How important is the customer service?

[hardcase2]

How important is the customer service? Can I have a good site with poor customer support or not?

[Darylngch]

Yes, you can have a good site with poor service. But, at least ensure that your servers are running properly. Lol!

Anyway, i prefer good customer service. Though, it won't bring you much customers, but at least, you do not lose your current ones. Futhermore, these good services are just little acts here and there, which can be done easily, without much of your time.

For your company's name, why not?

[Galaxy-Hosts]

How important is the customer service? Can I have a good site with poor customer support or not? A company that ha a pretty website, but poor customer support will have high customer turnover and most likeley will not be in business long.

[pageBuzz]

Why would you bother starting something that you already don't want to support?

Just resell for someone else and let them handle support and you take the commissions. You wont last long without support.

I will get as many as 4 emails in 15 minutes from the same person. By #4 they are threatening to take their business someplace else if I do not respond immediately.

I know that seems crazy and it is, but I get it daily and people expect fast and effective support. Of course I can't respond that quickly, but if they expect it, you should be prepared for it.

Plus, most people wont stay with you long if you do not have phone support.

[brianoz]

I value customer service highly but I think it's important to make a point here. I regard anything affecting service on a server-wide basis as urgent. I don't consider answering customer questions urgent, although I'll do my best to get to it and to answer thoroughly as quickly as I can.

I think this is an important distinction, as I'm not always good at getting back to people asking questions - although when I do, they always get a great answer. However, we do offer a rock solid hosting service and I think that makes it possible to build a great business.

[m1lkym1ke]

my opinion is if you have no good customer service... you have no biz.... i had a guy buy 5 MORE dedicated servers from me because i had good customer service.

[Greatlake]

I agree with out good customer support you will not last long. Put yourself in their place if your servers or site is down and the provider don't care how long you going to stick around my guess is not long at all

[billiam2003]

Plus, most people wont stay with you long if you do not have phone support.

Most of my customer prefer live chat or trouble tickets. I only have one or two customers that like to call in. I provide an 800 number so they can, however I get no calls, just tickets.

[TMS JoseQ]

Let's face it, this business works well thanks to referral and word of mouth. With poor customer support, you won't get any of that.

JoseQ

[lelahosting]

customer service is what matters

without good support/service your customers will leave you and not recommend you.

[leec]

Do me a faveor and give me your url. Cause I would never order from a poor client service company. I would rather put up with 50 outages a day and being told whats going on then not hearing a thing

[milleniahost]

Customer Service is key for word of mouth advertising, keeping your clients, and overall getting your business to grow faster and in turn, making you more profit.

[jmz2]

Everybody sell unlimited everything and all in but at the end of the day what really makes the difference is the support.

[CyberMark]

I think alot of it depends upon the price that you are offering your services for, and the type of customer you are targeting.

[cabron]

whatever you are offering support is 75% of the business. Offering 24/7 non-outsourced support is a must. Also you should offer live support (at least for sales) as well.

Good support is a heart of the business!

[TargetedClix]

100% reliable support, 100% of the time. Subtract anything from that, and that's roughly the percentage of business you will lose.

[iFast_Presh]

I'll answer this as a webmaster looking for web-hosting. I'll try to find a webhost that is reputed, has had good reviews but most importantly, has excellent support. Not everyone is knowledgeable. I have tested hosts by posting the silliest of queries, which ran upto 10 replies, just to check their patience.

Support is really crucial.

[zoodia]

The level of service you should supply would depend on your target audience. Some customers will deal with poor support (assuming the machines are running smoothly) in return for cheap hosting. Others would prefer to spend the extra money to ensure top quality support.

Select a target market and walk a mile in their shoes.

[marketraisecorp]

Hi

customer service is very important to retain clients, if you have a good site but dont have good customer service the clients will not be retained.

Regards,
MarketRaise Corp
marketraise@marketraise.com

[ideahosting]

You must have good customer service, thank about it. would you want a host that never answers any of your questions, even when you run into problems with the server? you could be stuck on the same problem for weeks, even months.

[RSHosting]

Customer service stands first for any business you think about.

[web helper]

Customer Service is THE most important thing. Uptime, reliability, competitive features etc. are a given. Everybody has them - if you don't, get out of the game. Customer service is where you make your difference. People are willing to forgive a lot of deficiencies and pay more for a standard service is the customer support is top class.

[Frimon86]

For one customers are not always right, I dont know what jerk made that little statement but anyone whos been in business knows that statement is wrong. A customer can easily say "well i though your 3rd plan 5gb diskspace, 20gb bandwidth was for $2.99 and came with a free domain.. not $5.99 plus $9.99 extra for a domain..." but I will agree, customer service is your most important object let it be you have 1 client to 200000 clients. If you lose this thought you'll end up sinking in the low radar like many of the big timmer hosts today.

[SharedRack_sale]

Very important, generally support is face of any company.
Good support - good company face.
Bad support - bad company face.

[Host4Yourself]

Customer service is 100% essential. You will quickly learn that if your support or customer service is poor, you will not last long in this industry. It is what seperates the businesses the last from those who don't.

[flanelshirt]

good responsive customer service is always required in ALL businesses.

[livechatdir]

customer service is the core issue in the business. I do not understand how anybody can survive in this competitive business scenario without or with poor customer service. Where customers have lot of options to explore, it is the customer service that alone makes a difference. customers are increasingly becoming willing to shell out more but expect good customer support.

good website but with poor customer support, I do not think would be able to sustain its business little longer. that's why, I feel, more and more people are increasingly looking forward to live chat applications to attract the potential customers and retain existing ones.

we, ourselves noticed a difference. since we have installed liveperson (http://www.liveperson.com) on our website M2Mhost (http://www.m2mhost.com), our customer satisfaction rate along with revenue have improved considerably.

[Zax]

Website creates the firtst impression, but it's support service that guarantees you''l be able to keep your clients for a long time.

[5wayshost]

The support man behind the auto support, and livehelp stuff is the one who needs to be on the ball. Without human feel and friendly support in laymans terms will only turn customers away.

[VQGaret]

100 % important. Take it from me lol i've had some awful experiences with customer services of various hosting companies. Including one that took me 1 maybe two weeks to get a question answered so i recommend you focus on that customers tend to get frustrated when they have been trying to get through to support for a long time and no response

[allprohost]

without customer service your business will never flourish

[Morgan]

Customer support, one of the three most important factors in a business environment, can either work towards your advantage, or disadvantage.

Emails:

Emails are fine for general inquiries, such as sales, employment requests, and so on, but shouldn't be your primary means of client support. People are impatient, and that's what you'll get with any client trying to gain any help through an email. They'll get frustrated, you'll get frustated, and you'll end up losing in the long run.

Support Tickets:

Not the most primary means of quality support, but it's definately a valuable tool. Having the means of an organized ticket system, you'll be able to assist clients based on urgency of the request, as well as the time it was submitted. Never have a client waiting, when you're either assisting someone who submitted one after them, or one not as urgent.

Live Help:

The second main means of sales/support questions. It allows issues to be handled person to person. You may not be able to provide it 24/7, but at least you'll be able to increase your relations with current clients.

Phone Support:

I'd have to say that this is the first main means of client support, if readily available to you. While increasing relations with clients, you'll be able to assist them in real time, to make sure the problem is taken care of almost instantly, instead of having to constantly have them continuously ask again, if the problem wasn't fixed the first time.

The other two important factors in running a successfull busines, is Advertising Techniques, and having a presentable, user-friendly website or other system, to effectively allow clients to purchase services.

[ganesh.rao]

When you are running a web hosting service. You need to target 3 points.

1) Uptime (anything less than 99% annually, I hate you)
2) Speed (keep the average load less than 1 [unix rating])
3) 24x7 Customer Support (sales, billing and technical)

Lag in anyone and your dream will never come true, trust me.

[sourcesouth]

I totally agree with Support being 75% of the business. However, Outsourced Support doesn't have to drop off in quality compared to in house support. It is a market vertical just like hosting companies. There are good ones and bad ones. It's the bad ones that give us bad names! :mad:
The key is to have native english on the phone, dedicated engineers working for the same hosting company tomorrow that worked for that company today, and an effective transfer of information that enables the outsourcer to gather the company-specific information so they know what to say when they are asked pricing questions, or questions about other services you (the hosting company) provide.
This last part is where things get interesting. The best way to really get to know all the little things that make hostingcompanyX different from hostingcompanyZ is in the chat and helpdesk logs. That's why we literally reverse-engineer the answers out of the logs. :)

This said, please let me know everyone's feedback and experiences (negative and postitive) with outsourced tech support.
/sourcesouth



whatever you are offering support is 75% of the business. Offering 24/7 non-outsourced support is a must. Also you should offer live support (at least for sales) as well.

Good support is a heart of the business!

[JLHC]

Customer service is still the No1 factor in choosing a web host. If your customer service is poor, you will lose out as customers nowadays are willing to pay more just for a good customer service. I myself personally deal with all my customer's problem although i have a group of support team. This is to instill confidence in customers towards your company. How will you feel if a hypermarket's CEO and MD serve you when you go shopping? Same principle. ;) Good luck! :D

[costlessnames]

Without good customer service you won't last long. Price is one thing however good customers like good support and are prepaired to pay a bit more for it.

[kjmcculloch]

I've got to agree with what everyone else is saying. For me customer service is key. I may not have the prettiest, best designed site in the world. But I do aim to have very good quality support. Even a few hours is a long time when your site is down.

[billiam2003]

This is what I have found if you have a good website, good servers and they are running properly you do not get that many support issues. You get the support issues when eaither you have a poor running server and the clients have issues or two they are free clients. Free clients in my estimation take more support then the paying ones. Paying clients usually know more about how to use the hosting platform and do stuff. Just my observation. I have had some free clients that knew what they were doing though so it can both ways but in general thats the way I have seen it.

[anand4hosting]

its important ...like if you get a solution with in less duration of time..if the tech support guys take quite more time to respond then its no use to be a tech support like 24/7 ..i agree some issue may take time...but it must be explained to the clients..never lie the clients to escape the call or to close the calls 1 clients loose = to 10 loss of clients..

[odishahost]

Hi, Here we are offering to live chat support sales. Please feel free to get us back for your better convenience. so logon to www.odishahosting.in

Waiting for to help you always.

Regards,

[ron_ff]

For running network service, let say i'm the customer, my website needed to be access 24 X7, if too many downtime, my website will lost vistor.

[TechGuy1]

Customer service makes or brakes a new hosting company

[DrVPSHosting]

Customer Service is the most important aspect of the hosting business!! Getting customers is easy, keeping them is the hardest part and that is where customer service is so important.

[ladesign]

Frankly, I don't think its possible to have a good site with bad customer service. Definitely bad for business...

[plusplus]

Is everything....an experienced hosting client looking for quality will start looking for (in this order):

1- customer care quality
2- service uptime/quality
3- features of the plan
4- price

[edmond dantes]

Good customer service is everythint to your consumers. Wether your selling a service or tangible items you want to keep customers coming back. Its alot easier to gain a bad reputation through bad customer support than it is to gain a good reputation and retain consumers.

[LevelHosting]

This is a topic I talked about before and from my personal experience in sales, marketing and customer relations some key things to keep in mind when dealing with clients in point form are:

1) Be Present
2) Be Excited
3) Be Open
4) Show a sense of urgency
5) Make it count you only have one chance
6) Prepare to win
7) Always under promise and over deliver
8 ) Be honest & display integrity

Honesty & Integrity goes a long way and helps build a foundation of trust and rapport with your clients/customers. Even if it's something that was an error on your end or will need time to fix be honest because it goes a long way. At the end of the day your client will respect a candid answer over a canned answer.

Also, depending on the type of business that you're in most individuals prefer to be called clients Vs. customers.

That's my 2 cents.

[~ServerPoint~]

I believe that customer support is like a face of the company.
They should be patient, knowledgeable, skillful and fast with responses.

[ReliableHostorg]

Effective customer service is important for sure but good customer service might not be always necessary. If you are running an extreme budget host then the customers are going for price rather than support. It is different for a higher priced hosting where profit margin is a lot larger and you can keep dozens of support technicians all throughout the day. But in any case, support must be effective.

[cyberls]

You need good customer support. That is a must. Many people depend on live chats for urgent technical issues.If the customer needs to get them fixed quickly live chat is the option he has. A person already in panic will get irritated in no time if you dont get the output.:P.. and lose of the customer is sure to be the resultant outcome. So have a good support backing you always.