Selecting a service, or infrastructure provider isn’t a big deal, as long as you know “what your exact needs are”; and as to who can offer them. Though there are many points to consider before picking up a provider, a trade-off between cost and quality is what drives the decision making. In cases where both cost and quality meet, you look for other aspects.

Too many cooks spoil the broth

Involving multiple providers to render services and facilities, can invariably be challenging. The sheer overhead of liaising with multiple providers, along with the overhead of getting desired results in an efficient and timely manner can be deterrent in itself.

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Product differentiation is the edge in a competitive market. That being said, businesses still revolve around customer relationships. Long term success of a business relates to how quickly your customer moves up your loyalty ladder. This article is about converting your customers to die hard fans of your products and services. Watch your prospective customer climb up the loyalty ladder, becoming an advocate of your products and offerings.

The five strategies covered here are : How to >

a) Develop your core operations for a “Long Term” customer relationship.

Suppose you are designing a new product or service. Read the rest of this entry »

Support plays an important role in the hosting industry. So if you are a web host, it is important that you ensure quality in the support provided to your customers. Nowadays, a variety of communication media are provided to customers to interact with their web hosts like, Email/HelpDesk support, Chat support, Phone support etc. This article covers a few points that web hosts should focus on to ensure quality in their email/helpdesk support.

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With the “Cloud” rapidly becoming an integral part of the internet now, I am sure that most of us have at one point or the other used a cloud application. To make the hosting of software products in cloud easier, options are being explored to implement them in the SaaS model. Providing software products in the SaaS model is how the internet will be, in the future.

Software as a Service model is now playing a major role in defining the hosting industry too. The APS standard from Parallels is a perfect platform for delivering software in the SaaS model. As a web host, what will set you apart in today’s competitive hosting market is not the hardware or the bandwidth, but the applications you provide your customers.

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“I need a Dedicated Tech”, the client went on describing his requirements, along with pricing and a long list of preferred skill sets. One of the most important aspects that clients tend to forget in the above mentioned process is what they are looking for when they hire a dedicated tech. Is it only the technical or soft skills that matter or does the pricing too?

Working with servers is not rocket science! Not even half of these requested skills come into play often. May be once in a while, a kernel recompilation becomes essential. But does this mean, we need to hire only experts? Wouldn’t it be nice to hire individuals who have a true passion towards satisfying your customers? A person with such an attitude will be ready to go above and beyond the call of duty to see your customers, smile always.

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Support technicians are the backbone of a web host. Almost all web hosts go for outsourced technical support. Every company should have a team of efficient and competent support professionals to become successful and stay one-step ahead, always.

This article covers a few points on developing good support technicians.

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Every organization goes through what is known as ‘the comfort zone’. Everyday, we are in a rush to achieve goals and set targets accordingly. And what happens when we reach this target? We hit a plateau of relaxation. The state where nothing gives results inspite of the fact that we are doing everything perfectly.

The end result is usually frustration, which is followed by an inner voice that tells you that you have reached your limits and that it’s time to slow down now. “Why take additional headaches?” is what you will start thinking, and sooner or later, a negative spiral begins. In the end, the result will be disappointment.

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“If you want to make your customers happy, you should start thinking from their perspective!”

This is something that my boss always tells me and insists me to do. And it really works! To give the best solution to the customer, you should thoroughly understand his business and what he expects from his support personnel.

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Generating a new customer is quite fast and easy, when compared to keeping them satisfied and delighted. To ensure that your customers will stay with you for life, you need to start planning from the very beginning. The challenge is to keep them increasingly satisfied as days go by. There are a variety of aspects that should be taken care of and through this article, I intend to take you through some basic and Simple Steps for Efficient Server and Customer Management.

Always, give only the right information to your prospective clients. It is recommended that you give an overview of the server configuration / settings. If you have any security restrictions, make sure that you highlight these in your website. During the pre-sales communication, convey all the important information to your prospective clients so that there are no worries for them, after sign-up.

Remember, the first impression is the best impression!

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I was recently going through the ordering process of pizzas at dominos.com. They have this feature of helping us build our own pizza. This gives us a lot of flexibility while ordering a pizza. That’s probably because I already know what I would like to eat. I was wondering how nice it would be if webhosts provided such a feature to customers who already knew what they wanted. I am sure there are a lot of webhosts out there who now provide this flexibility. But a majority of the websites do not include the feature of ordering custom hosting accounts.

The website is the gateway for a potential customer to your company. The ordering process is a part of this gateway. With a lot of self help tools in the industry, I think it’s a good idea to give a flexibility to the customer in choosing the hardware specifications or the features required for their hosting account.

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