As Nexcess’ Director of Partnerships, I talk to partners and potential partners every day.
Occasionally I run into agencies who say that they don’t feel comfortable directly referring a hosting company. They say that’s just not their model or they worry they’d be liable for the hosting experience of their customers when they don’t want that responsibility.
There are reasons for these decisions that I respect — but I don’t fully understand it. Our most successful partners do not leave that to chance. They refer their customers purposely.
8 Reasons Why You Should Recommend Hosts to Customers
Here are a few reasons why you should refer your customers to a hosting company.
1. You Are Also Liable for the Hosting Experience You DON’T Choose
When there is a bad experience or the site is down, your customer will be calling you to handle it. It’s better to reduce the chance of getting that phone call for non-revenue generating work by recommending a good hosting company. When you recommend a good host, you can work collaboratively with the host to resolve things quickly every time and with elevated support.
Related reading: How To Choose A Web Host: What to Look for & What to Avoid >>
2. Working With Many Hosts is Challenging
Managing multiple hosting companies that your customers bring to you is more challenging. It’s difficult dealing with multiple hosts with software to manage via multiple portals and an assortment of different tech teams where your relationships and status are not that strong.
3. Customers Don’t Always Know What They Need
Customers don’t often know what hosting companies are reputable and a good fit for them. They rely on the agency to have the insider information about those who are reliably good hosting partners. “We only do the coding” is not going to make a customer feel confident they are going to have a good experience in design, development, and hosting as a total solution to their needs.
4. Customers Don’t Know Where to Go for Help
Customers don’t usually know who to go to for support issues (when is it a coding issue versus when is it a hosting issue). They call the agency first, assuming the problem is there. Customers/merchants rarely see coding and hosting as very separate functions — they rightly expect them to work well together.
Related reading: Why Hosting Support Is Important >>
5. Missed Revenue Opportunity
When you let your customers select a host on their own, you miss out on a key revenue opportunity. You are not getting the monthly recurring revenue stream for all of the referrals you could be getting.
6. Customers Miss Out on Escalated Support
Your customers are not getting escalated support because they are not tagged as MVP partners. At Nexcess, our partners get escalated support for ALL of their referred accounts and they work collaboratively with support technicians that are experts in the specific platform. Our partners say that is the number one reason they partner with Nexcess.
7. Performance Could Suffer
A site or store that is not properly hosted will affect website performance and development work. If your customers choose hosting that is not optimized for the platform you work on, the performance will suffer as will the experience with support.
8. Lets Agencies Focus on Revenue Generation
A reliable platform-expert hosting partner can allow you to keep your agency staff paired down to those that focus on revenue generation. That’s because we handle what expensive and difficult-to-find staff would do for you, like the administrative batch of services that covers all of the mundane technical aspects of hosting a website and keeping it secure and performant.
Consider Hosting With Nexcess
Nexcess does so much more than basic hosting. We help you grow, reduce your expenses and responsibilities, and match your level of sophistication. We make you look good and keep your customers happy.
Nexcess is known as “the quiet hosting” — issues don’t come up because they are handled proactively. That’s a better way to “not talk about hosting.”
Check out our hosting plans and Agency Partner Program today.
Related Resources
- Top 10 Questions to Ask a Cloud Hosting Provider
- Managed Hosting: The Hidden Hack to Outsourcing for Agency Owners
- What Prospective Clients Need Before Making The Decision To Hire An Agency
