Other charging models?

[GordonH]

With bandwidth and disk space getting cheaper I have been thinking about other ways of charging.

How about charging for processur usage?
(I am not sure how this could be done practically, but it might be possible.)

How about charging per support ticket with the initial hosting fee being very low or free?
(That would pile up the charges on very demanding customers while the competent ones would pay less.)

Any other suggestions?

[Dexxa]

How about charging for processur usage?
(I am not sure how this could be done practically, but it might be possible.)

Thats like buying a car and have to pay for full usage of its engine, Doubt that whould work on a shared hosting platform.

How about charging per support ticket with the initial hosting fee being very low or free?
(That would pile up the charges on very demanding customers while the competent ones would pay less.)

Good idea, You could also run a promotion like 2 free support tickets per month!

What you could also do is, Maybe a customer pays abit extra monlthly and they get thier own support advisor, So they dont get a diffrent person each time,

[Q151]

Hmmm, these are both very good ideas - a very innovative way of looking at things. As you state, with storage space and transfer basically becoming commodity features (and things like website builders quickly joining them), the differentiating price factor, especially in this service-based economy, may be based on the customer service itself - and not the technical service.

[GordonH]

Thats what I am thinking.
The customers who costus a lot of money are the ones who need us to do lots of things for them, not the ones who use lots of nbandwidth or disk space.
Salaries are the biggest cost.
Since I started buying transit bandwidth by the mbit the ofdd person using lots has not inreased the bandwidth bill as we buy in such big chunks.

[Chicken]

Here's the only issue I see with it...

JoeBob looks at two providers. Infinity&Beyond hosting offers the moon and the universe (plus four months free if you sign up today) and claims to offer 24/7 free support (which includes washing your windows and a massage with a "happy ending"). You also offer the moon and the universe (keepin' up with the Joneses) but you charge for support.

JoeBob is unaware that Infinity&Beyond outsources support to a center in Gigibamarama where monkeys actually just press random keys ("n" for "Could you clarify the issue you are having?") and there are so many support requests and so few monkeys that it's a few days in between those enlightened responses.

You do it the right way, but JoeBob doesn't understand this. IMHO you'd really have to sell this idea or you'd just look like you offer less for more.



*This reply to your post has been typed by a monkey in Gigibamarama.

[GordonH]

Yes Chicken, thats the problem.
We lost a vast number of customers to a company who were doing hosting for $25 a year unlimited bu tthen the customers found out the support people could not understand English and some of them came back.

Its all about initial perceptions, and headline price is a major part of that.

"Rule number one of customer service: The customer is always right. Rule number two: They must be punished for their arrogance!"

[GordonH]

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060120.html

[GordonH]

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20051227.html

[Chicken]

"Rule number one of customer service: The customer is always right. Rule number two: They must be punished for their arrogance!"

http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060120.html
I don't think I've ever heard that one (good, very good), plus the cartoon above was great, heh.

[kris1351]

Just be cause space and bandwidth are getting cheaper does not mean that labor and hardware are dropping to the point you can offer 20gb/120gb per month for $2.95. People are just as likely to sign up with a host charging a real price for a real plan as they are the fly-by-night plans. I like your idea of charging for server processes, we disallow shared accounts to use over a certain percentage of processor in a 24 hour period. Those that let a shared account paying $2.95/month run a forum with 100+ users won't make it.

[acidbase]

i would think a formula of

Price = %xstorage space +%xdata transfer+%CPU+%Service ticket should be better. I mean this is an example rather than just applying what i say.

'cause each factor is important in its own sense and to the different application.
Some application use alot of CPU but very little storage space does not mean they are not heavy users. so there should be an index by distinguishing the heavy users from the light users.

Use a statistical tool to find that out. Quite fun actually.
Cheers