New Customer vs Existing

[programit]

Everbody has to make money but I thought maybe Crucial would support EXISTING customers occasionally with upgrade options at reasonable prices.
I've yet to see any specials or offers for existing customers.

If you can afford to offer NEW customers a service at $26.10 for a 512mb VPS then why charge an existing customer with a $29.00 256mb VPS 3 times as much to upgrade.
I go through the upgrade/ downgrade options and it states there that for a existing customer who has supported Crucial, have to pay :
1) an Extra $55.00 to up the bandwidth
2) an Extra $15.00 to up the memory
This takes it to $99.00 /month for what you offer NEW people for $26.10
(I can get a dedicated server for $100 /month (Was $130/m) - P4D 3.0Ghz, 250Gb HDD, 200Gb Bandwidth 100Mbps, 2 IP's, 1Gb Ram)

I understand your aim is to attract more people but it doesn't show a lot of respect or goodwill to the people who currently support you.

I realise there is a commercial side, and you may entice new customers with specials, BUT instead of charging $100 to upgrade to a 26.10 plan from a $29 plan, you charge and extra $10 or so. Your still making more than your VALUABLE NEW customer, and keeping goodwill alive.

The service has been reasonably good, and I've been happy with it but end of the day is value. $99 for 512 mb VPS upgrade or $100 for Dedicated 1gig 250Gb system !

No comparison.

[Ijan]

Hi programit,

Thanks for feedback we do appreciate it! In regards to your comment "I've yet to see any specials or offers for existing customers." This is untrue, we've run a number of specials for our existing customers as well as started a discussion thread so we can continue to offer specials to our customers. You have been sent emails in relation to upgrade specials in November, Backup specials in December as well as the email regarding the discussion thread on our forum about a new round of specials for our existing customers. All the emails are available within your Client Area.

I have recently updated the thread letting everyone know that we are planning to release a new round of specials and we are currently deploying additional capacity so we can accommodate the take up while also managing our existing growth.

While we would love to be able to give everyone lower prices on their existing products it's just not possible due to the financial impact it would have on our business, this i'm sure everyone will understand additionally we're not a budget host we aim to offer a reliable product at competitive prices. What we can do is offer great specials to our customers and this is what we attempt to do every couple of months.

The existing customer discussion thread is still open and you're welcome to post your suggestions on the specials that you would like to see like many other customers have already done or feel free to reply to the support ticket that you currently have open.

[programit]

I think the bottom line is customers need to ensure they select suitable packages from the start. Upgrades in some environments is just not viable.
Being new to VPS hosting when I started I thought 256 would be enough to run a couple of sites, and it is; providing you don't run MySql, PHP Java etc.
I had to get another 1024 vps just to host the main sites and I kept the 256 just a mail server and a bit of testing.
Now I'm at the stage where I need to setup another 3 linked sites I will require larger packages, and thats the problem.
Either way I have to trash what I've got and can go upgrade route or new route.
Even staying with Crucial, its cheaper to scrap one plan , and restart with a new, than upgrade! Backup site. Cancel plan. Signup for new plan and restore site? - A bit of mucking around but may save up to $40 - $50 a month!
Really want to be cheeky, then cancel plans, and get someone, friend or relative to sign up as a NEW CUSTOMER and get specials. Save even more!

[Ijan]

Originally Posted by programit

I think the bottom line is customers need to ensure they select suitable packages from the start. Upgrades in some environments is just not viable.

You are able to upgrade in our environment, you however are not happy paying the cost of the upgrade.

Being new to VPS hosting when I started I thought 256 would be enough to run a couple of sites, and it is; providing you don't run MySql, PHP Java etc.
I had to get another 1024 vps just to host the main sites and I kept the 256 just a mail server and a bit of testing.
Now I'm at the stage where I need to setup another 3 linked sites I will require larger packages, and thats the problem.
Either way I have to trash what I've got and can go upgrade route or new route.

Even staying with Crucial, its cheaper to scrap one plan , and restart with a new, than upgrade! Backup site. Cancel plan. Signup for new plan and restore site? - A bit of mucking around but may save up to $40 - $50 a month!
Really want to be cheeky, then cancel plans, and get someone, friend or relative to sign up as a NEW CUSTOMER and get specials. Save even more!

We have had people do this and at the end of the day it only hurts our customers. As i've previously stated we have a discussion thread running which sole purpose is to discuss upgrade specials for our existing customers i'll again invite you to post your suggestions so we can evaluate them.

When you originally signed up you would have been happy to pay the price you had paid but if you're obviously not happy paying for the upgrade. If you have a read at my last post on the VPS specials thread you will see that we will be rolling out a 50% off the price of an upgrade so customers can get their hands on the additional RAM they require.

If you're after the cheapest VPS you can get you will ALWAYS find someone else to host with, as i've mentioned we don't compete on price we offer a solid VPS product that we try to make as reliable and competitive as possible.