One of the biggest frustrations for both newbie webmasters and web host tech support staff is the learning curve new webmasters go through. Many of them come to us wanting to create a website, but having no comprehension of how it all works. I can't tell you how many times we have users create a trouble ticket because they don't understand what FTP is, how it works, or why they need it. And that is just one example.
We found that, even though we provide pretty comprehensive information in the e-mail we send out to all new customers, they tend not to read, (or maybe just not remember), what is contained in them. While we have not yet found a way to stop some of them from asking questions in trouble tickets that are either broad scope such as "what is FTP?" or "how do I make a web page", we have significantly reduced our frustration, (and I am sure theirs as well), by being able to give them quick links to answers to their questions. We have an entire page devoted to support links for all 45 of the 'add-on' packages we offer. In addition, we have links to free online HTML classes, FTP for beginners etc.
Not only does this save us time, (and money), in technical support, but we have had more than one customer tell us that they purchased their web hosting from us because of this very page!
There are other tools available for you to purchase "movies" of the "how do I do " for CPanel, etc. But many people don't use their speakers, others don't have quicktime installed and hesitate to ever install anything that pops up asking them to install it - I don't blame them. Plus, a hand reference of links makes it easy for you to cut and paste relevant ones as answers to trouble tickets.
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About the Author
Toby Wolf was one of the online pioneers, beginning consulting in 1990 & has done work for companies like Dell, AOL, SBC & Amoco. Toby is the founder of AlphaOne Technology, & has designed, managed, or provided search engine optimization for over 200 web sites since 1997.
E-Mail Toby