When you're just starting out as a web host and have a fraction of the customers you will have in a year or so, how do you decide the level of support to give out. I'd imagine that most of my clients would be small businesses in my area that I already manage, plus the new clients I acquire through advertising campagins.

But do you hire two or three support operators to have 24/7 support or do you just outsource the support load to a company that's been doing it for a while?

Hiring agents for yourself maybe costly. Imagine you have to pay full payroll plus benefits. If you are budget conscsious, then you should go for the outsourcing option.

Most big companies do outsourcing anyway so why bother hiring warm bodies and keeping them with full time benefits when you can have someone at a fraction of cost elsewhere.

To me, outsourcing is best for small hosting companies who really wants to have 24/7 support.

Hope this helps.

I would probable say the #1 thing people look for when searching for a hosting provider is quality support. I would reccomend hiring however many people you need until you can provide 24x7 support.

I agree with cpsitesaver, outsourcing is the best solution for providing 24x7support to your clients.

also... with support it is not enough... u probably need to do a research on SEO to increase your website page rank...

The essence of proffessionalism is potrayed when it comes to recieving support from a hosting company, therfore it is very important to provide the best quality support to their customers.

If everybody agreed that outsourcing is the best solution, when you're budget-conscious, how would you comment on the fact that your support will be speaking very poor English or no English at all, isn' that fact irritating enough? If you know where to go for high-quality outsource staff (which seems to be an oxymoron for me) tell where.

Hello,

I think if you are looking for a good support company for a budget price, Give the following company a try -

http://www.etechsupport.net

I have dealt with them, they have pretty good base when it comes to 24/7 quality customer services, which they mainly deal with phone,chat and ticket support.

cheers

Give quality support, 1 customer should be treat the same way as 10,000. It doesnt matter how many customers you have you need to offer good support.

My company uses these, there fantastic

There's also
touchsupport.com
acunett.com