Treating shared hosting clients like dedicated clients
 

What's your opinion?
Should a hosting company treat their shared hosting clients in the same way they treat their clients who have a dedicated server?

Yes. Shared hosting clients have the potential to become dedicated hosting clients.

yes they should
If shared customers arent as profitable to them, its because they dont have the right setup

probably yes ;)

it will never happen.
Its like going with the bus and expect to have the same comfort as someone driving a benz.

Should for sure, clients are clients and deserve respect and service.

Technically they should threat them better,beacuse host can earn much more money with shared customers then with dedicated.But this could be problematic if host sells packages with unlimited bandwidth.

just in time. This is the last ticket I got from a shared client:

Thats not weven close to being true. If you have 1 dedicated server customer then the host only needs to supply support to one customer, not to hard to do. Now if you have that same server with 50 small shared customers the support could eat a host alive. It's not about BW costs, it's about Quality pf support.:2 cents:

you need a better ticketing system. One that pick up those question and tell them that ticked cant be submitted because the answer to that is in the FAQ

I can't deny a client the right to submit a question. Even if its stupid.
You don't need a FAQ to find out what a ftp client is, if you really want to.

Amerinoc treats their shared clients very well. I don't know how they could treat their dedicated server clients better, unless they served breakfast in bed.

yup They do treat them those clients very well cause I've had phatservers/Amerinoc servers for many years and i have used their shared servers before and was given AMAZING service 24/7

that is what some do, and that is what I would suggest anyone should do if that want to run a profitable company

I had my shared hosting with Naked Hosting, always telling myself I'd go with NatNet or Mojo when it came time for a dedicated.

The time came and then I realized that Naked Hosting was giving me <5 minute support ticket responses 24/7 when I was a $20/mo. customer.

So I stayed with them and bought a managed dedicated.

As with a small affiliate having the potential to become a whale, the same thing can happen with a hosting customer.

Just giving a host perspective here.

The question was should the host "treat" shared customers the same as dedicated. Yes, I believe that they should. Everyone should be treated with respect and kindness no matter the amount of money that is being paid to the company.

There is a difference in treating and priority however. If you have 2 tickets in the que and 1 is from a dedicated customer and the other is from the shared hosting customer with the "what is an ftp client" question. I think you all would agree on who should be served first in this instance. However, regardless of how stupid we all may think that question is, that person deserves a response and not one that is directing them to a knowledge base. That is my opinion. I personally am anoyed when my questions are responded with directing to me FAQ. It just seems so unpersonal to me. We answer the question specifically for them, but then also show them where this information can be found for future reference.

As others have pointed out. Shared hosting clients eventually become dedicated clients, if they are "treated" right :)

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say no. Godaddy's $5 shared hosting plan
is very popular because it's cheap. One reason that Godaddy can offer it so cheap
is that they don't spend a lot of money providing support to each of these clients.
On the other end, I used to be employed part time by a host and my job was to
provide support for just one customer - one who owned a major adult message
board. The host paid me several hundred dollars per month just to provide support
for this one customer. If godaddy did the same their shared accounts would cost
$505 / month instead of $5 / month. So webmasters can choose - do you want to
pay $5 / month and get what you pay for, or do you want to pay $4,000 / month
and get what you pay for. If everyone was treated the same, everyone would
need to pay the same and the small webmasters would go bankrupt.


Amerinoc aka Phatservers is amazing. I wish the owner, Mike Wesson, would write
about how they manage to provide the support they do at ANY price, much less at
the low prices they charge for shared accounts (as low as $9.95). Mike - please write
a book, an article, a post, whatever - a lot of companies could learn from you guys.

At least he isn't calling at 3 AM to ask.

Well that problem could be avoided with making a good knowledge base,and let customer know to check it before asking questions.

do you treat apples like oranges ? ( only when making fruit salad )

Yep... I've also been with Phatservers for years and I've had both with them and I didn't find any difference the support with either... they ROCK!!!

a customer is a customer

Treat all customers af if they were your bread and butter ;)

The thing that's emerging between the lines is that often a dedi customer is less trouble than a shared one because he already knows his shit

I have been in Sales and dealing with clients now for well over 20 years and IMHO the following rules have worked out pretty well for me:

1. Be honest with your clients, if you don't know an answer, explain that you will research the question to find the answer.
2. Treat even the guy sweeping the floor today as if he may be the boss tomorrow, really nothing more than that old Golden Rule, it really works
3. Care about your clients helping them to prosper will make you prosper
4. Form strong lines of communications. Even when times are bad if you have good communications it can really go along way

They are all pretty easy to figure out and while I may not have won every deal I have formed some very good long lasting relationships with businesses that know they can trust me long-term

Bottom line just treat everyone as if they are important, isn't that ultimately your expectation that you and your business are important and priority #1? :2 cents:

Does your bank treat you the same if you have $300 in an account. V.S. 3,000,000 in multiple accts?

Nope..