case of proper communication from both sides. There are the occassional oddballs, who will not get what you are trying to make clear, but these tips generally work, tested and applied numerous times██ www.WebHostFace.com where Service always comes with a smiling face!
██ Contact us for Shared, VPS, Reseller and Dedicated Hosting Solutions.
Similar Threads
-
Recruiting Level 1 & Support and Level 3 Linux Sys Admins [Hertfordshire, UK]
By UH-Matt in forum Employment / Job OffersReplies: 9Last Post: 02-15-2013, 08:06 AM -
What is the difference between Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 Tech Support?
By Mikey this way! in forum Web HostingReplies: 15Last Post: 10-13-2009, 09:47 AM -
For Hire - Support Manager/Level II-III tech/Level I-II Admin
By JefS in forum Employment / Job RequestsReplies: 0Last Post: 10-13-2008, 12:28 PM -
[For Hire] Level I/Level II Support - Part Time Position - Experienced and Energetic
By CrazyTech in forum Employment / Job RequestsReplies: 1Last Post: 03-17-2008, 11:52 AM -
[Now Hiring] Level 1 Support, Level 2 Support, Customer Service, Abuse
By Nick H in forum Employment / Job OffersReplies: 0Last Post: 07-19-2007, 04:23 AM