Comments on: The Cost of Support

By: WPWeekly Episode 96 – Commercial Services

WPWeekly Episode 96 – Commercial Services — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:12:56 +0000

[...] Case Studies In Freemium EditFlow Edit Flow Project A Case For Innovation In College Newsrooms Eyeballs Still Don’t Pay The Bills The Cost Of Support [...]

By: Joshua Strebel

Joshua Strebel — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:01:37 +0000

Agreed.. you have to draw a line and stick to it. ;)

By: Sean Tierney

Sean Tierney — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:56:44 +0000

Agreed that delivering “fanatical support” can win you a ton of referral business. Rackspace has basically built an entire brand on that. Only caution is that you can set a precedent of bending over backwards to help people, at which point some will take advantage of the generosity. Know when to pull back the reins on losing propositions. But in general I agree that “above and beyond” service can win a lot of loyalty and word of mouth. We rely upon it ourselves – Austin delivers top notch support to our users and they rave about it to others.

sean

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:29:52 +0000

the problem with most companies isn’t support vs no support, its that they generally seem to refuse to stand behind their products. i want to work with companies that hold themselves responsible. time was, the customer was always right. that’s certainly not always true, but the point was that as a business, you suck it up in the name of service. we’ve lost that, and its caused a cycle of consumers being less loyal.

i recommend pagely because its not a company constantly trying to limit support and service or reallocate blame. they stand behind the product, which is simple and straightforward, while constantly trying to perfect the tools people crave to help themselves.

By: Bobby Borszich

Bobby Borszich — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:17:26 +0000

I don’t use your service because I don’t currently need it. However … I have told countless people about what you provide! I once worked for said high-incentive upsell company … and yes we made lots of money by selling more. I don’t want to wonder into their business model, but I fully respect and appreciate yours! Another reason I will continue to recommend and promote one of my PHX locals!

By: Jared

Jared — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:54:13 +0000

I support you and your quality of support which you provide. All help and support you’ve offered me has been very appreciated, and is entirely different from another web host I use who “appear to act as semi-trained sales staff” located in another country and provide no help most of the time. It’s a nice change to have the support needed when needed, if needed at all. For me, most of my issues are user error (mine) only affecting my sites, which is ok with me, my site after all.

So, yes, you should try to spend less $ on support by eliminating it, or improving areas that could lessen the amount of support needed for certain things. That’s the best option of course.

However, if you’re going to do a job, which entails you to work, you might as well do the best job you can since you’re already required to do the work. That’s how I see it, and I’m glad you are on the same level -ish. I now feel like I can get you to support me all the time. What the hell, how bout making my site for me?!? :D lol no jk.

But yeah, thanks for the support, and yes, for that alone is enough to strongly encourage me to refer people to use your service, its just that worth it. Gonna go write up something to do just that.

In the end, I guess it all depends on whether the price of support outweighs the costs of referred client revenues or not.