[thelist] responsiveness from "the coffee shop"

[Alex Beston]

Whoa there partner!

Surely you will be losing people after point 3?

If I may say so, Bob, your list is just-way-too-technical.

I think from a techies POV its the dope - particularly 4).

 ((((- as I was calling for in an earlier post- seemed to be obvious
that in a pan-multi-network, pinging sites from a wee server in canary
wharf, london and hoping to provide a credible service - that flag
aint gonna fly, so its great to see some people doing a whole bunch of
servers around the globe. Im actually a bit annoied that some of these
pinging services think they can bamboozle enough clients to make a
living, and just do one server. In a way, just 8 or so well placed
servers around the world, not even sure thats enough to make an
accurate assessment, but I think that theres some kind of asymptotic
thing going on here - more and more ping servers? the benefits get
smaller and smaller. theres proably some law that says how many
servers you can place before you converge your feedback.))))

Anyway.

My gut instinct is that you'll do more damage that good. I say that
because your clients core business is a million miles away from
server-tech and they just have other fish to fry. Some will take an
interest in DNS propagation times but you know what? I think 80% will
just say "Cant you look after that for me? Isn't that what I pay you
to do?"

Don't be disheartened though, because if your client starts to look
under the hood of *Your* business you can at least say, "Here is my
check list of the things my business does to help your server keep
running good load times."

So your list? I would do that as your weekly check. Perhaps pay
someone you trust to do it for you, and the quality of your service
will increase as well. Make sure your customer knows in a pdf summary
of the quality assurance elements, should they want it. Perhaps add it
to the other documents like the T's & C's and other contractual
documents you provide your customers.


Best of luck with it,

Alex

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{

As a total aside to the thread:

Its as if there are two entirely separate business emerging the
on-line provision business - the physical provision of a server
platform & network on one hand AND a quality assurance section looking
after the other.

I'm thinking of changing my own business from hosting & design where
to where I buy those services from someone who also provides the QA
rather than being a seller because I honestly don't have the interest
or inclination to monitor, measure and optimise a sites performance, I
leave that to someone else, but I tell ya, when I do get to that point
in my business I will be doing everything that's in the clients
interests: The client doesnt know what to look for, I do. I'll be
wanting weekly reports, performance stats, everything thats on your
list and more. Everything's changed now - old economy? goodbye! its
all computers, computing, networks, and one of the good things about
computing its *all* measurable. Boy, the fulfilment that hosting has
to provide? It just has to deliver, and there simply isn't anywhere
for the hosting people to hide - customers are expecting them to
handle it all. Five 9's a year are one thing but the average hosting
service is doing about one 9, you know 90% uptime. So in conclusion,
is it actually possible for the money they want to pay to cover 1 year
of good load times?  I really doubt it. (ie. something realistic like
98.5%). Time for hosting prices to go up to include good quality QA.
I'll tell them in my pitch - what's the point in buying hosting
without QA? So risky. Buy Hosting with Q.A. and you're onto a winner.

}

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