I've been asked this question a few times and wondered what you would do if one of your clients complained about the standard of their Sponsored/Trial hosting. Would you tell them to buy a real package (which is fairly unlikely due to the fact that they've already had bad service from you) or would you do something about the service that you are providing?
Just wondering!
~Equinox

I will say go for improving your service prove quick solution my having chat software, phone support , improve responce time in emails and good server from good data centre that will cost a bit but will surely get good response customer satisfaction is important,after all a satisfied client is the best media of advertising i guess.. and will improve you business if you are thing of its growth ... I guess this are very important factors to work on rather than saying you cannot provided it ...it means you are areally out of the picture....

As ThinkSupport mentioned, sponsored clients have friends. Even though this person might not be willing to pay, his friends might, and its always good to keep a good reputation for yourself/company since you would never want anything bad about your company to be going around

Sponsorship is business of its own. When any company decides to sponsor anything, it is a business decision for them - thus they are assumed to receive something in exchange for their services (of less, equal or more value).

When they exchange services, they MUST perform well and serve that sponsored customer just as anyone else. As I see it, sponsored customer has every right to complain if he not happy with something. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Best,

When a company sponsors an entity, is assumes the risk of that entity not being satisfied for one reason or another. If based on the provided feedback, the company feels it was indeed at fault, then something should be done so that things are corrected (the service level is improved).

Also, even if it's sponsored, the service must be the same as that rendered to paying customers (unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise).

Obvisouly though, there won't be any refunds.

Just because the customer isn't paying you in cash dollars doesn't mean that they aren't a normal customer. Their form of payment to you is a link on their site advertising your services. This advertisement could end up in dollars in your bank account, or higher search engine rankings depending on the site's exposure. Never the less, they are still in fact paying you for your services and in my opinion should be treated as such.

If that customer generates any decent amount of signups for your services wouldn't you want to do everything you could to make sure those signups keep coming in from the sponsirship? Lets say you're getting $200/month in new signups from them - do you want that to go away because you don't think you should provide a high level of service on a free 'sponsored' account? I sure wouldn't, and anyone who is in this industry to make money should agree.

Very good point layerblue. I didn't really think of it in that way. These sponsored hosting packages, aren't really "sponsored" hosting packages! They're more advertsing opportunities, so I guess it is in your best interests to keep your client happy!
~Equinox

Now thats the correct attitude to improve your performance and shine you name