Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Support Team Enquiry

[hostizzy]

I run a small hosting comapny and basically my enquiry is this, at what point should a support team be hired in, like how many customers?

I run the support with my partner at the moment, but was just wondering at what number of customers is it best to start hiring in a support team to deal with customer enquiries and so forth?

[Jamza]

I don't think you should base if you need support staff on the number of customers you have.

I think you should be thinking about getting support staff if there is a need for them. If you feel support is too time consuming for you or your partner.

Also you may want to think about it if you plan to offer 24/7 support.

[bvsonline]

Hi,

Its always better to have a support team. If you go for outsourced support, you can get 24*7 quality support with well experienced techs. Its pretty economic too. You can get a trial period for one week or so and during that period you can monitor the efficiency of techs. Hire them if you like them - not only the technical side but also the way they handle your customers and the language.

[Disrelation]

As Jamza said, you shouldn't start hiring support staff until you start feeling like it's consuming all your time then you just start off with one support team member and adding more as you go.

[ssluser]

As others said, you should start hiring guys for support or start searching for offshore support, which would be more economical for you. The reason for doing this is that you can concentrate more on marketing and increasing business rather than using your time on on support.

[Masud]

It totally depends on what kind of tickets / e-mails are you getting and how much do you spend on customer support? If its less than an hour / day then dont bother just now!

If you are very much concerned then hire 1 guy for live chat / email / tickets and see if it help!

[VIPoint]

I agree to Masud... Also I would like to add another factor : Your growth rate.

Support is one of the main criteria that any customer looks for when he wants to start a website. So if you want to get more number of customers then you should improve your support and let the support be handled by professionals..

[inspiron]

Yes, support is very important factor as if you provide good support to the existing customers then you should be able to win there trust. And they will automatically express your service to others people.

[XeHSean]

I'd say that you should hire a support team as soon as you no longer think that you can offer reliable support to your customers by yourself

[BarackObama]

Never compromise on quality of support that you render. When you feel that response time or quality is coming down..start hiring.

[mrbt]

I'll echo whatever everyone else said but add try to do it BEFORE things go to hell. Do it when things feel like they're ALMOST out of control.

[keserhosting]

I think you should not compromise on customer service and technical support in an this business where customers rely heavily on your company.

[jrianto]

If you setup everything properly, you can support up to a few hundred customers if not 1,000 all by yourself. Again, that is if you setup everything properly, with no overselling.

Overselling = problems = downtime

So be patient,it takes time and hard work

[Jiten]

There's no limit to the customers you can support if you know the kind of tickets you are receiving..however when you think you are not able to handle a certain amount of tickets daily..then you might need a hand..or if you are seeing that you are unable to resolve the matter.!

[Jordy26]

Does anyone have any reccomended Outsourced support techs/companys. Never really seen this advertised much tbh but im interested so when I setup my new hosting I can do just as ssluser and a couple others said, I can focus more on marketing etc without the constant emails for support coming in.