Hosting Company Forums

xyphen · (#1 (**permalink**))

How important is it for clients to have a forum for the company which they are hosted by? I had a forum but not anymore because no one ever posted.

I just wanted everyones opinion on should I re-open the forums or leave it as it is.

Brad Birmingham · (#2 (**permalink**))

Forums can be a good form of tech support. Usually, when clients have questions, other clients can answer them as well, which saves you time and money. Of course, this assumes that your forum is active, and has knowledgable members ;)

vpscolo · (#3 (**permalink**))

We've found it a great asset if introduced properly. When starting out we keep the forum, not hidden but not so obvious. As time goes along as we direct customers to it we make it more obvious on the site. Works out quite nicely overall

Rus

Hostaffect · (#4 (**permalink**))

Yes, forums are nice to have if you can build them up with traffic. We're currently working on building our forums up.

Wojjie · (#5 (**permalink**))

Anothier good thing about it is if you are one of the first to figure out the solution to a problem that not only your clients are having, you will get other people linking that thread on other forums. That way you get free advertising, and possibly more new clients :roll2:

iblive · (#6 (**permalink**))

its great to have, but useless if nobody uses them. If you really want to make it a part of your support system, you need to promote it. It seems forums are most helpful when users interact with each other. If you are simply just having a place where your customers can post a question and staff is going to answer, you might as well just have a FAQ section.

Brad Birmingham · (#7 (**permalink**))

Yeah, on the other side of the coin: if your forum is dead, you should get rid of it. Having no forum is better than a dead or slow forum. :)

ToOnZ · (#8 (**permalink**))

If you know yourself provide bad service, by opening a forum your just commiting suicide :)

nsusa · (#9 (**permalink**))

A forum needs to be managed and maintained by the host. You also need to develop a strategy of how to deal with angry customers using the forum to vent. If you start censoring your forum, you will lose credibility. A public forum forces the web host to perform better - in my opnion at least.

Chris