Quote:
Originally Posted by danwednesday
API. That's what's needed here. It seems to be a bit of a disorganised idea at the moment - the user just fills in any old form from the reseller's website hosting, and it's sent to an 'anonymous' support email address. How about doing something really simple, but structured, such as making the form have to contain certain standard details. e.g.
Text field: user's name (Max 40 chars)
Text field: user's email (Max 50 chars)
Text field: user's domain (Max 40 chars)
Text field: message title (Max 200 chars)
Text field: message (Max 5000 chars)
Hidden field: reseller's primary domain (Max 40 chars)
Hidden field: email address to bcc replies to (Max 50 chars)
Hidden field: company name to be used in replies (Max 30 chars)
The complexity would then come from the user trying to respond to the reply from support, but it's not insurmountable - it could either be done by generating a ticket number and logging the hidden fields from the initial enquiry to tie them to that particular ticket, or even by forcing the whole process online, and offering a skinnable support ticket system that could be included within reseller's sites by means of AJAX or an IFrame.
There's obviously a certain amount of development needed either way, but I would prefer to see it done with formal guidelines and rules than just ad-hoc. It seems dangerous to me to open up floods of enquiries from resellers' clients in anything other than a formal, rigid way - it's a recipe for disaster and I wouldn't like to see EUKHosts support be sidetracked into dealing with messy end-user tickets without a proper infrastructure. I for one, would happily pay for this service, and no other host I've come across offers this, so it could be a good source of revenue for EUKHost. |
You do have a point, however this service has and continues to be very popular and a good selling point among customers of eUKhost.
"No other host you have come across offers this" but this is because eUKhost is not just "another host". eUKhosts business has been built up by the fact that they are different and arn't just the same as others -
that is what generates revenue for the company, not withdrawing every offer and only doing the bare miniumum.
Not many other hosts do a free domain competition, most charge for domains but that doesn't mean that eUKhost should end that competition and just fall in line with everyone else.
If you are happy to pay for this service then there are many providers of such services out there that you can integrate with your
website hosting / web space provided by eUKhost. And for other people who are currently using this free service and are happy - they can carry on using this.
That way, everybody is happy and pleased - which will ultimately bring in more revenue
.