Reducing Churn in Web Hosting

Customer churn continues to be a contentious topic in the Web hosting field.

Regular readers of Tophosts.com will be familiar with the excellent articles on buying web hosting and various types of hosting packages. Hosting companies face decisions not just on which products to offer, but also on how to keep their existing customers happy. The term within the hosting industry that one uses when customers depart is ''churn''. What follows are a few ideas based on real-world experience that can help hosting providers reduce churn. If you are in the market for hosting - you can see how these ideas might encourage you to continue on with your current provider.

Maintain Superior Customer Service - The bottom line for keeping existing customers and also recruiting new customers is to simply respond quickly with great expertise when something goes wrong. Former CEO of HostMySite.com, Mr. Lou Honick used to say, ''Never tell the customer 'No'.'' While this may not be practical for your hosting operation, you can execute well operationally and give everything you have to your customers in times of need. UK budget hosting provider 34SP.com just celebrated a decade in the hosting business. They have clearly hung onto their valuable customers over that time. Stuart Melling, co-owner of the company summed up his keys to success in hosting this way, ''While you can't stop things breaking, you do have control over how you respond, how you communicate to clients and ultimately how you learn and move forward. This simple understanding has been with us since our first few months in business. It's a mantra we continually live by, and grow our business by.''

Communicate with the Customer at the Right Time - If you do a bit of investigative work at your hosting company, you'll be able to accurately pinpoint the durations at which your customers are most likely to leave. I would suggest looking at churn in the first 30 days of service, the first 90 days of service and after the first year of service. Once you have identified the time frames that are ''high churn'' periods, you can communicate with the customers before that date to avert departure. For example, let's say that most of your lost customers depart right at the 1 year mark - set up a system where you contact the customers in month 11 (perhaps with a special offer for renewing) and give them the opportunity to voice any concerns. Don't contact them too early - they won't remember the communication or offer by the time renewal comes around. Just a few weeks prior to renewal is a good rule of thumb.

Keep Hosting Account Specifications Up-to-Date - Around the time that a customer's web hosting is up for renewal, the customer often reflects on the value created by the web hosting product. This leads to a bit of comparison shopping on the part of the customer. If competitors simply offer more ''bang for the buck'' then the customer is likely to churn. For example, if your allocations of disk space and bandwidth haven't gone up for over a year or two - there are probably competitive plans out there that are far superior for the same price. It may as simple as recognizing an industry trend. For example, if a large number of hosting providers begin to offer a free domain with a hosting account then you may want to consider matching that offer in your plan specs.