Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : What do customers want?

[kipper3d]

Question im sure a lot of you have pondered. "What do customers want?"

Besides cheap hosting and great support?

Well perhaps its something to do with support. Do they want the 24/7 toll free number? Or wouldnt email suffice with replies less than an hour during the day and less than 8 during the night?

Now how in the world can one offer 24/7 phone support at the prices people pay for hosting?

What else do they want? What seems to be important aside from what I listed above?

I've identified the question... How about "How do I find out what customers want?" What seems to be the most effective way for getting information from your customers?

I am getting about 2-5 signups a week. I would like to push it to 2-5 signups a day! I have terrible traffic/sales ratio and would like to change that.

Any suggestions? This info might be of interested to a lot of other hosts.

Thanks!

-John

[lpguitars]

Hey John,

Yes, this is the million dollar question. Hey, I wanted to ask you somethiing - I'm sure you study your stats closely, but have you ever set yourself up to monitor your site pages in real time using something like LivePerson?

It takes hours upon hours of just sitting and watching your own traffic, but I swear you get a better feel of how your visitors are really reacting to things on your pages.

I know that sounds silly, but we've actually had success in improving signup ratios using this method - especilly if you are getting good traffic to provide a solid sampling in a reasonable amount of time.

Good luck!

[tilted]

That's like asking about what women want. Who the hell knows. I think you should either stick to your guns and collect the clients that are looking for what you're offering (if you can afford it), or find a newer host that's growing fast without advertising or spamming, and offer what they offer, but with advertising campaigns (if you can afford it). What it comes down to is: what makes YOU happy.

George

[lovelie]

Originally posted by tilted
That's like asking about what women want. Who the hell knows.

Ummm... women? How about just asking them? Or, in the case of customers, how about conducting a survey?

When I left one of my old hosts, in their goodbye email they included a link to a survey which included questions like "why are you leaving." "how could we improve our services" & a bunch of others I can't remember. I thought it was a good idea. It was completely voluntary, of course.

[kipper3d]

Interesting responses. I guess Im already doing what is suggested. I even have php script with a tag on each page that records the visitors path to see what pages they view and it gives me a report on page counts for popularity and referer information. Well from that info, all of my services have been viewed equally. Most popular being my cheapest 20mb package.

I guess what i need is cash to market more, especially if I want to hook the businesses that will purchase my larger packages. Because my largest customer base has been people looking for personal websites for themselves. Ill go broke if I don't change that!

Anyway, thank you for your suggestions. Yes its like trying to figure out the womens mind.. haha its a game to play until you get it right and elope...

Any other ideas? This is interesting thread to continue.

-John

[Mekhu]

kipp, did you start this as a fulltime business? I currently get maybe one client a week and to be honest, I am happy with that at the moment...

2-5 a week sounds pretty good to me... Sooner or later word of mouth will kick in!

[Darth]

Question im sure a lot of you have pondered. "What do customers want?"

Unlimited space
Unlimited bandwidth
100% uptime
24/7 support
for $1 a month

[Walter]

$1? Way too much.

[kipper3d]

Originally posted by Darth


Unlimited space
Unlimited bandwidth
100% uptime
24/7 support
for $1 a month

No kidding! I had one customer complain that my 50mb package was too much! Gosh it was only $4.45 a month!

I started this business a few years ago to host the companies that I worked for. Then i was laid off last October and decided to put more focus in hosting. Its paying for itself but its got a long way to go to pay my bills!!!

I think what helps is $$ for marketing.

-John

[AussieHosts]

Originally posted by kipper3d
"What do customers want?"

Honesty, above all else.

Cheers

Gary

[kipper3d]

Yes Honesty. I totally agree!

But were talking about turning prospectives into sales..


-John

[AussieHosts]

Originally posted by kipper3d
But were talking about turning prospectives into sales..

That's all it takes.

Site owners are wisening up, because they're being lied to. They'll look past the sales hype, and the well written testimonials, and the forums full of bollocky posts...and they'll tear a few traceroutes apart and ask a tonne of questions about where you're from and where you're going. Rightfully so too.

12-18 months ago an average client had to be shown through a traceroute when they couldn't reach their site...these days they've done it, analysed it and are knock on door asking questions about it when things go astray.

Pricing and toll free numbers etc are becoming less of a concern than how much trust folks can place in their provider.

IMO of course.

Cheers

Gary

[HostSector]

I think it mostly depends on the customer. Someone with a right mind wants only a few things:

Quality support and good sever speed and uptime. As for the features, they know what they can get for their money, so it's really not a problem. Someone less knowledgeable wants to get everything for as little money as possible, without realizing that the only person he's making it worse for is himself.

Boris

[DotComster]

1) Care for their site more than they do.
The rest is just dressing on the cake.

[Alan - Vox]

What customers want -- Everything for Nothing.