What Customers Demand from Customer Service & What Web Hosts Deliver

As the general hosting customer has become less and less technical, customer service in the Web hosting industry has had to improve. Now, the average customer of a hosting company doesn’t have several years of Linux experience – they are doctors, lawyers, and other small business owners. These people generally don’t have advanced technical skills and subsequently require more service.

The first step to deciding how much customer service is ideal for a hosting company is by judging exactly who their clients are. For example, does the company mainly target local markets where the less experienced consumers are more likely to be or does the company target more experienced web developers?

Obviously the more experienced require less support with simple things such as “how do I upload my files?” or “how do I create an email address?”, but more support like “a script I’m installing needs the php.ini file to allow 15 MB uploads, could you do this?” With this in mind, a host must staff accordingly. With less experienced customers, a host should prepare for lots of easy questions. With more experienced customers, a host has to be ready for fewer, but far more difficult questions.

Keep in mind that you many simple questions can be answered with helpful FAQs, knowledge bases, and video tutorials. Again, depending on the target market, the FAQs, etc. should contain different content. More experienced customers may want a tutorial for setting up their FTP account with Dreamweaver whereas less experienced customers may want a tutorial on how to login and add an email address.

Look at this comparison:

• Rackspace
Rackspace is known for their “fanatical support.” It’s true – they’re received many awards for their support and they continue to be a leader in the hosting industry. However, even with their support, it’s quite likely that if someone purchased an account with Rackspace and has never had a hosting account before, they’ll be overwhelmed.

• EV1Servers
Though EV1Servers has pretty good support, it’s not quite as “fanatical” as Rackspace’s. I would say that a very small percentage of EV1Servers’ clients are newcomers to the hosting industry, and there’s a reason for that.

The point is that both companies have found and successfully occupied their niches. Rackspace has become known as the best in the industry in terms of support. On the other hand, EV1Servers has become a choice provider for more experienced users.

When a hosting company determines what level of support they should provide, they should look at these factors:

• Their prices
• The total amount of customers they have
• The type of customers they have
• The level of experience their staff possesses

A hosting company that get a pretty good understanding of the support they need to provide after just a few weeks of providing services to their target market. If a host’s prices are high, they have quite a few non-technical customers, and their staff have generally low levels of experiences, chances are they’ll get by. However, when the questions start getting harder (which will happen eventually), the host will likely have to hire more experienced staff members.

If another host’s prices are low, they have a high number of technical users, and an inexperienced staff, the host will almost certainly fail in providing adequate support. To compete, they’ll need experienced staff members.

Customers seeking a host should consider this advice when deciding if a host’s support is adequate: