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Do providers use freelance services?
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Do providers use freelance services?

After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles. The latter of which could cut down on the need for human interaction in support incidents. Also many are sole proprietors who at times can be stretched thin.

Is there a market here for freelance support, system admin and/or knowledge-base article composition to streamline and improve the support services offered by some of the providers here?

Also if these aren't the type of services needed by providers what else might be of value to them?

Is this feasible or mostly a waste of time? What do you guys think?

Comments

  • dominamedominame Member
    edited January 2021

    Yes. All of your second paragraph. I think when anybody asks, though, the people here usually point them to other forums, such as the dev board where devs tend to hang out. I looked on there and it seemed more for devs involved in projects of their own rather than support/sysadmin freelancers.

  • @dominame said:
    Yes. All of your second paragraph. I think when anybody asks, though, the people here usually point them to other forums, such as the dev board where devs tend to hang out. I looked on there and it seemed more for devs involved in projects of their own rather than support/sysadmin freelancers.

    Which dev board? Also to clarify, you are saying that providers here sometimes ask for freelance assistance?

  • WebProjectWebProject Host Rep, Veteran

    @trycatchthis said:
    After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles.

    In majority cases no one read the knowledge base as customers nowadays preferred to contact to get support.

  • @WebProject said:
    In majority cases no one read the knowledge base as customers nowadays preferred to contact to get support.

    I have seen plenty of helpdesk that force clients to cearch knowledge base before contacting support. Are those systems useless?

  • No. I'd say not useless. But it is extremely difficult to read a knowledge base if none is provided.

    Yes I have very occasionally seen people ask about freelance help of various kinds, but not at all often. If that is what you are offering perhaps you could add it to your profile and post the fact in the Offers section from time to time? Ask the mods first, I don't know if it's allowed.

    You never know, I may be among the first to knock on your (DM) door.

  • @dominame said:
    No. I'd say not useless. But it is extremely difficult to read a knowledge base if none is provided.

    Yes I have very occasionally seen people ask about freelance help of various kinds, but not at all often. If that is what you are offering perhaps you could add it to your profile and post the fact in the Offers section from time to time? Ask the mods first, I don't know if it's allowed.

    You never know, I may be among the first to knock on your (DM) door.

    Well if you have an interest in anything DM me. [Support, Knowledge-base Composition, Sys-Admin, WebDesign, Wordpress, PHP/Node JS]

  • Well I'm currently a one man band about to launch my offering on an unsuspecting world. So I may well be doing that fairly soon. Thanks for the offer.

    Also, if you want to build a business doing that, I suggest you put something in your footer, the same way as hosts do for hosting. It tells you how to in the rules, linked in the right column towards the top.

  • Consider this market research.

  • @trycatchthis said:
    After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles. The latter of which could cut down on the need for human interaction in support incidents. Also many are sole proprietors who at times can be stretched thin.

    Is there a market here for freelance support, system admin and/or knowledge-base article composition to streamline and improve the support services offered by some of the providers here?

    Also if these aren't the type of services needed by providers what else might be of value to them?

    Is this feasible or mostly a waste of time? What do you guys think?

    You could curate like 50 common Q&A's and sell them to many providers for low cost.

  • @TimboJones said:

    @trycatchthis said:
    After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles. The latter of which could cut down on the need for human interaction in support incidents. Also many are sole proprietors who at times can be stretched thin.

    Is there a market here for freelance support, system admin and/or knowledge-base article composition to streamline and improve the support services offered by some of the providers here?

    Also if these aren't the type of services needed by providers what else might be of value to them?

    Is this feasible or mostly a waste of time? What do you guys think?

    You could curate like 50 common Q&A's and sell them to many providers for low cost.

    Is that something of value to you? How much would you be willing to pay for that?

  • @trycatchthis said:

    @TimboJones said:

    @trycatchthis said:
    After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles. The latter of which could cut down on the need for human interaction in support incidents. Also many are sole proprietors who at times can be stretched thin.

    Is there a market here for freelance support, system admin and/or knowledge-base article composition to streamline and improve the support services offered by some of the providers here?

    Also if these aren't the type of services needed by providers what else might be of value to them?

    Is this feasible or mostly a waste of time? What do you guys think?

    You could curate like 50 common Q&A's and sell them to many providers for low cost.

    Is that something of value to you? How much would you be willing to pay for that?

    No.

  • agomezagomez Member, Host Rep

    @WebProject said:

    @trycatchthis said:
    After picking up a few offers I noticed that many providers are lacking on support and knowledge base articles.

    In majority cases no one read the knowledge base as customers nowadays preferred to contact to get support.

    +1, many clients prefer to send you a ticket, or a chat before reading the knowledge base

  • Hardly any providers offer live chat. Those that do have chat limited to certain hours.
    Would providers be willing to train and setup tiered support. How much would they want to pay per hour or other billing paradigm.

  • WebProjectWebProject Host Rep, Veteran

    @trycatchthis said:

    @WebProject said:
    In majority cases no one read the knowledge base as customers nowadays preferred to contact to get support.

    I have seen plenty of helpdesk that force clients to cearch knowledge base before contacting support. Are those systems useless?

    not the great customer service to point to customers to knowledge base as customer specifically contacted to get some help from provider, in self-managed service if it's outside of the support customers will get a quote for administration tasks.

  • SGrafSGraf Member, Patron Provider
    edited January 2021

    **Extra's for my own use: **I tend to outsource design stuff (graphics, html/css/js).

    Sales/Support:
    No. I do enjoy working with my customers towards their goals and helping out directly with technical soutions.

    Furthermore the customers are paying for Interactivity with me (or direct staff) and outsourcing this would be working around this expectation.

    It would also make it more difficult to provide consistent high quality support.

    KB-Articles: I currently have about 60ish self written ones. Its growing when questions get asked and i see a recurring theme.

    Initially i considered buying some pre-made ones. But decided against it, as all the samples i have seen did not fit my flavor/expectations. I also think it would be hard to hire an external person as at the point when i recognize i want a new article - i already know the question and the answer...

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