What are features you as a client want to see

[crazywsl]

and off-loaded SQL

++

I'm sure that EDIS prohibits IRC servers in certain locations, but I can't find where it's mentioned on the site.

Yep, that got lost somehow on their website update. About a year ago that information was right there on the country specific vps-page, iirc. And afaik IRC servers are only allowed in austria. William mentioned it somewhere on LEB.

 

[bbb]

Not really the only reason shovehost is called shovehost is because I'm shovenose and I run shovehost. Lol.


You think - or :: or | is better than ~ ?

Typically, '|' or '

 

[drmike]

What I am looking for when shopping:


1. Clear "everyday" pricing. Coupons are nice, but having 50 of them that never expire and everyone buying on a coupon is dishonest and bad direction.


2. Clear ToS. The ToS should be mandatory click and initial document prior to payment gateway. The ToS should have clear no BS lines on ToR, file sharing, libel, slander, IRC, etc.


example: We PROHIBIT ToR on our servers. We allow IRC, but PROHIBIT IRC servers.


3. Privacy Policy - Very few providers have much to say officially about privacy and what they care about related to privacy. Would be nice to see disclosure of who has access to info of the customer, only disclosure reasons they have for such and how/when a customer would be notified if disclosure happened (intentionally, accidental, etc.). Likewise, need to see details on data retention (backups) --- duration and long term retention even when/if no longer a customer.


4. Clear billing - I like what BuyVM does with accounts by pro-rating the initial month. Then subsequent month invoice is due on the 1st I believe. No forgetting about paying on some random day. Works with most pay cycles and how I delegate my invoices for payments.


4a. Clear billing # 2 - Taxes. Not such a big deal on the low end, but other providers have several annoying taxes and surcharges that have crept up over the years. I've seen sales tax and similar as well as in one US city, a tax bill for colocation that came from outer space unannounced.


5. Standard money - More and more offers seem to be headed to alternative currencies like the euro and BitCoin. The euro in particular has been a yo-yo ride of sorts lately. When adding up all my costs for the tax man, the tax pro in the middle wondered why all these varying prices, oh the to USD to euro. I can't imagine the complication and loss here and there in dealing with say BitCoin.


6. SLA - too many providers claim uptime, but can't prove such / fail to facilitate monitoring of things publicly. Beyond that, no SLA document saying what is covered and when. Finally, when SLA threshold crossed, I shouldn't have to ticket, beg and point for a service credit. Lots of major provider failures (like releasing customer database) and no credit issued, that's common sense 101.


7. Addon services --- I like to see in cart as well as in post order management system available addon options. If I need 10TB more transit this month, I want to be able to go and buy it proactively and not have to bother a human and wait.


7a. Addons --- I like to see things like MySQL server (although I don't use it due to overhead slowness), DNS (nice to see folks offering Rage4 for customers), additional IPs (small legitimate need for this) and DDoS protection (would be nice to be able to get new protect IP as needed to self null when/if stupidity happens).


8. Virtualization - I can't trust folks running OpenVZ, neither can other buyers. OpenVZ has been soiled beyond belief by dishonest VPS companies. I like to see KVM and Xen. Still can be gamed, but nowhere as common/easy/documented on how to do the 80 2GB accounts on a server with SSDs to eliminate the disk swapping/mapping SSD to RAM.


9. Facility / upstream - Too few ads and even provider websites talk about the network. It is mostly about the network folks. I care about who is shipping my packets in and out, not just what the facility has and I'll never see in my bandwidth mix. Does the provider run a HE or Cogent focused network? Looking at ASN info isn't enough and requires my footwork. Some times I want a geographic out leg that maybe is Cogent, while other times I really want Level 3 due to peering they have in a region.


Facility info is less important. I'll see Equinix or Dupont mentioned by some braggarts, but they hide the fact that they aren't there and are renting servers from a middle man, which is a problem.


10. Own or rent - I care if a provider owns or rents. I use providers who own their own gear (have had a noticeably better experience with them) and I use providers who rent/lease server (a few that are good, but tons that are clueless). It matters strategically to business folks buying services. I maintain a healthy ratio of more owners than rent/leasers. Why? Because those renting/leasing tend to fail in greater numbers and are willing to bail quicker. Those owning gear have a great investment and some attachment to their gear and are slower to change providers.


11. Reviews and endorsements --- I care about seeing who is using a provider. I want to see companies, real companies stating they are a happy customer of the very same services. Companies I can call on the phone if need be to confirm.


Online reviews are nice, but they often have problems. So when offering reviews as backing, they should be to places that are heavily moderated and the reviewer should have a good amount of activity and be known in the community. Zero credence is given to teenage dorks endorsing anything on some random website in the back channel of the 'net.


12. Old fashioned checksums - I look for info on the company on their website. Are you a good standing BBB member or someone the BBB rates are a D- ? Have you received any awards? Does the ownership contribute to some open source project? It is all about community. A business that operates as a hidden online island and forgets or doesn't have any visibility or is detached from physical reality sends up flags --- am I dealing with a masked subsidiary of a company? Is the ownership a bunch of HackForums children? Are these people actually credible? Why should I trust these folks when real people seem not to?

 

[SkylarM]

Good post buffalooed!

3) We offer a Privacy Policy, but haven't included information as to the period of time in which we keep records. The biggest thing here I guess is how would you go about indicating this? By default WHMCS keeps details and doesn't auto purge. We do want to offer clients that are cancelling or clients that signed up and didn't purchase a service the ability to delete their account from the system so we have no data on them at all, but not entirely sure the best way to approach this.

4) Clear billing is awesome. Gotta love pro-rated services. So much easier to deal with on both ends.

6) I like the comment about credit being given when it is due, rather than requiring customers to chase after the host and demand what they are told they get in the event of downtime. Always a nice surprise when you login to request credit and you notice you've already been given it.

Fantastic post all around Great to have a discussion in this area.

 

[drmike]

Thanks @SkylarM.


Let's see about some of the fine points:


3. Privacy Policy --- and WHMCS data retention -


I think this is a big deal really, for most customers. If we look at one big well known provider who had a full database dump going on, the data came in that instance from SolusVM. So both management systems need addressed in cleaning up and not retaining data too long. How many prior customers of that company had their email and realization they were a customer declared to the world? Lots.


My rule with data retention is to be honest and forthcoming, even in failures or technical hurdles like this.


Rule of thumb on the length of time to retain a customers log-in and/or billing details, one calendar quarter -- 90 days from last day of service. If they return, they have to recreate an account, yes it is an issue, but it helps keep all sorts of weird things from happening (like those emails about every time a certain provider craps the bed, who I haven't been with in years).


It is equally important to deal with the backup issue and retention. Nothing worse than being a former customer and a year later somehow my data appears in public from my VPS. It certainly has happened. Lots of people go on backwards in time fishing expeditions dishonestly. There are certain retention lengths that may be applicable to providers under law, so comply with those if you want to


4) Pro-rated billing - more folks need to do that. Not necessarily the 1st of the month either.


The added benefit of the pro-rated partial month is I use it as a "test drive" of the service at a reduced cost. Sometimes I ask for freebie trials, but this works just as well and doesn't have any being partial or being put on special well behaved server (which skews testing often).


6) Service credits and SLAs in the low end segment just don't exist, all while every company claims 99.9x% uptime. It's fraud. When you order a service there are features and with these data services there is uptime, and on the flip side, down time tolerance with penalties.


Fact is, the list I constructed is kind of how I buy most things. When you start paying attention to the products you buy, the quality or lack thereof and overall satisfaction, quickly you should notice you are being defrauded. People dismiss that as being a crank and say what is a few dollars? Those dollars compounded over time and from many purchases add up to real money and lots of lost time.


Hard to write a scathing review of a < $7 offer since the amount in business is rather paltry and unbelievable. Many low cost companies bank on that idea and dismiss every complaint in unfriendly terms, mocking the complainer or just entirely ignoring them.


I have more points to add to my list and will create an addendum later.

 

[SkylarM]

I suppose the biggest issue with data retention is there's no easy solution to removing client details. Most providers likely view it as too troublesome to dig through their database and remove people manually, and I'd definitely not let an automated process handle it. SolusVM is a bit harder to deal with if you offer DNS services, as the automated delete command that Solus offers will delete any client without a physical VM attached to the account, and doesn't factor in any active DNS services.

I entirely agree with data retention limits though. I was shocked to learn that Limestonenetworks (as an example) still has my entire account on file from ~6 years ago, and that introduces some interesting security risks if the data was to become compromised.

In regards to 4 -- why are more companies NOT prorating services? It just makes too much sense TO do it. Many many years ago I didn't do prorating and billing was a right pain in the ass. Money was just coming in left and right, always trying to meet deadlines. If you can prorate services to the 1st, and get your services for colocation/whatever you may be doing to the 5th or later, it just makes paying bills and being on time that much simpler. The only real issue with this is when do you set your pro-rate to charge for an additional month on top of the partial (I have mine set to the 15th at the moment). As well as the interesting issue of first month being partial so a cheaper entry point for abusers. What feels like an acceptable timeframe for an additional month being tacked on to the prorate? Does having a refund policy have any significant impact on the prorate in this case?

 

[SeriesN]

buffalooed, on 10 Jun 2013 - 4:22 PM, said:


SLA - too many providers claim uptime, but can't prove such / fail to facilitate monitoring of things publicly. Beyond that, no SLA document saying what is covered and when. Finally, when SLA threshold crossed, I shouldn't have to ticket, beg and point for a service credit. Lots of major provider failures (like releasing customer database) and no credit issued, that's common sense 101

While we never mention this, I think all of my clients can agree to the fact that they have always been credited for any unexpected downtime.

But this thread is really useful and showes me a lot of way to improve our service. Bookmarked and following.

 

[drmike]

Short on time at the moment so @SkylarM.


Pro-rate service --- BuyVM does pro-rate services on the initial month. At last check, they bill then only for that month, not first partial month plus the next month.


The billing for the next month, yeah, not a fan of it. I've not signed up to multiple providers because of that sort of billing.


Does it lower the entry point for abuse? Sure it does. But arguably the best way to invite abusers is to advertise in some places and offer the crazy unreal pricing. No judgment of your billable model or anything with that.


Unsure about the fraud services folks use, but there needs to be a third party service that does more than IP checks. I'd like to see a customer verification that indicates some infractions, suspensions, etc. Sort of like what one gets from a credit report sort of, minus the personal details or even the company that levied the red marks. Obviously, an abuse-able system for rogue providers, but that is easily self corrected


Refund policies on first month should be unconditional. No BS, 100% refund.

 

[SkylarM]

Short on time at the moment so @SkylarM.


Pro-rate service --- BuyVM does pro-rate services on the initial month. At last check, they bill then only for that month, not first partial month plus the next month.


The billing for the next month, yeah, not a fan of it. I've not signed up to multiple providers because of that sort of billing.


Does it lower the entry point for abuse? Sure it does. But arguably the best way to invite abusers is to advertise in some places and offer the crazy unreal pricing. No judgment of your billable model or anything with that.


Unsure about the fraud services folks use, but there needs to be a third party service that does more than IP checks. I'd like to see a customer verification that indicates some infractions, suspensions, etc. Sort of like what one gets from a credit report sort of, minus the personal details or even the company that levied the red marks. Obviously, an abuse-able system for rogue providers, but that is easily self corrected


Refund policies on first month should be unconditional. No BS, 100% refund.

Appreciate the elaboration. Obviously the low price point introduces these abuse issues regardless, I will give you that. The only reason for the + month prorate is because if you sign up say on the 25th, or heck the 28th, paying for the partial month and then getting an invoice on the following cron job just seems a bit awkward. If a company generates invoices say 10 days before the invoice is due, would a + month prorate make sense for the same period?

As far as information retention, I am going to add that to our policies and will work on a better solution to dealing with the removal of client information. I do strongly agree with everything that has been mentioned in regards to the retention periods.

While we never mention this, I think all of my clients can agree to the fact that they have always been credited for any unexpected downtime.


But this thread is really useful and showes me a lot of way to improve our service. Bookmarked and following.

This is something that I have been debating dealing with in policy format for a while. While we do advertise 99.98% uptime, if a client does incur downtime we will of course credit them for it -- but as of now there is no SLA policy on this, which I can agree seems more than necessary if advertising an uptime guarantee.

 

[SeriesN]

Refund policies on first month should be unconditional. No BS, 100% refund.

30day refund policy for budget industry is overkill

 

[drmike]

If a company generates invoices say 10 days before the invoice is due, would a + month prorate make sense for the same period?

Indeed orders in the last week or so billing period present this problem. Perhaps a cut off date or something to bill the two months.


At minimum, as I presented the pro-rate the new customer gets a bill after paying partial month. It should be clear why the bill is going to be due and such. I've dealt with this and never been confused. Also increases the priority to test and use the VPS.

 

[drmike]

&nbsp;

30day refund policy for budget industry is overkill

&nbsp;

Well, plenty of low cost and low margin items out there (non hosting) with unconditional money back guarantees.


Global grocery retailer Aldi has such a policy. I've seen people bring back to the store random amounts of consumed goods they were unhappy with (many $1-3) range for a cash refund.


I know refunds are a problem. Would a chargeback/dispute be a bigger problem? Probably.


Most people on this planet are very honest and have good intentions. Steering clear of the youthes with limited budgets and teen issues is a good start to provider sanity.

 

[SkylarM]

Indeed orders in the last week or so billing period present this problem. Perhaps a cut off date or something to bill the two months.


At minimum, as I presented the pro-rate the new customer gets a bill after paying partial month. It should be clear why the bill is going to be due and such. I've dealt with this and never been confused. Also increases the priority to test and use the VPS.

I may not have been clear in my initial post when I mentioned pro-rating including a full month on top of the partial.

As of now, here's how I work things:


If you order on the 14th, you are charged for the 14th to the 1st of the following month. If you sign up on the 15th of the month, you are charged for the 15th to the 1st of the following month PLUS one full month. Say you ordered today, your next invoice would be 7/1. If you order on the 15th, your next invoice would be 8/1. I have my cutoff date mid month instead of the same day that invoices are generated (10 days prior to service being due)

WHMCS at least does a decent job at indicating the date of service on the order form itself.

 

[SeriesN]

&nbsp; &nbsp;


I know refunds are a problem. Would a chargeback/dispute be a bigger problem? Probably.


Most people on this planet are very honest and have good intentions. Steering clear of the youthes with limited budgets and teen issues is a good start to provider sanity.

If you are filing chargeback and dispute after using 30 days of service, there is a strong chance that any well prepared provider will win that dispute. 

Theoretically, 

You can only dispute 2 types of payments, 1) Service not received/wrong item and seller did not communicate or provided wrong info and 2) Fraud/Unauthorized charges.

If it is 1, you are defrauding a company because you received and used the product for 30days before saying it is not what it was supposed to be? IMho, 7 days should be more than enough to evaluate a provider. If issue happens after 7 days, which is intentional or providers fault, provider should credit/refund customer.

If it is no 2, well it was bound to happen. Be it 7 days or 100 days refund policy. 

 

[drmike]

@SkylarM, that example of pro rated makes sense. The 15th onward + next month, well not my sort of thing. I've had folks try that on much more expensive things (say $50+ items) and I just went shopping elsewhere. On the low end, it is fine with low dollar amounts I suspect. Bigger stuff though will end in more abandoned purchases.


@SeriesN, the chargeback and dispute window for a guarantee should be outlined at setup/pre signup. I am a fan of shorter term no questions asked guarantees with services like this. A seven or ten day period should be sufficient.


My example of the el cheapo grocery store strikes to the point about margins and no nonsense stance of standing behind your products. Grocers aren't achieving a very high percentage per item of profit margin and have the physical good cost outlay and shipping and physical store presence, plus any transaction fees. Data providers in contrast have fairly fixed costs and an otherwise idle server. So much easier in theory to back the deals with total refund and no bickering with the customer.

 

[SeriesN]

@SkylarM, that example of pro rated makes sense. The 15th onward + next month, well not my sort of thing. I've had folks try that on much more expensive things (say $50+ items) and I just went shopping elsewhere. On the low end, it is fine with low dollar amounts I suspect. Bigger stuff though will end in more abandoned purchases.


@SeriesN, the chargeback and dispute window for a guarantee should be outlined at setup/pre signup. I am a fan of shorter term no questions asked guarantees with services like this. A seven or ten day period should be sufficient.


My example of the el cheapo grocery store strikes to the point about margins and no nonsense stance of standing behind your products. Grocers aren't achieving a very high percentage per item of profit margin and have the physical good cost outlay and shipping and physical store presence, plus any transaction fees. Data providers in contrast have fairly fixed costs and an otherwise idle server. So much easier in theory to back the deals with total refund and no bickering with the customer.

Grocers in most cases can return these products as well as most of the time, these will be exchange only. Afaik, I or any provider can't get refund on bandwidth and other usage.

 

[drmike]

Grocers in most cases can return these products as well as most of the time, these will be exchange only. Afaik, I or any provider can't get refund on bandwidth and other usage.

Hmmm, well Aldi runs most of its products themselves. Surely they probably pass mass failures back to manufacturing, but most probably are just wrote off to combat mass profits.


Bandwidth is something a user could incur as a cost, but most do not. BW often is part of the providers package that invoices the same each month absent overages.


I am sympathetic, but I'd be writing down refunds for test drives against advertising/marketing budget and managing the outcomes well (the public speaking customer that was unhappy).


My opinion as a non provider is that most VPS providers have low fixed costs either way. Idle server or me test driving things. I have yet to do a chargeback of any sort, but I've demanded a full month credit with one RTO provider on colo side that delivered sub-optimal servers with repeated drive problems.