When Should a Web Host Ask a Client to Leave?

Web hosting can be tough industry, not only because of competition but also because of constant demand from customers. When a web hosting company decides to open up shop, they must be ready for anything including a grumpy customer, or a client who may want the world for less than one dollar a month. In web hosting, good customer service is a must as well as uptime and reliability.

A well written Terms of Services document should be available to clients at any time, and publicly linked on web hosting company's website. This document should always be revised and approved by a legal professional, or an attorney familiar with the industry. Terms of Services protect both web hosts and customers, but terms should always be indicated that a web host has the discretion to refuse services or to remove a customer at any time.

So why would a web host feel the need to remove a customer? There are several reasons, but the main one is preserving the integrity of your web hosting brand. Web hosting company should also provide a safe, and secure environment to all customers. It however has nothing to do with money, same service and quality of support should be rendered to every client, regardless of how much they pay. Sometimes, certain customers become more trouble than they are worth and that is when it is time to politely ask them to take their web hosting business elsewhere.

Employee abuse should never be tolerated. A customer submitting threatening, abusive or insulting helpdesk tickets to support staff should be warned. If hostility ensues, practice zero tolerance policy and ask that customer to have their data off your web server within 24 hours.

Sometimes, customers feel the need to be vile towards the very same people who are trying to help them. Call it human nature, but paying someone does not give them the right to belittle or insult that person.

Customers posing a security risk to web server or other customers should be removed. Web hosting clients enjoy the freedom of uploading almost anything to their website, and also installing scripts that add extra features to their website. While this behavior is encouraged, it should also be done in a secure manner.

Customers should be given a list of scripts that are not approved for installation on your web server. Violators of this rule should be warned, and removed if offenses are repeated. Customers not properly maintaining approved scripts should be warned and removed. An outdated script, or even improperly installed script can cause havoc on a web server. Any customer found to be in violation should be warned or removed if security risks are found.

A web hosting company spends resources, as in time and money, to properly maintain, secure and update a web server. Allowing customers to run insecure scripts, pose risk to security of the web server or put other customer data in harm's way is not only stupid but it also wastes web hosting company's resources.

Customers using up too many web server resources. This particular issue has two sides; web hosting companies offering resources they cannot provide and customers abusing server resources.

The first issue is web hosting companies providing unlimited packages or purposely overselling to appear cheaper and more appealing than their competition. If you as a web host find a customer who is using too much bandwidth or CPU usage on a package that is oversold or impossible to provide then you only have yourself to blame. In fact, do not remove the customer but remove yourself for poor business practice.

Customers can use too many server resources by having an outdated script, a poorly written script or be taking part in some sort of suspicious activity. In some cases, a customers can be completely innocent and a victim of a cyber attack. Always have a qualified server administrator determine what could be causing problems. A customer found to be causing server problems on purpose, or using any script that could be eating up server resources should be warned and removed if necessary. Web hosting customers with large websites, or sites that demand MySQL and bandwidth resources more than usual can be moved to dedicated web servers at additional cost.
In the end, being a web host is not easy but it can be rewarding. As with any business, challenges come up with products, equipment or customers. Always take correct action to protect the brand, integrity of business and take good care of your employees. In some cases, although rare, a web hosting client can pose danger to other customers or be a security risk to your web server. In those cases, it is better to remove a customer than have them ruin everybody else's day.