I always enjoy talking to people that have figured out something I never could.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2015, 2:12 PM Glen Waldrop <[email protected]> wrote: > I actually lost a customer over my free email. > > She put her email address all over the internet, got our domain spammed > like mad to the point that my spam filter was completely overwhelmed (2000+ > spam per account every day, old server anyway), complained about the spam > and couldn't be bothered to wait until I built the new email server. > > I still run the email server, I don't offer email addresses to my > customers anymore. I support about 20ish, looks like only about 5 use it. > Very few of them actually keep up with their passwords, and it seems they > don't check it that often either. About every 3 to 6 months I'd get a call > from most of them about some important message they have to get and they > don't have their password. Their email account has 4000+ messages in it > (when spam filter was actually working), they hadn't checked it since last > time they got me to reset their password. > > Not fun. > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > > *Sent:* Thursday, November 05, 2015 9:13 AM > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Roundcube > > For the typical WISP, I think it’s 3 facts: > > Fact 1: 10% of customers are morons > Fact 2: 10% of customers will get an email account from you > Fact 3: they are the same 10% > > It sounds like Lewis had a lot of business customers with their own > domains, that’s maybe a different and possibly more attractive scenario > depending on how you structure it and, as he says, how much you charge. > > People getting their email credentials compromised and used by spammers > are a constant problem. And the people constantly getting a new iDevice > and calling from the iStore for help. If these people don’t even > understand how email works, why do they want to get it on 5 different > devices? Can’t they just do like the kids and send text messages? > > It was easier when we mainly sold dialup and the job mainly consisted of > sitting in the office talking to people on the phone. But spending an hour > on the phone with a clueless email customer is less fun when your network > and techs are mostly out in the field. > > I compare it to the threads about WISP support, where some here say they > don’t get any calls because they don’t have network problems. OK, so last > weekend I had a guy whose POE was plugged into a wall outlet controlled by > a light switch. Another said “Linksys” was unavailable. One guy bought a > new laptop and his WiFi password kept getting rejected – turns out he had > answered “Dvorak right handed” to the keyboard question, because he was > right handed. None of this had anything to do with network problems! > > So email support is like that, all the morons sign up for email from you, > and you have to support them. Unless you structure things so you don’t > support them. Do they call GMail for stupid support issues? The problem > might be you probably sell them Internet, so it is hard to enforce a > self-serve support policy, they know where you live and will bug you until > you help them. > > Maybe one approach is to outsource all email customer support, to make the > cost per customer more visible. Then compare to the revenue per customer. > Since unlike the big guys, we aren’t making money from data mining. > > > *From:* Lewis Bergman <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Thursday, November 05, 2015 8:29 AM > *To:* [email protected] > > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Roundcube > > > How many thousands of users do you have? Running the service is pretty > cheap. I built my own sendmail+Dovecot system which was really cheap. Then > I got to a place where I didn't want my time tied up with that so we went > to Magicmail which was still pretty cheap. Through all of it it was the > support that was the big dollar sign. If you set expectations differently > maybe yours would be cheaper. All I know is I spent a lot of user tech > support time on it. More than anything else by far. Kind of a hidden > expense but definitely still there. We had, I think, 8000 users on the > system when we sold. Maybe a couple hundred domains. > > > On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 8:11 AM Mike Hammett <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What are people doing that's so expensive? I could have 10x - 50x the >> number of mailboxes as I have and it wouldn't cost me any more than it does >> now, other than some disks.... which aren't expensive. >> >> I guess I would probably move from the community version to the service >> provider version, but at that point that's under $0.20/mailbox/month. Not >> really a major expense. >> >> >> >> >> ----- >> Mike Hammett >> Intelligent Computing Solutions >> http://www.ics-il.com >> >> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> >> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> >> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> >> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> >> >> Midwest Internet Exchange >> http://www.midwest-ix.com >> >> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> >> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> >> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> >> ------------------------------ >> *From: *"Lewis Bergman" <[email protected]> >> *To: *[email protected] >> *Sent: *Thursday, November 5, 2015 8:08:29 AM >> >> *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Roundcube >> >> For me it wasn't about difficulty it was about expense. Email, at least >> how we did it, was a cost center not a profit center. I kept it until I >> sold and wish I would have ditched it much sooner. It was by far the >> biggest tech support PITA. >> >> I did learn afterward that the longer someone has an email address the >> more they are willing to pay to keep it. I have been raising he fee we >> charge to use those old emails. I am now at $250 a year for a single email >> and I have people begging me not to cut it off. I am still going to, but I >> think it is interesting since I used to give it away. >> >> I guess what I am saying is that if you do not charge a decent amount for >> it, why do it? The there is the whole minimum volume to be profitable thing >> that comes into play. I just would not keep doing something that doesn't >> make money. If it does, more power to you. >> >> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 7:18 AM Mike Hammett <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> There seems to be two camps. One where people are running away form >>> their own e-mail servers and then those that embrace it. I haven't found >>> e-mail to be that difficult to manage. >>> >>> >>> >>> ----- >>> Mike Hammett >>> Intelligent Computing Solutions >>> http://www.ics-il.com >>> >>> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> >>> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> >>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> >>> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> >>> >>> Midwest Internet Exchange >>> http://www.midwest-ix.com >>> >>> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> >>> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> >>> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> >>> ------------------------------ >>> *From: *"Chuck Hogg" <[email protected]> >>> *To: *[email protected] >>> *Sent: *Thursday, November 5, 2015 6:01:35 AM >>> *Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Roundcube >>> >>> >>> I hope you are charging handsomely for email. We just quit it for our >>> customer base...and only had 2-3 complaints. Everyone already has an email >>> address. >>> >>> >>> >>> Regards, >>> Chuck >>> >>> On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 3:22 AM, Eric Kuhnke <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Any tips of tricks for success with using Roundcube to provide webmail >>>> to individual end users (not a single domain corporate environment)? >>>> >>>> Server side is postfix + spamassassin + dovecot. >>>> >>>> I have a successful 'test' setup of roundcube running in a VM doing >>>> TLSv1.2 on smtp and imap, logged into several user accounts on test domains >>>> on the dovecot server. >>>> >>>> Wondering if anyone has run into hiccups or weird things when using >>>> roundcube in a production environment. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>
