Ricky’s Online Business Blog

From time to time customers asked me how I can make my web sites respond to enquiries, orders and requests by SMS instantly to their mobile phones.

For example if you fill up an enquiry form on my web site, you will not only receive a confirmation by email, but a thank you message by SMS instantly as well.

In another example, if you make payment for a product, you will receive a confirmation message by SMS immediately. You will also receive a follow-up SMS exactly one month later, reminding you of my brand

Some customers think I send out every SMS message manually from my handphone. But sooner or later they will find out it’s all automated. I can’t be sitting there to sticking to my phone to send out every SMS so quickly in response to every enquiry, 24 hours a day!

How to create such autoresponders by SMS? There is actually nothing complicated. You just need to subscribe to a bulk SMS messaging system, and then program your system to send out SMS messages using the system’s application programming interface (API). My system has been so programmed to make heavy use of SMS for customer service, branding and marketing as well.

There are many SMS bulk messaging service providers out there. Each SMS message sent costs money. Some charge very cheap rate per SMS, but your message might not reach your recipients at all. So don’t just look for cheap providers.

For me, I’m happily using Redisoft SMS System at the moment. Their system is good and stable. Macrokiosk is another good choice. Are you using any better provider? Please share with me.

Giving instant feedback to your customers can “wow” them and make them think your response is so prompt. So surprise your customers by innovating your online business by SMS today!

Now you can subscribe for web and email hosting for RM 0.00 (US$ 0.00) per year.

What? It’s free of charge! No string attached!

Grab your Free Web & Email Hosting Plan now. More details below:

• Linux server
• cPanel control panel
• 10MB web and email space
• 1GB data transfer (bandwidth) per month

And listen up. More goodies below!

• Unlimited email accounts (POP, IMAP, webmail)
• Unlimited FTP accounts
• Unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited parked domains
• Unlimited MySQL databases

If you own a domain name (whether registered with us or not), you can subscribe for the Free Plan. You can also register a a new domain name and subscribe for the Free Plan.

10MB may be too little for some domains. But if you don’t have a web site, or have a very simple one, and you plan only a few email accounts, Free Plan maybe enough for you.

If it is not enough, you can always upgrade to other plans later. But hosting under Free Plan will give you a taste of what cPanel-based Linux hosting is like.

To grab it, please fill in the form here, put in your domain name, and choose Free Plan under Web & Email Hosting Plan.  If you need to pay for the domain name, proceed to the payment page.  Change your domain name servers to our ns1.vesselbiz.com and ns2.vesselbiz.com when ready.  You will receive your hosting plan details by email on the same working day!

There is one hosting company in Malaysia who has been calling up customers of other hosting companies to renew their expiring domain names and subscribe to hosting services with them.

Upon some checking, I found others in the hosting industry know about their practice too. Sometimes the company even unknowingly call up hosting providers and resellers.

A contact told me this company “hijacks” other companies’ customers. We may accuse them of “stealing” customers from competitors. But they could claim it’s their marketing strategy.

Legally speaking, they don’t do anything wrong, unless they mislead customers into thinking they are their domain name or hosting provider, which I guess is possible since many customers are not so IT-savvy on domain and hosting stuff.

There is no such thing as a “hosting industry association” in Malaysia. No organization for us to appeal to. We can’t complain against them. They also didn’t break any law, unless we can get the proof of their misrepresenting other companies.

For now they maybe able to “steal” many customers from others. But their name is notorious in the industry for what they do. This does not translate into good business for them in the long run. At the end the customers will know their plot also.

One interesting question is that, where do they get the list of expiring domain names? They told a “mystery shopper” that they check your domain name from the domain name search service (WHOIS) provided on the Internet. But without first knowing your domain name, how do they do a search on your domain name?

The company admitted they have such a list of expiring domain names but refused to reveal the source citing confidentiality. As I understand, domain name registrars like MYNIC, Webnic.cc and others do not share the list of expiring domain names to their partners and resellers.

A possible solution is to register customers’ domains under our own contact details. But for me this would be breaking my promises to customers. Another solution is subscribe for private WHOIS service, where customers’ details will not be available online. But it costs money and add to customers’ expenses.

For me, I think those companies who rely on “stealing” customers from others are desperate short-term businesses who choose to compete in the red ocean and have no unique business strategy for themselves. For them, I think they can choose to gain customers for today and lose their reputation for tomorrow.

What do you think?