The Impact of Providing Service After Sales

There are a lot of web hosts in the industry. Hundreds of reputable ones, thousands that are pretty good, and then you have the ones that are just plain bad. So, what separates the good ones from the bad ones?

Well, that's pretty simple. It's service after the sale.

You see, the way things are these days just about anyone can setup and run a web server. Few of them don't even have servers; they just pay for space and run reseller accounts while relying on their host to run everything for them.

That's a good approach, but customer service is still the responsibility of the end host.

In the hosting industry it's relatively easy to attract new customers. Every business will undergo regular instability of incoming and outgoing customers at whatever time, though it's particularly important in this industry to ensure that you make your customers always happy, and hardly give them reasons as possible to look hosting services somewhere else.

Think of a web server as a really soft bed with a bunch of children sleeping in it. If one of those kids moves around everyone else will feel it too. It's the same on a web server. If one of the users' scripts goes haywire and starts devouring resources on a shared server, then everyone will notice as the server comes to a screeching halt.

You'll be provided with tickets, support chats and phone calls (suppose you have phones).

Not only is the customer always right, but it's important to be knowledgeable and courteous as well. If there's an issue with a customer's email don't point the finger at them and outright accuse them of having the wrong settings. Give time to troubleshoot it. Have them check their settings, make sure everything is setup correctly and then, if need be, check the server.

It's up to you to ensure that your customers are happy. Be pro-active and intelligent. Don't abuse your servers by overloading it, keep your server updated, watch closely all of your services, and make sure your support staff are familiar with what they are doing. All of these things, including good staff, cost money. This industry is an expensive one to get into (properly), but it's worth the investment if you can provide top-notch service and support.

Another thing worth mentioning is this: don't just rely on form responses all the time. Take the extra few seconds to type out a personalized message to somebody. Tell them to have a nice day. Ask them how they're doing over the phone. Even if you don't really care, pretend you do. It's the little things that go a long ways towards customer loyalty.

All in all just remember this: Whether you had a good day or not, it's not fault of the customer. Be polite, be nice, be familiar with what you are talking about and you will get on with it.