As a Virtual Webmaster Maintenance & Support customer, you already know that in addition to the routine maintenance and critical security being performed automatically on your website, you also have one or two hours of “support” per month. You may even have purchased additional hours if you have or have ever had heavier support needs. But are you getting everything out of your support hours that you can?
In a recent audit of client support hour balances, I discovered that for some clients, valuable free hours were being left on the table, unused. Months go by with no requests to update content or add additional functionality. I reached out to one of my clients that is in this situation to ask “how can I help?”
To my surprise, the client’s response was “we know we have to update our content, and we’d like to figure out how to add some functionality, but we haven’t had time to sit down and figure out what we want to do on the site, and we don’t want to bother you until we know what we need to do.”
This was surprising and disappointing to me, because I that showed me that this client doesn’t realize the depth of services that I provide to my clients. Just a year prior, when they signed up for my services, we had an onboarding call where I explained all that their Virtual Webmaster services covered – but somehow, the most crucial part of what I have to offer was missed.
This client had come to me from a traditional web development shop; build a site, launch it, and collect the development fee. Project closed, hope we never hear from you again. They came to me after they had contacted their original designer to add a few new pages to the website. The designer collected the money, and was never heard of again. I really do get why people are so wary to believe that they can count on me – they’ve been burned before.
Please, clients (and prospective clients). It’s not too good to be true; this is not how things work for clients of The Webscaper. I do build websites. I do provide development services. I do provide critical maintenance & security. But above all else, I am a your consultant, your solution provider, here to answer every question you have about your website, including brainstorming how to use your website to further your business or organization’s needs. You don’t need to wait until you know what you want or need before picking up the phone to ask me anything.
Put another way: You do not need to understand HOW to do something on your website. You simply need to have an idea of what you’d like your website to do for you, and I provide the best way to do that. You don’t even have to necessarily know that your website CAN provide a service. Tell me about your pain points in your business or your organization. Is there something that is tedious and time-consuming that may be able to be automated through your website? Or is there a third-party website solution that does something that would save you time or money? Pick my brain – that’s what I’m here for, and the results will be amazing!
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