Outsourced Hosting Support vs. In-House Hosting Support

There are many things to consider when you run a hosting company. Support is a vital part of your company. You may need to decide between outsourced hosting support and in-house hosting support. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a comparison of both.

Cost

Since many smaller hosting companies are concerned about cost, it’s the first thing we will look at. When it comes to outsourced hosting support you just pay for the support you need and use. You can choose the options you want to provide and choose a package that will fit your budget.

If you provide in-house hosting support, you will need to hire a staff and pay them for their work. This can add up fast since one hosting expert may require a few thousand dollars per month to work full time.

When it comes to cost, the winner is outsourced hosting support.

Availability

Most hosting companies provide 24/7 technical support, 365 days per year. This means their clients can get the help they need regardless of the time of day. Some companies may not provide phone, chat and email support every hour of every day, but will provide either phone or chat, along with email support.

With outsourced hosting support you an easily provide 24/7 hosting with all three options available to your clients. Most of the top companies providing outsourced hosting support do it around the clock.

Providing 24/7 hosting support in-house can be much more difficult. It requires multiple employees to be ready to answer phone calls, chat requests and emails. Many hosting companies providing in-house support don’t provide it all day, every day.

When it comes to availability, the winner is outsourced hosting support.

Scalability

As your business grows it’s important to be flexible. When you provide support and your customer base grows, you will need to be able to increase the support you can provide.

With outsourced hosting support you have unlimited scalability. Since you are using a much larger company and support staff, they can handle more demand if you double or triple your customer base. As more support requests come in, it’s easy for the staff to adjust and you will just need to pay a little more for the added support requests.

In-house hosting support doesn’t provide you as much scalability. If you reach capacity for the office you are working from, you will have to expand the office to accommodate more employees to provide support. In addition, if you continue to grow, you will have to pay more employees to provide support for your customers.

When it comes to scalability, the winner is outsourced hosting support.

Professionalism

Providing friendly and professional support is vital to your hosting business. Your clients should be able to get professional service when they call for support. If they can’t they may post negative reviews online about your company.

When you choose to outsource your hosting support, you will be working with industry experts. They will not only understand the hosting world, but they also understand how to provide professional service over the phone, through chat and through email. This gives your company a significant advantage.

Handling hosting support in-house doesn’t mean you won’t have professionals working for you. In fact, you will have control over the hiring and firing, so you can keep your staff as professional as possible.

When it comes to professionalism, it’s a tie between outsourced hosting support and in-house hosting support.

Guarantees

As a hosting company you make many guarantees. One of the guarantees is usually a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This is an important one to keep or you may lose customers very fast.

Outsourced hosting support usually comes with a server monitoring option. With this option, you get a full package of support and you can keep your 99.99% uptime guarantee much easier. The experts will make sure you have a backup plan in place to ensure your clients get the most uptime possible.

When you keep your support in-house, it’s not as easy to keep the uptime guarantee. You must make sure you have a solid backup plan and you must make sure you have the ability to keep all the websites running smoothly that are on your servers. This can be a big job.

When it comes to guarantees, the winner is outsources hosting support.

For most hosting companies, using outsourced hosting support is the best option. It takes pretty deep pockets to handle the support in-house and still provide the best options for your clients. Unless you have a massive budget, this simply won’t be a good option.