Phone support at a web host?

[Joe]

I'm currently investigating whether I should open up phone support.

Do you have phone support on your host, was it vital to you choosing them?
or
Are you a web host which offers phone support, and it's popular and well worth investing in?

I'm looking for opinions/ideas/experiences/etc which may help me make my decision.

I currently offer skype support/live chat/support tickets/IRC/emails/MSN/AIM/YIM as various support options.

What do you all think?
Joe

 

[shockie]

if you're going to offer phone support you should make sure it's toll-free, otherwise people will just go with skype/live chat, or one of your other various options. this would be a good question to send out to your current customers to see how much more value they would actually find in having phone support.

 

[~ServerPoint~]

I believe that you won't be able to do that during rush hours, while ticket system do.

 

[weblord]

:imho: currently for me the customer support medium you are offering are ok and fine with me.

 

[CrazyTech]

Good question.

I think it really depends on your offerings. For example, phone support is rather highly inefficient for support on the average technical issue. Keep in mind all of the extra time that it takes to answer, spit out a line to thank them for calling, listen, and then only begin to research the issue. It leaves the door open for a lot of dead air that really handicaps things in my book. Not only do you have to research and/or apply the fix, you have to keep the customer informed and occupied. Even a callback will cost you even more time.

Phone support on an emergency and perhaps sales/billing is a whole other matter. I believe it can work quite well to let customers know that you are there and they can speak to a human directly in time of need. A phone is a great tool for a call that says "my server is down" because you're responding to something in this case under an emergency. Billing and sales wise, it kinda of speaks for itself, these types of calls can fairly easily be handled while on the phone.

All of that being said, there is another side to consider. The logistics of phone support are not particularly simple. How, for example, are you going to keep track of calls? How will you check up on your employees? Oftentimes, a regular support call will end up with a ticket on the desk anyway.

I write this with experience on both sides of the spectrum. A phone system is a big deal that must be planned and thought through rather thoroughly. It's not just a matter of signing up for a toll-free number and Skype for the average hosting company.

 

[squatter]

I think phone support is good only for pre-sales/billing issues, and if clients' calls are answered by a not competent technician it may producea a far worse impression, I mean help desk gives you more freedom and time to investigate the issue before responding.
Then also another point, you often have to ask for passwords or any other details that should be sent to you and the most convenient way to do it is via live chat or help desk.

So leave phone support for billing and very emergent situations that arise.

 

[XeHSean]

If you can offer reliable phone support, preferably 24/7, then it is definately a plus and will be appealing to customers. However, if you cannot have your line manned often and many calls will go unanswered, it will make it look as if your company has unreliable support

 

[Camron]

We currently have 3 lines at our office, and at times all 3 lines can be used all at once, and other times we get absolutely no calls for hours. It's really hard to predict, but the overall investment for the system was fairly small (about $300) - and since we use voip our overall monthly expenses are quite low.

I highly suggest you look into it - there are some cheap toll free forwarders out there that can forward a toll free number to your landline, so you won't have to invest in fancy equipment and such. Clients like to see you have phone support, whether or not they will actually use it - it gives them a bit of re-assurance.

Let me know if you need any suggestions with getting setup, I can let you know how we have it setup. Just send me a PM

 

[antic]

Phone support is important for me.

 

[gigapros]

You should implement the phone support ONLY IF you are able to meet your support SLA. Otherwise it may give a read bad impression to your customers.

 

[dbkooper]

Ive tried different support options over the years:
toll free phone + helpdesk ticket
helpdesk ticket only
and helpdesk ticket + live chat

People really like toll free...but i think most people will sign up for you even if you dont have phone support.

What worked well for me is helpdesk + live chat. Adds a little bit of a live touch to it

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Yes support is important thing. But better fight for the better service to minimaze support requests. I think that it is good indicator for web hosting company.

 

[ZannuZZi]

I'd never choose the web hosting company that doesn't have any phone support. Say Downtownhost.com offers toll free phone and International one to support their clients any time.

 

[MJ]

Good support is a must. Phone/Email/Skype/Web/IRC/AIM and more are all plusses in my opinion. The more ways I have to contact them the better.

Also quality is another factor. I will not use certain well known hosts ever again because their customer service knows so little.

 

[InFloW]

For us we get a few calls a day during business hours (9-5 EST). Overall it's not to useful for anything besides sales calls. For support related inquiries it's not that useful due to the fact it's tough to troubleshoot the majority of issues over the phone. So what we end up doing is asking the user to make a ticket and if they have already ask for the ticket number.

 

[ennui]

The phone support is economically reasonable only for the clients which live in the sam country as the host is located in. So I think it might exist only for local customers, but with the clause of quality internet support...

 

[Downtownhost.com]

I'm currently investigating whether I should open up phone support.

Do you have phone support on your host, was it vital to you choosing them?
or
Are you a web host which offers phone support, and it's popular and well worth investing in?

I'm looking for opinions/ideas/experiences/etc which may help me make my decision.

I currently offer skype support/live chat/support tickets/IRC/emails/MSN/AIM/YIM as various support options.

What do you all think?
Joe

Please don't take me wrong, but checking your prices/plans, I don't think that's economically wise to offer phone support.

 

[alemcherry]

Phone support is very important for me as a customer. I know just in case I am not getting support tickets to solve something, I have a faster, better option to fall back on to. Having said that if you are very small or very cheap, online chat support must be good enough.