SMB Cornerstones: Part 1: Customer Service Metrics

Tags:  billing 

First, sorry for the delay of this entry. I know all of you reading missed me last week! (Oh come on... give me a little boost here!) We moved our business center (not data center) and it did take up a fair amount of time.

So... I have had a lot of impressions coming in lately about the hosting industry and how some of our brethren treat their customers, so I have to get on my soap box a bit. Bear with me, because I think this is ultra important.

I think there are 2 main cornerstones I follow in business to the extreme degree.

1. Honesty: This is not to be treated lightly to me in any way. I demand it from everyone I deal with. And try to deliver back the same in everything I do. (I will talk more about this in later blogs)

2. Customer Service: Without making this a top priority, I feel there is no strategy for long term success in the hosting industry.

I feel very strongly that the SMB market is asking, crying and demanding this. They need all the help they can get and are willing to give up something for it. So how do the big players get all the customers with terrible customer support? I think the truth is because even most of the small players are still not seeing this support as a true requirement and have driven a large amount of customers to be just price sensitive. Look, if we, the smaller hosting players, are going to make it against the big players, then one of the differentiations needs to be customer support.

Actually, I like Lou Honick's comment "but I also thought "What if it breaks in 6 months?" Would they stand behind it? What about after a year?"

Robert P. Cichon, President of CrystalTechTM Web Hosting Inc. joined Newtek as the VP of Technical Operations for Crystaltech in late 2005. He has been in the technology business since 1990 with a strong background in cutting edge internet / financial institution information delivery. Before joining... (Read full bio)

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Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Hi Robert,

I agree on the top priority of customer service. But let me ask two questions:
- Is the in-house customer support testing objective and accurate enough?
- Furthermore, wouldn't be the competitor benchmarking a good idea?

BTW, in our recent survey (http://www.hostest.net/Survey.aspx) you did very well ;-)
Jan

Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 07, 2007

I attend a lot of Business Networking Events and through and through you do hear that they want Customer Service and Support but really they also think that any company "Should" have great customer service and support.

Most SMB's want to achieve a goal when they purchase hosting services and if your Customer Service is focusing on helping them achieve that goal that is the key to separate you from the other hosts.

Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Jan,
Both points are valid. We do extensive compare from a competitor focus. It is somewhat subjective and I think we always feel we are better. I am always wondering what someone else does right and searching for those facts to help us learn and grow from a customer service perspective.

Comment by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Gary,
I think its a matter of what the benchmark is. What is "good" and acceptable? I'm not sure if this isn't the most subjective of all thoughts. I do agree that customer service cannot be ignored and has to be default and in our business a seperator from all the rest. At least one seperator.

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