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  1. #1

    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?

  2. #2
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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.

  3. #3
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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.
    Well put - 100% agreed.
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  4. #4
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    Originally posted by mripguru
    Well put - 100% agreed.
    Seconded, there are too many factors that go into it to determine one single "formula". Also remember it depends on how fast your techs can work.
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  5. #5
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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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  6. #6
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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.

  7. #7
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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.

    Simon
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  8. #8
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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.

    Simon
    .... and a little control panel automation doesn't hurt either, eh?
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  9. #9
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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)
    So true. A good Knowledge base that really works, is a great asset to any hosting company. Having direct links to KB articles, for specific questions, setup on your helpdesk templated replies, is also a huge timesaver.

    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.
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  10. #10
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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.
    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.

    .... and a little control panel automation doesn't hurt either, eh?
    Of course.


    Simon
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  11. #11
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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.
    Simon
    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? )
    Last edited by mripguru; 07-09-2005 at 12:35 PM.
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  12. #12
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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? )
    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
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  13. #13
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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
    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.
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  14. #14
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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.

    Simon
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  15. #15
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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.

    Simon
    OK - Maybe it was something on my end. Who knows.
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  16. #16
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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?
    I've been involved with major corporations that have tried to do this, and it rarely works they way they want.

    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.

  17. #17
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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? )
    As long as your main site + helpesk are in a separate dc than your client servers, then that's ok. If there's an issue with your client servers, then you can still keep communicating as your main server is not on that network. If your main server is out, then you could have a backup mailing list, hosted on one of your client servers, or at another dc.
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  18. #18
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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.
    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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  19. #19
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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.
    I didn't see what was wrong with closing the ticket either. Good to see a host that can vouch there's nothing wrong with it as long as it's done the right way.

  20. #20
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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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  21. #21
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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).

  22. #22
    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.
    Too true. Based on the prices I see I don't know how some companies offer phone support. Even more suprising is how little Knowledge bases and other training resources are actually implemented . Don't have those in place and your techs are just answereing the same questions over and over. Terrible waste.

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