Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Software and Control Panels : Would This Benefit Your Hosting Company?

[dherman76]

Hello, I'm writing the specifications about a new product and want to gather some marketing research regarding this potential new service/product. I'm not trying to advertise so there will be no name mentions, etc, of anything. Just looking to see what you think....

Here it goes:

In the process of developing a program that will allow people to check the status of their email sent to your hosting company. Meaning, lets say someone sent your support department an email but it hasn't been responded too in 24 hours. For some reason, the customer is getting antsy and wants to know the status of that email. They can go to (remember, fictional) http://mailcheck.yourwebsite.com and see if you received the email, and if not, why.

Why would you want this?
1) Something other companies do not offer
2) Fully brandable to your site
3) Give customers a piece of mind to trust their email/your email
4) builds loyalty for your customers

This would be a service that would be paid monthly with a small uprfront setup cost (less than $99). I'd like to know what you think and if this is something you'd look into. We are currently only working with Sendmail and Qmail servers.

[by the way, process patents have been filed - thank you]

[lintbox]

Isnt this already done via a trouble ticket type system? You can check the status of your trouble ticket, and some will even email the responses to the user. How would this be any different?

[LP-Trel]

I must say that this kind of software would be limited in its usefulness.

When someone emails a support desk, they are immediately replied to with a ticket number and password (usually).

A simple message such as, "If you don't receive a response from our ticket system within 4 hours, please call: (888) 888-8888" or similar could replace your software totally..

[dherman76]

Correct, but:

1) If you dont have a support desk, then this is useful.
2) This is not just limited to companies with hosting endeavors

[mrl14]

It won't hurt to try and sell the product. You never know who might buy it. Just remember that not every host uses WHT

[JohnCrowley]

sorta like an autoresponder that gets sent back when email comes to a certain email address that says we have received your email and will respond to it soon? Sorry to be sarcastic, but the idea is done in ticket systems, autoresponders, etc... Might be useful to someone, but overall appeal will be limited I would think.

- John C.

[dherman76]

Originally posted by infinityws
It won't hurt to try and sell the product. You never know who might buy it. Just remember that not every host uses WHT

- I understand that. I am trying to see a specific market and their use for it...however, it probably won't be geared towards web-hosts per se.