If you really can't be there to offer the 24/7 support then don't offer it. Clients most of the time will appreciate your honesty more than they will appreciate your voice mail. Starting a business is a major project and you really can't do it all. It is difficult but at times necessary to admit that there are certain limitations which you can't entirely overcome. But, they can be mitigated. It is easier to make preparations rather than constantly perform damage control.

You're absolutely right, coloradojaguar - you need to manage your prospect's and client's expectations. Being upfront and honest goes a long way in this business (or any business). You simply can't be all things to everyone.

Web hosting business is becoming more saturated day by day. When one compare the hosting plans of different hosts one will find that there is not much difference in the plans and prices. The USP then becomes Customer Care. Almost 80% of people who are using hosting do not know the technicalities of hosting. They do lots of mistakes and sometimes totally mess up things. And they expect hosting companies to clean up that mess. In order to be in business a hosting company should be ready to clean up that mess and say thank you to the customer.

So when all technical and financial things are becoming equal, only those hosts will shine and outperform others, who can give excellent customer care support.

For small hosts (one man companies) 24X7 support many be difficult but not impossible. If one is serious about the business then one should not neglect this point. There are lot of companies which provide 24X7 support on behalf of clients (here hosts) for monthly fees. One should utilize such services in order to be in business.

This is 100% true. And, really need to avoid this. Well, I used to take monthly feedback from my clients and always listen to their suggestions.

we all need sleep at some point.
i run a one man ship, yes i have employed staff, but they started abusing clients so now id rather just run the ship myself, i am online from 7am to midnight GMT, but if a client contacts me a midnight with an issue and it takes 3 hrs to sort out then so be it, i will stay online to sort this out.
my servers are very reliable and no matter if you are online 24/7 or not if a server has a major failure their is nothing you can do. all my clients are fully aware of when i am actively online and that our extensive KB is their if they require it.

And that is exactly what it takes to make it in this industry. Great to see HostingDiscussion members with such commitment to high performance of their companies and the satisfaction on their clients.

I remember about 3 years ago when I was running a VPS hosting company, which was later sold. There was an issue with the virtualization technology causing all VPS to lose connectivity intermittently, I was working with the control panel developers and other specialists to make everything right again, it took 72 hours to fully fix and bring everything back up, a lot of heartache, headaches and coffee!

But seriously, you need absolute dedication for start-up businesses as they can crash overnight if you don't pay attention. I have in the past, employed an outsourcing company just to cover the evening hours so I could at least relax with the family during the evening hours. Obviously I was still available 24/7 via phone emails and such but the front of it all went to the outsourcing company.

I don't really like outsourcing but when you have a demanding wife and 2 kids, it's kinda hard to be everywhere at once!