At 6/11/04 8:16 AM, Kim Phelan wrote:
>In the last 6 months, we have spent alot of time with resellers talking
>about Website Building tools, and their implementation. One of the main
>concerns brought up by resellers was how to ensure that a user didn't
>come into the environment build a site, pay for one day, then go
>to another hoster.
I understand this as a visceral fear, but it is *completely irrational*.
A customer who intends to sign up for a single day is far, far, better
than a customer who never signs up at all.
The problem here is really a psychological one. If someone does sign up
and cancel the next day, a reseller will understandably feel that "this
guy ripped me off". People *hate* feeling ripped off, so they will
suggest that all sorts of measures be taken to avoid it, even if those
measures actually hurt them even more in a way they can't see.
As you've described it, the theory behind the "export fee" is to
discourage people who want to sign up for a day by making it expensive to
do so. But common sense tells us that such people aren't going to say
"Oh, I'll sign up for five years instead of a day, then" (the export fee
is equal to five years[!] of service); instead, they're not going to sign
up at all.
While that may make the reseller feel better, what does it accomplish
financially? Nothing. In fact, it hurts, because some of the people who
intended to cancel the next day will probably end up saying "Hey, this
Website Builder thing's not bad; I'm going to keep using it instead of
canceling".
Even in the worst case, I'll gladly accept a single month's Website
Builder service fee from someone who cancels after building a site,
rather than getting nothing at all.
>I am going to explore our options to enable you (on a reseller by
>reseller basis) to choose how the website is generated.
Fair enough. I'm sure many people will disagree with my point above, so
that seems like it would be a solution that would meet the needs of
everyone. Thanks for listening.
-- Robert Mathews, Tiger Technologies http://www.tigertech.net/"Clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected things make them feel scared."
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