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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Buenos Aires, Argentina
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    52

    How many customers can 1 Supporter handle?

    Hi, we are growing here and I wonder when should I increase staff.

    Up to this moment 1 supporter si handling about 400 accounts. I have 2 supporters: one from 6 AM to 3 PM, the other one from 3 PM to 0 AM

    I cannot wonder where the limit is. The average of tickets per day is about 40 (6 to 3pm) and 30 (3pm to 0am)

    Is it that one supporter can handle 1,000 acounts???

    What I can tell you is that new clients put about 30 tickets the first week, 10 second week, and after that, almost nothing...

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    New Jersey
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    86
    Id have to say that with the right tools one person can handle 1000 accounts. Im not sure exactly but I have almost 200 accounts and im lucky if I get 1 ticket a month and maybe 1 IM a week and maybe 1 phone call a week from my customers.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Scotland
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    2,833

    Re: How many customers can 1 Supporter handle?

    Originally posted by bart_arg
    Hi, we are growing here and I wonder when should I increase staff.

    Up to this moment 1 supporter si handling about 400 accounts. I have 2 supporters: one from 6 AM to 3 PM, the other one from 3 PM to 0 AM

    I cannot wonder where the limit is. The average of tickets per day is about 40 (6 to 3pm) and 30 (3pm to 0am)

    Is it that one supporter can handle 1,000 acounts???

    What I can tell you is that new clients put about 30 tickets the first week, 10 second week, and after that, almost nothing...
    There isn't any hard limit that anyone can give you, because there are many factors that could influence the amount.

    If they are sitting idle for half the time, then you can judge that they should be able to handle twice the amount of clients, but even then it isn't as easy as that.

    On the subject of how many tickets they submit, is that per client? If you have 30 tickets coming in during the first week then you need to look at why you are getting that amount and work to cut them down. (That is assuming the tickets are not all for something that must be done by you)

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Vancouver, BC
    Posts
    1,894
    Why are your tickets so high? You should really look at what the majority of your questions are related too and see if you can eliminate those issues.

    If these emails are the same thing then create a tutorial welcome email that addresses all those questions.

    Try finding long term solutions instead of just regular fire fighting and you won't need to pull on another person.
    Gary Jones

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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    771
    How many they can handle is going to be how complex the questions are and how much actual work the reps need to do on each ticket. If they are all "what's my password" tickets 1 person could handle 1000 themselves but if the questions are " I can't get this script to work and it worked on my last host" or " please explain in Detail how to set up my email accounts in Outlook, you might only handle 100 in a day.

    Now if you are getting 100 a day for 1000 accounts you better come up with some really good FAQ's and Tutorials because that is a lot!! ACK!

    It is a very thin line between having not enough staff and letting support drop and having too much staff and them sitting around and getting paid for nothing.

    You are going to have to really see what all the tickets are about and see if you can help people by giving them resources to help themselves for the basics. This is not bad support, in fact many might like that they can read how to fix something rather than wait 30 minutes for an answer.

    Robert
    Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Buenos Aires, Argentina
    Posts
    52
    Hey! I am talking about 70 tickets in total per day! that's nothing.
    70 tickets in 18 hours/day means about 4 tickets/hour

    90% of tickets are e-mail problems.
    90% of my customers know nothing about Internet
    Someone installs Norton Antivirus in their LAN and they say e-mail does not work.
    Someone installs a router and they claim "mail does not work!!"

    My supporters work at their home, they answer tickets in almost 1 or 2 minutes, while they work on their own jobs (both are programmers)

    Normally when a new customer comes, there is a lot of tickets as usual, regarding DNS's, e-mail configuration, FTP routes, etc.

    Yes, I have a forum with lots of tutorials that helps a lot.

    I was asking how much a supporter can manage, since I find that supporting cost is not so high as I expected one year ago...

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    70 tickets a day seems like a lot for 450 customers. I know some customers of mine have 3000+ customers and have about 40 tickets per day. 70 tickets at 450 customers is 700 tickets per day for 4500 customers, that's insane.
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    Scotland
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    Originally posted by bart_arg
    Hey! I am talking about 70 tickets in total per day! that's nothing.
    70 tickets in 18 hours/day means about 4 tickets/hour

    90% of tickets are e-mail problems.
    90% of my customers know nothing about Internet
    Someone installs Norton Antivirus in their LAN and they say e-mail does not work.
    Someone installs a router and they claim "mail does not work!!"

    My supporters work at their home, they answer tickets in almost 1 or 2 minutes, while they work on their own jobs (both are programmers)

    Normally when a new customer comes, there is a lot of tickets as usual, regarding DNS's, e-mail configuration, FTP routes, etc.

    Yes, I have a forum with lots of tutorials that helps a lot.

    I was asking how much a supporter can manage, since I find that supporting cost is not so high as I expected one year ago...
    Personally, I would say that 70 tickets a day from 400 clients was a huge amount. If 90% of tickets are e-mail related, put them into a knowledgebase and mention to your customers that most answers can be found there.

    Take your 4 tickets an hour, then work out that when you have 1000 customers, you are looking at around 10/hour. One person could easily handle that, however what happens if 1 of those problems takes 2 hours to resolve? What if this one day you get 20 tickets an hour?

    If you can cut those tickets down by half then you can cut your costs down by half as well, so it is well worth looking at ways to improve the other support avenues you have available.

  9. #9
    I think that its not the no. of accounts, but the no. of tickets that you need to consider.

    Also, it depends on how much work a ticket requires, what is the experience level of the tech, how fast is his internet connection, how fast can he do his work.

    All these small things will help you determine how many tickets can each person handle.
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  10. #10
    if your servers are up and have good knowledge base, some tutorial and INFORMATIVE welcome message then your support will have nothing to do.

    you need also to put support policy like what you support and what you do not, for example, if one of our users complaint that his outlook not work, we test webmail, if email work fine then we forward him to his local network admin or microsoft, if mail is work then our part is done, we do the same with fantastico scripts, etc.

  11. #11
    If you want to offer 30-60 mins response time then you require 2 techs for 1000 accounts.

    And if its 24 hours response time then 1 guy for 70 ticket is fine.
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  12. #12
    your stats is not correct at all CSDesk!

    1 tech for every 500 domains? so a company with 10,000 domains need 20 person to work ?

  13. #13
    Greetings:

    We typically see 0 to 5 shared hosting support tickets per day Monday through Friday, and from 0 to 2 for the entire weekend.

    Given those numbers, which have remained fairly constant for the past three out of ten years, one person can support a large number of accounts.

    Thank you.
    ---
    Peter M. Abraham
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Buenos Aires, Argentina
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    52
    Dynamicnet, those tickets are for how many accounts?

  15. #15
    Greetings:

    Our hosting division hosts over 1,000 sites (small numbers in a large industry).

    99% are small to medium businesses; 1% are personal sites.

    Thank you.
    ---
    Peter M. Abraham
    LinkedIn Profile

  16. #16
    I was saying that for 24x7 support. If they are offering 24x7 support and a 30-60 mins response then obviously they need 2 guys to handle 12 x 12 hour shift.

    Originally posted by 2Mhost
    your stats is not correct at all CSDesk!

    1 tech for every 500 domains? so a company with 10,000 domains need 20 person to work ?
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  17. #17
    Join Date
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    Scotland
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    Originally posted by CSDesk
    I was saying that for 24x7 support. If they are offering 24x7 support and a 30-60 mins response then obviously they need 2 guys to handle 12 x 12 hour shift.
    2 x 12 hour shifts as a very minimum, but I think 3 x 8 hour shifts is a much better setup because you are ok if the unexpected happens. Sure 2 people can handle 12 hours each, but what happens when one of them is sick or goes away on holiday?

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Buenos Aires, Argentina
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    52
    Anyway, my original calculations are wrong!
    Correct is 70 tickets per week.
    And includes new customers (about 1/day) which generates many tickets only first week.

    Sorry for this confussion

  19. #19
    3 x 8 is also a good option but you should have backup to cover those shifts when someone is on leave / sick.

    The best option is to consult any outsourcing firm who offers true 24x7 support. They should be properly staffed so they can cover such shifts accordingly.
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  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    Scotland
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    Originally posted by CSDesk
    3 x 8 is also a good option but you should have backup to cover those shifts when someone is on leave / sick.

    The best option is to consult any outsourcing firm who offers true 24x7 support. They should be properly staffed so they can cover such shifts accordingly.
    3 x 8 gives you some leeway though, because if someone was off sick then the 2 people left could cover 12 hours each. All this assumes that they are willing to do that though.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    New York, NY
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    Originally posted by bart_arg
    Anyway, my original calculations are wrong!
    Correct is 70 tickets per week.
    And includes new customers (about 1/day) which generates many tickets only first week.

    Sorry for this confussion
    Ahh, that's much better..

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  22. #22
    Join Date
    May 2004
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    Lansing, MI, USA
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    Originally posted by bart_arg
    Anyway, my original calculations are wrong!
    Correct is 70 tickets per week.
    And includes new customers (about 1/day) which generates many tickets only first week.

    Sorry for this confussion
    It really comes down to the tech though. I have seen single techs handle 8k+ customers. It really comes down to how well you organize your support systems, and what methods you have in place.
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  23. #23
    Join Date
    May 2002
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    Internet / Colorado
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    I think there are three imp factors, 1. Hours of support you advertise, 2. type of customers, and 3. Skill level of your techs and your off hours ability to do billing / account sign up,

    I wrote this for my website and it applies here too,
    -----------------------------
    This is a big problem because when you are starting out and small you are trying to offer 24/7 support or at least the impression you are. An alternative strategy is to explain you are small and only provide business hours support unless there is an emergency, then as you grow you can add the 24/7 support once it is more feasible. Many customers will understand this as with a small hosting company they get a more personal level of support that is not possible with a large company.

    This also depends on the type of customers you have, if you are hosting small business owners with static sites you will not have as many support requests. If you are hosting e-commerce sites or sites with forums and scripts and are active every day you will have an increase in tickets. These can also be cut down as you can setup tutorials and flash movies to handle the most common questions that your clients ask.

    And the final factor is how good your techs are, do they look up solutions to most issues or can they walk customers through the control panel blind folded? When I first started working at a outsourced support company I had limited experience with Cpanel and almost none with WHM. I did have a ton of experience with Plesk and was able to read the Cpanel / WHM manuals and use the outsourced companies learning center during breaks in chat to learn the rest. After two weeks of doing live chat I could answer 95% of the questions because I had a general background in the theory. Keep this in mind when looking for techs.
    ------------------------------

    I've worked for several web hosting companies and with my clients for my company it was nothing as they were all small inactive sites with tech people who didn't need much help, with other companies ive worked for I've found out that there exist something called "newbies" and they scare me.... jk, they make lots of tickets but ive learned that they can read and pointing them to tutorials or if they can't read flash demos helps a lot, and most are pretty nice and know they just need to soak up the material before asking us to explain the basic principles of how DNS works on a world wide level.... that was a long discussion.

    anyway thats my thoughts,
    ben
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