How I manage my customers

Parentdaddy · 12-12-2007, 03:42 PM

If you have a dedicated server and I am almost sure that everyone else does this, I always give my customers enough room to build their sites, of course most of them don't even use the space that is available to them, so sometimes while I am going through the accounts, I always adjust their accounts to push the limit down a bit, if someone is paying for 200mb of space and they are only using 20mb, I will drop it down to about 40 mb, which leave more room for future sites, I know that it really doesn't seem fair, but I look at it this way, if they are going to pay for their website, space is money to all of us, and if a customer is not using up that space, then why waste it anyway. If they happen to go over the amount I will adjust it to keep them in the game, however if they go over their limit, then they are billed for it, not much, but just a little to get their attention.

I had one customer who wanted 5gb of space and paid for it in full, which was nice, but after his site was completed he was only using about 120mb of space, bandwidth stays the same, but I dropped him down to about 200mb, if he needs more I will give it to him.

just a thought?

InFloW · 12-12-2007, 03:50 PM

Well when you drop their space limits down do you charge them a different amount to reflect that? If not what's the harm in having it still stay at 5GB? You'd be overselling your space but as you've quite clearly seen with your customers they buy way more than needed so it's a calculated oversell.

Parentdaddy · 12-12-2007, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InFloW

Well when you drop their space limits down do you charge them a different amount to reflect that? If not what's the harm in having it still stay at 5GB? You'd be overselling your space but as you've quite clearly seen with your customers they buy way more than needed so it's a calculated oversell.

I guess maybe you have some truth to that, and I do understand. As for adjusting the cost, I don't really change it because if they need it, it is there for them always they are paying for that much so my idea is to sort of let it grow as they grow, but I have already contact a few of them to tell them that I wasn't going to charge them the full price of their package, and explain to them why.

I but thanks for the comment.

~ServerPoint~ · 12-13-2007, 12:43 AM

I think that you have to be ready for any requests from your customers which one day want all that they pay for.
In any case that it is tipical overcelling script.
But you in contrast to others oversellers (don't mean you as oversellers) take a care of your customers and this is in any case good og you

Parentdaddy · 12-13-2007, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

I think that you have to be ready for any requests from your customers which one day want all that they pay for.
In any case that it is tipical overcelling script.
But you in contrast to others oversellers (don't mean you as oversellers) take a care of your customers and this is in any case good og you

I guess maybe I am really making a mistake by adjusting these, I don't want to flood my server with many accounts at all, I just want to have a ship tight server, but if you feel I am doing something wrong then please let me know. One thing I do a lot of, and that is listen!

seo4china · 12-13-2007, 06:36 AM

I think you need to go back to the basics of server administration. Whether you give them 100MB or 5GB, the only think that matters is how much space they actually use. If I was paying for 5GB, whether I use 5MB or 4.99GB is my problem, not yours. This is a highly unethical practice, and the fact is it doesn't help you much.

Parentdaddy · 12-13-2007, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seo4china

This is a highly unethical practice, and the fact is it doesn't help you much.

Unethical? are you kidding me? If the customer pays for 5gb they get 5gb, I just give them that as they go along, so I really don't see how it can be at all Unethical. Geez, but I will take that advice and put it to good use. Thank you so much for your reply.

seo4china · 12-16-2007, 05:08 AM

Well, I guess you didn't get what I meant. In any case it is not for you to give the needed space to clients "as they go". If a client is using 5MB from a 5GB plan, whether you scale his account down, the space taken on the server is the same. So why taking the risk of having clients find out that their accounts storage have been drastically reduced, if it doesn't do any good to you?

~ServerPoint~ · 12-17-2007, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Well, I guess you didn't get what I meant. In any case it is not for you to give the needed space to clients "as they go". If a client is using 5MB from a 5GB plan, whether you scale his account down, the space taken on the server is the same. So why taking the risk of having clients find out that their accounts storage have been drastically reduced, if it doesn't do any good to you?

otherwise he might never get any simple customer.
Thouthand of overselling companies force other companies to skipp to overseller level (I mean new ones). The old companies still at their old prices because of taking care of their customers. Fo new company it is quite difficult to do.

Parentdaddy · 12-17-2007, 05:16 AM

I am not sure what you are really implying or if I am missing something here. Overseller? I think means that it is a person that is trying to get as many customers as they can to fill up space on the sever to relieve them from the burden of server payments? I could be wrong again.

Lets first get one thing straight. I do not at all take on any new hosting accounts just for anyone which means I am not running out grabbing any customer I can just to fill space on the server. I mainly use our server for our own customers only, so if someone was to contact me about transferring their website to our server I just don't jump at the person and say well sure! I don't need that type of aggravation.
I do think that maybe my words came out wrong in here to be honest with you. But anyway I thought maybe I should have explained myself and my dealings much better then I did.
I do not offer reseller packages, I take on only high profile website accounts, I do not allow any advertising sites, which will only take up space, there are way to many other hosting companies out there that can just take mom and pop kettle websites a lot cheaper then I can offer them.

thanks for your replies.