Do you reward existing customers?

SenseiSteve said:
12 months seems like a long time, Terry. How do you handle clients who think the grass is greener elsewhere, only to find out after 2 or 3 months that it really isn't and want to come back?
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like most things on a case by case basis, will look at the clients previous record with us.
 
we provide free support or good amount of discounts for old customers or any customer which left us in past and decided to turn back to home.
 
easyhostmedia said:
like most things on a case by case basis, will look at the clients previous record with us.
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But what does the said customer see when they try to order? Do they get a message that an account can't be created, be redirected in chat or...

To me its logical but a little tricky plan. If you don't have a sure way to redirect such customers to your team so you can discuss the case you might as well be losing legit clients. We have had a good bunch that leave us because their business project is over, only to return in a few months with a personal project simply because they remember their good experience. Losing on such clients would be a pity...
 
I stand with Artashes and Easyhostmedia on this. We do not have 6-years-old equipment, we update it each couple of years and we never ask for extra payment from our clients. This way our oldest customers got from single-core Atoms to Dual Intel E5-2620v2 without paying anything, we just inform them about the transition and provide assistance if need be. Proactively updating their equipment and keeping price the same is much better to me than providing monetary discounts .
 
Rado_Ch said:
But what does the said customer see when they try to order? Do they get a message that an account can't be created, be redirected in chat or...

To me its logical but a little tricky plan. If you don't have a sure way to redirect such customers to your team so you can discuss the case you might as well be losing legit clients. We have had a good bunch that leave us because their business project is over, only to return in a few months with a personal project simply because they remember their good experience. Losing on such clients would be a pity...
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We do not ban leaving clients, unless they are fraudsters. We also have several people that were with us, left and came back. Skype, chat and email tickets are open for everyone, unless MaxMind say this is the same arsehole we banned yesterday, who thinks he is clever by using proxy.
 
Rado_Ch said:
But what does the said customer see when they try to order? Do they get a message that an account can't be created, be redirected in chat or...

To me its logical but a little tricky plan. If you don't have a sure way to redirect such customers to your team so you can discuss the case you might as well be losing legit clients. We have had a good bunch that leave us because their business project is over, only to return in a few months with a personal project simply because they remember their good experience. Losing on such clients would be a pity...
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It is written in our TOS, if a client cancels their account is still open, only their plan is cancelled, so they can come back using their account, we have some that have done this and as long as they dont have any outstanding invoices then they are free to do so
 
This is always a tricky one.

We offer a 1 Off introductory offer for the duration of the period you sign up for.

Our prices are great value anyway, so we would hope that our existing customers stick around.

We've had the odd customer leave and then come back in the next 2 to 3 months, but we've never had any complaints that the introductory offers were unavailable to them.

I suppose the theory of giving offers to your existing customers to retain them seems plausible, but it becomes difficult to predict future cash flow.
I'm not sure that I would be too happy if all of my monthly paying customers only paid 50% for a given month because we opened the introductory offers to everyone.

If you are in the shared hosting business and your are charging around £10 for a shared account and £20 for a reseller account, then you don't have that bigger margin to play with. If you discount too heavily then how do you afford to provide the support to everyone?

Realistically, if we assume the server and power costs nothing. If a customer pays £20 a month and uses more than 1 hour of support, you as a host have lost money, as that engineer has cost more than the customer has paid.

I'd much rather that engineer spend his time ensuring that everything is working and that support is not necessary.
 
MarkPoppen said:
I read this on another hosting forum and thought I'd ask it here as well.

It seems like a lot of hosts (if not all) spend a lot of time recruiting new customers by throwing discounts at them for signing up, but what if you're a loyal customer for several years, always pay your bills, and never bother customer service with silly questions? Do you get a discount on renewals?

I've been looking into this myself, because I always think it's nice to see a discount as a token of appreciation for being with a company for a long time.

You could give discounts to everyone who's been a client for longer than X months, but then there are a few loopholes.
For example, what if it's a customer that's very demanding, not an advocate or is always late with payments? Do you give them discounts too?
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If you keep giving discounts, you end up running a charity.

Suppose that client signed up during a period you where giving say 50% Discount, you will need about 3years after which to move into profits for that client. If after 2years you give another discount, or say the client signed up for a 2 or 3 years term, which means, it doubles the time to recover, you will never be able to make profits.
 
What about offering a 'Rewards' point system where they can earn points that can be used to purchase additional hosting plans or pay for a month of service or something from you. Have you guys ever thought of something like this? There would be various ways to get points, paying on time, etc.

I wish there was some sort of module where you could do something like that, it would be great.
 
We reward new customers with discounts. Depending on company policies clients that work with them for a long time get loyalty point or bonuses. Also option is up-gradation of services, charge them less compared to new customers.
 
WWTSLarry said:
What about offering a 'Rewards' point system where they can earn points that can be used to purchase additional hosting plans or pay for a month of service or something from you. Have you guys ever thought of something like this? There would be various ways to get points, paying on time, etc.

I wish there was some sort of module where you could do something like that, it would be great.
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If you use WHMCS then a module for this is available at http://www.studio4web.com/whmcs-addon-moduli/reward-points/
 
EuroVPS does give discounts to customers who have been with us for a long time. We are always upgrading server hardware and rolling it out to customers. We don't worry if a old customer cancels and comes back to get the "latest deal". It's not really a issue for us.
 
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