Who do you ask for help when you need it?

[Francisco]

Hello,

I was wondering, who do you actually ask to take care of your business if you need to travel to see someone or do something important and you know you won't be online 12+ hours per day?

To take care I mean that you ask him/her to be on your support desk for tickets, to take care of the clients for you, you know the basics.

Thanks in Advance

 

[Vovex Technology]

Francisco, I unfortunately tried in the past to run my business only checking online once every 48 hours to answer some quick questions. That didn't work out too well.

Since then, I ask one of my friends in the area that knows the ropes. I tend to hang out with 4-5 computer nerds, so its not too hard to find someone to return emails and answer support calls.

You could also consider asking another company owner (maybe one of the owners of another business from HR).

 

[Lesli]

Does the company who provides your servers (or the people in the datacenter where you colo, whichever) have any provisions for supporting your clients on a short-term, as-needed basis?

 

[Francisco]

Does the company who provides your servers (or the people in the datacenter where you colo, whichever) have any provisions for supporting your clients on a short-term, as-needed basis?

No, they don't offer support for my clients. And depends on the Datacenter, where I have my main servers have a great support but they can't help me if I have to run for an Emergency. The other Datacenter too, but their support is worse than the main one I use, that's just for "cheap-o-clients" or people who want to learn linux with that cheap server.

Francisco, I unfortunately tried in the past to run my business only checking online once every 48 hours to answer some quick questions. That didn't work out too well.

Since then, I ask one of my friends in the area that knows the ropes. I tend to hang out with 4-5 computer nerds, so its not too hard to find someone to return emails and answer support calls.

You could also consider asking another company owner (maybe one of the owners of another business from HR).

That's a good Idea, I might put it in Practice, but I have to check the guy/company since, I don't want a kiddie taking over my clients. It is a great idea, I support his clients when he/she is not online and he does the same for me... And another possitive point is that would not use any Outsourced companies

 

[BlackStorm]

I have two people that are take care of all support when I am away.
I pay them for the work and they work most days answering when I am not online or busy, I need someone to do it because sometimes I go out of the city for the weekends.
A host needs to have some kind of backup support really.

 

[Francisco]

I have two people that are take care of all support when I am away.
I pay them for the work and they work most days answering when I am not online or busy, I need someone to do it because sometimes I go out of the city for the weekends.
A host needs to have some kind of backup support really.

John,

Could you please share the Payment Information via PM? (Ex. How much do you pay them...)

That would be awsome.

Thanks,
Francisco

 

[BlackStorm]

Sent the PM francisco.
Said this in the PM also, but for anyone reading too....if you are going to get someone to do your support, make sure they know what they are doing before you hire them, a lot of people are trying to get support jobs and don't have any idea what they are doing.

 

[imported_HadleyHost]

I ask some of my friends or my fiance

 

[FatalSw1tch]

I get mountain dew, it helps make right decisions

 

[Vovex Technology]

a lot of people are trying to get support jobs and don't have any idea what they are doing.

John why are you always talking about yourself??
j/k

I have noticed that as well. You will see offers for tons of support on WHT etc. People who have managed services + the server for like $120. Thats just not realistic. Make sure when you look at peoples experience and knowledge that you also look at how much they are asking you to pay them. If its just a one time $45 for 1 weeks work, you can probably guess that the $45 isnt going to cover very much of their time, and in return you are only going to get $45 worth of support.

 

[Anjay]

I was wondering, who do you actually ask to take care of your business if you need to travel to see someone or do something important and you know you won't be online 12+ hours per day?

That is why you have employees.

If you're the President or the CEO of a company, you don't/won't really have time to deal with support requests from clients - you'll be working out how to get new clients, and what ways you can improve sales and have higher profits. You'll also be working out how you can cut costs, yet at the same time keep the same level of quality. You'll be doing a lot of things... and won't really have time to be dealing with clients requests: which is you should always have employees. That is of course if you're pretty large...

However, if you're not too large - and don't have enough money to pay employees, and so on, then you're could go to an outsource company. There are many individuals who are looking for some part-time work, and will be able to help you out - however, as the others above have said, you should always check them out thoroughly before you hire them.

As Vovex says, you cannot run your business by only checking e-mails and so on every 48 hours, it just doesn't work out. You need to check your e-mails all the time, and provide support in the hours you state. If you say you offer support between 9am and 5pm, then you need to offer support between those hours - not say 10pm till 11pm.

Also as Vovex says, be very careful about how much they charge. If you actually hire employees, you need to pay them an hourly wage as well as various benefits. Part-time employees also need to be paid by the hour, and so on. As he says, if you have someone who only wants $45 for the whole week (or even month), you can be sure that it won't be top-quality work.


Oh, and an outsource company you may want to check out is TouchSupport. They've some very good reviews at WHT, and also charge realistic prices. Their website is: http://www.touchsupport.com/

 

[Francisco]

That is why you have employees.

If you're the President or the CEO of a company, you don't/won't really have time to deal with support requests from clients - you'll be working out how to get new clients, and what ways you can improve sales and have higher profits. You'll also be working out how you can cut costs, yet at the same time keep the same level of quality. You'll be doing a lot of things... and won't really have time to be dealing with clients requests: which is you should always have employees. That is of course if you're pretty large...

However, if you're not too large - and don't have enough money to pay employees, and so on, then you're could go to an outsource company. There are many individuals who are looking for some part-time work, and will be able to help you out - however, as the others above have said, you should always check them out thoroughly before you hire them.

As Vovex says, you cannot run your business by only checking e-mails and so on every 48 hours, it just doesn't work out. You need to check your e-mails all the time, and provide support in the hours you state. If you say you offer support between 9am and 5pm, then you need to offer support between those hours - not say 10pm till 11pm.

Also as Vovex says, be very careful about how much they charge. If you actually hire employees, you need to pay them an hourly wage as well as various benefits. Part-time employees also need to be paid by the hour, and so on. As he says, if you have someone who only wants $45 for the whole week (or even month), you can be sure that it won't be top-quality work.


Oh, and an outsource company you may want to check out is TouchSupport. They've some very good reviews at WHT, and also charge realistic prices. Their website is: http://www.touchsupport.com/

Thanks for your post Anjay,

Yes, you're both right. I know that low prices like $45 per week is too low and that would mean that the quality of the support won't be like if I have two employees at $15/hour. However I'm not that big at the moment, but I want to . Now, I guess that the best move atm would be to do what Vovex recommended first or to maybe get outsourced support.

 

[BlackStorm]

Freckled used a company and had great things to say about them.
I think it was also TouchSupport, but I'm not 100% positive, about 98% though.
Try a search for the name and you might come up with something from Freckled.
You could try looking for the post by Freckled too, she went into good detail with good information on the company she went with.

 

[Decker]

This is a biggy, I always check twice a day when I'm on holiday, about 18 hours a day when I'm not (yawn) - it only takes minutes unless somethings seriously wrong, and support staff we have a couple of other guys basically handle day to day when I'm not there and generally in conjunction. I even issue an text only SMS number for urgent probs, and I take an other mobile phone that picks them up wherever I go - paid off recently when one client had a boss trying to stitch him up for work to get the FTP pulled on the folder as he's in the Australian outback with just WAP to get on with it was obviously a real boon to him.

 

[teammobot]

I am sitting here on a computer almost all the time. Whenever I'm not, I make sure someone else is.

 

[Freckled]

Yes I proudly use Touch Support and they have been great, I knew I would be leaving Europe this summer and my business was growing enough to need more help, I researched for about 3 months and asked lots of questions of users and Touch Support themselves. They helped me get out of ThePlanet and into a better DC as well which I very much appreciated. They have been doing my support and the clients like them also. The hardest part has been weaning the customers onto that support system. Believe I am still very involved in support and just wanted more time to concentrate on sales and advertising. Well now we are going to talk about also helping me with sales as I will be basically offline for 2 week period with a log in about once a day just to see how it is going. Most people won't say they are using outsourced support but I feel if I am using them I should give them credit because without them I would have really stressed out. I plan on using them for a very long time and I will support them with free word of mouth as long as they are doing a great job.
If you contact them you will find that they are wonderful and they tailor the support to what your business needs are. I too sit here 16 hours a day but now I know if I can't things will be ok. The nice thing about it is that if a certain representative doesn't know something a customer asks, they don't blow smoke to the cusotmer, they have a heirarchy their and they find the answer form one of the many techs there that does no the answer.
I can't sing there praises enough. Just ring them up or contact them by email or even log into my site and talk to one of them you will find them wonderful and someday they will even have women working there. Had to lighten the mood.