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Thread: Support Hours Per Client
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07-09-2005, 10:33 AM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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Support Hours Per Client
I'm trying to create a formula that takes the number of clients (X), and the price of their hosting plans (Y), and tells me how much their patronage will cost me. It's easy to figure out what you're paying for the hardware and badnwidth then figure that out per client, but what about support hours per client? If I'm paying someone $10 an hour to support my clients, and one takes 3 hours of his time, that client might just be costing me money.
What is a realistic average support hours per virtual hosting client?
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07-09-2005, 11:23 AM #2Web Hosting Evangelist
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Depends on your target client group...If you target mid-western housewives, expect high support..Target computer shops and expect low-levels..Email, phone, chat? All mediums generate different times as well.
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07-09-2005, 11:25 AM #3Web Hosting Rockstar
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Originally posted by marksy
Depends on your target client group...If you target mid-western housewives, expect high support..Target computer shops and expect low-levels..Email, phone, chat? All mediums generate different times as well.Simpli Networks, LLC :: http://www.simplinetworks.com :: Proudly 100% Owned.
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07-09-2005, 11:28 AM #4Automation Specialist
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Originally posted by mripguru
Well put - 100% agreed.██ Automated Tendencies - Brand Management Agency from Baltimore, Maryland.
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07-09-2005, 11:30 AM #5Eternal Member
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Depends on the skill and speed of your own technicians. It also depends on each client. Some clients have more "know-how" than others. Also, if you offer phone support, you could find yourself spending a lot more time with customers.
HTH
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07-09-2005, 11:33 AM #6Web Hosting Master
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Even with the target market your formula will be some what unreliable, Be prepared for everything, don't rely on Math.
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07-09-2005, 11:35 AM #7Web Hosting Master
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It's impossible to put a figure on per-client support, without knowing your support structure.
You can drastically decrease the number of support requests by building a good k(and easily accessible) knowledgebase, and support center. Such things as Flash tutorials from DemoDemo.com can literally save you 100's of support hours per year. (Equating that to a cost: thousands of dollars per year)
Gentle coaching of users in their first month(s), to use these support methods will benefit your business, and the users themselves in the long run.
Support requests, if you maintain your support center well, will become a "last port of call" for many users.
SimonEIRCA Ltd, home of The Genius Network™.
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07-09-2005, 11:39 AM #8Web Hosting Rockstar
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Originally posted by IHSL
It's impossible to put a figure on per-client support, without knowing your support structure.
You can drastically decrease the number of support requests by building a good k(and easily accessible) knowledgebase, and support center. Such things as Flash tutorials from DemoDemo.com can literally save you 100's of support hours per year. (Equating that to a cost: thousands of dollars per year)
Gentle coaching of users in their first month(s), to use these support methods will benefit your business, and the users themselves in the long run.
Support requests, if you maintain your support center well, will become a "last port of call" for many users.
SimonSimpli Networks, LLC :: http://www.simplinetworks.com :: Proudly 100% Owned.
Providing Affordable Managed Cloud/VPS Servers & Server Management Solutions.
We offer REAL 24x7x365 in-house support - proudly serving our customers since 2005!
Want to learn more? Give us a call - +1 (844) 4SIMPLI or email sales[@]simplinetworks.com today!
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07-09-2005, 11:44 AM #9Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by IHSL
. . . You can drastically decrease the number of support requests by building a good k(and easily accessible) knowledgebase, and support center. Such things as Flash tutorials from DemoDemo.com can literally save you 100's of support hours per year. (Equating that to a cost: thousands of dollars per year)
PMichaud, there really is no exact formulae for working out cost per client, as per say. The more clients you have, the less that cost per client would be, as you generate economies of scale. Clients need more support when they're new, and settling into their new account with you. Then their support needs tapers off substantially, til when you barely hear from them.
What can significantly reduce support load is a very proactive server communication system. If you have a server down, then you being proactive with your communication with the clients on that server, will greatly cut back on the "server down" tickets.• WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
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07-09-2005, 12:04 PM #10Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by Aussie Bob
What can significantly reduce support load is a very proactive server communication system. If you have a server down, then you being proactive with your communication with the clients on that server, will greatly cut back on the "server down" tickets.
Proactive is better than reactive in such cases. Being proactive allows your techs to concentrate on the issue, and not spend time updating tickets. The best method I have found is to assign one guy to the announcements section during an outage, and let the rest of the guys fix the issue(s) and feed information to the "announcement tech" as appropriate.
This also offers an "open book policy" which users tend to like, for obvious reasons.
.... and a little control panel automation doesn't hurt either, eh?
SimonEIRCA Ltd, home of The Genius Network™.
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07-09-2005, 12:30 PM #11Web Hosting Rockstar
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Originally posted by IHSL
Spot on.
Proactive is better than reactive in such cases. Being proactive allows your techs to concentrate on the issue, and not spend time updating tickets. The best method I have found is to assign one guy to the announcements section during an outage, and let the rest of the guys fix the issue(s) and feed information to the "announcement tech" as appropriate.
This also offers an "open book policy" which users tend to like, for obvious reasons.
SimonLast edited by mripguru; 07-09-2005 at 12:35 PM.
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07-09-2005, 02:01 PM #12Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by mripguru
Just as a side note, I noticed that your site was down for a period of time on Thursday and DIY247 was unavailable at that point as well. What's the "protocol" at that point, from your perspective? (i.e. you have no "standard" communication channels (offsite status page) available, what then? )
I can only assume you hit a path to Atlanta that had a problem somewhere in the way down.
247 is dual-hosted.. the gui is in Atlanta, and the backend in Dallas. If for some reason the GUI is unavailable, the announcements are made via our backup/emergency forum and/or the 247 off-network mailing list, hosted in NS, Canada.
SimonEIRCA Ltd, home of The Genius Network™.
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07-09-2005, 02:03 PM #13Web Hosting Rockstar
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Originally posted by IHSL
The site wasn't down on thursday (or any other day since march 21st).
I can only assume you hit a path to Atlanta that had a problem somewhere in the way down.
247 is dual-hosted.. the gui is in Atlanta, and the backend in Dallas. If for some reason the GUI is unavailable, the announcements are made via our backup/emergency forum and/or the 247 off-network mailing list, hosted in NS, Canada.
Simon
Incidentally - DIYHosting.com was down at the same time. (I suspect to the issue that is now showing at DIY247 as being from yesterday with a fibercut). I confirmed this from multiple locations.Simpli Networks, LLC :: http://www.simplinetworks.com :: Proudly 100% Owned.
Providing Affordable Managed Cloud/VPS Servers & Server Management Solutions.
We offer REAL 24x7x365 in-house support - proudly serving our customers since 2005!
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07-09-2005, 02:11 PM #14Web Hosting Master
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The fiber cut has nothing to do with Atlanta (where the site is hosted).
The fiber cut announcement, which affected two of the servers in TX was made 40 seconds after it happenned, late last night.. not thursday.
SimonEIRCA Ltd, home of The Genius Network™.
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07-09-2005, 02:15 PM #15Web Hosting Rockstar
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Originally posted by IHSL
The fiber cut has nothing to do with Atlanta (where the site is hosted).
The fiber cut announcement, which affected two of the servers in TX was made 40 seconds after it happenned, late last night.. not thursday.
SimonSimpli Networks, LLC :: http://www.simplinetworks.com :: Proudly 100% Owned.
Providing Affordable Managed Cloud/VPS Servers & Server Management Solutions.
We offer REAL 24x7x365 in-house support - proudly serving our customers since 2005!
Want to learn more? Give us a call - +1 (844) 4SIMPLI or email sales[@]simplinetworks.com today!
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07-09-2005, 02:19 PM #16Junior Guru Wannabe
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Re: Support Hours Per Client
Originally posted by PMichaud
I'm trying to create a formula that takes the number of clients (X), and the price of their hosting plans (Y), and tells me how much their patronage will cost me. It's easy to figure out what you're paying for the hardware and badnwidth then figure that out per client, but what about support hours per client? If I'm paying someone $10 an hour to support my clients, and one takes 3 hours of his time, that client might just be costing me money.
What is a realistic average support hours per virtual hosting client?
Is the goal to determine how many support people you need to support x number of clients? I doubt you'll get to where you need to be. Factors beyond anyone's control will ultimately skew your results to the point where they are invalid.
As others have mentioned, communication with clients is the key. Letting them know ahead of time of scheduled maintenance, notifications after significant events explaining exactly what happened, accept responsibility of problems if you are at fault, etc... All of these things will build the confidence of your client base. Some may think that if you tell everyone about every bit of downtime you will be perceived as an unreliable host. But if you look at most of the support complaints here they refer to downtimes that are unexplained by the host, or inadequately explained.
And hosts that close tickets every time they respond aren't doing their clients any favors either. Nothing gets entered as to the cause or fix to a problem, meaning the customer, or other support techs, cannot refer back to these tickets for repair information in the future. With a good, searchable ticket system and procedures, you don't need a separate knowledge base. Any tech that puts a note in a ticket like this "The problem is fixed, please try on your end." Isn't helping anyone.
I know this has been talked about before, but it seems most hosts don't want to wait for customers to confirm whether a problem is fixed, they just close it and cross their fingers. They say that the customer can just re-open the ticket.
Well, if you're ding what the OP wants to do, gathering metrics on Mean Time to Repair, Mean Time to Close, etc, then closing a ticket before it should be skews those numbers. All you need are timers on each ticket. If no response from the customer within x days, the ticket gets closed, or put on hold. If no response from support in x amount of time, based on severity, then an escalation email is sent to the tech and a supervisor. Simple things like this can greatly increase customer confidence.
In my opinion you spend what you have to on support, since customers are your bread and butter. Trying to make cost benefit analyses like this simply let the clients know that to you they are just a drain on your resources.
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07-09-2005, 08:41 PM #17Web Hosting Master
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Originally posted by mripguru
Just as a side note, I noticed that your site was down for a period of time on Thursday and DIY247 was unavailable at that point as well. What's the "protocol" at that point, from your perspective? (i.e. you have no "standard" communication channels (offsite status page) available, what then? )• WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
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07-09-2005, 08:47 PM #18Web Hosting Master
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Re: Re: Support Hours Per Client
Originally posted by Jalberts
. . . I know this has been talked about before, but it seems most hosts don't want to wait for customers to confirm whether a problem is fixed, they just close it and cross their fingers. They say that the customer can just re-open the ticket.
It's worked well for years. It keeps the helpdesk clean. If tickets were not closed like that, the desk would get choked with hundreds of resolved tickets, simply sitting there waiting for the client to say it's all good, which they rarely do.• WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
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07-09-2005, 09:05 PM #19Retired Moderator
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There's no finger crossing involved. If I have resolved a ticket to my satisfaction, I close the ticket and ask them to -"Please reopen this ticket with more info, if you still need to", at the end of my ticket reply.
It's worked well for years. It keeps the helpdesk clean. If tickets were not closed like that, the desk would get choked with hundreds of resolved tickets, simply sitting there waiting for the client to say it's all good, which they rarely do.
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07-09-2005, 09:10 PM #20Web Hosting Master
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Each to his own. We all run different business and do things differntly. What works for one host, does not neccessarily work for another host. It just comes down to finding what works for you, and implementing that, to get the desired outcome.
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07-09-2005, 09:18 PM #21Web Hosting Master
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Hopefully I'm not repeating too much but a few things I've noticed with support:
New clients are going to use up more time - this also depends on the companies pricing (cheaper companies cost more in support).
As a few others have said: there really isn't a set number of hours that clients are going to use up.
It's all going to depend on:
server quality
technician quality
price of your packages (you'll have random clients eating away years of support
Theres no set definition.. and yes - to second what some others have said above: closing tickets works fine as long as you do it properly.
"Please respond with the additional details mentioned above so we can resolve this issue" certainly helps with Kayako or other ticket desk's organization.
(and if you don't have root, you almost always have to ask for additional details - waste of time imo! Techs should be trusted but thats another thread alltogether).
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07-10-2005, 10:28 AM #22Temporarily Suspended
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Originally posted by elix
It also depends on each client. Some clients have more "know-how" than others. Also, if you offer phone support, you could find yourself spending a lot more time with customers.