Anytime there is a demand for services or products throughout the world, you can bet is probably an Internet play behind it somewhere.  For example in the United States there is a major shortage of nurses all over the country.  This is driving some unique solutions and business models to encourage nurses to take assignments and jobs that normally would have been offered in the past in short it didn’t exist.

An example of this is the travel nurse industry that has grown up to search for nurses are willing to take temporary or long-term assignments away from their normal home, traveling to assignments and working as a nurse in a different state for weeks or months at a time.

The area of travel nursing is not a new concept.  Nursing history shows us that nurses have been traveling with their patients for years if not centuries.  However the way it’s being recruited and the salaries that this area of the industry pays, can be very exceptional.

More and more we live in a mobile society, where people pick up and move and relocate on average about every seven years.  Some discipline such as nursing might actually be seeing an increase in this phenomena in a way that speeds up the process of moving from years to potentially months.  Many consultants have been living this lifestyle for quite some time taking jobs were two or three months at a time.  We don’t normally think of professional job such as nursing in a similar fashion.  But short-term nursing contracts may be a staple in the future.

PowWeb has turned on a hosting incentive.  They are offering 1 and 2 year hosting plans at the rate of $5.77 per month.

Our $5.77 sale is making an encore! We’ve lowered the price of the One Plan by $2.00/month (down from our regular price of
$7.77/month) for all one-year and two-year payment terms.

You can read more about PowWeb or you can also visit our list of other hosts.

That is a pretty good price on hosting, but we always encourage people to review hosts first.  Price is not everything.  Pay careful attention to reviews that mention customer service.  Saving $2 per month for hosting and then spending 10 – 20 hours on hold over the course of 1 – 2 years might easily negate that cost savings.

Regardless of whether or not you are writing your own blog or establishing a site to focus on the sales of healthcare management software, choosing a host with an eye towards the bottom line and your ROI is extremely important.  Don’t save $10 so that you can spend $50!

One of the most important lessons that I learned when I worked in corporate finance is that you should always make it easy for your customers to pay you.

Seems like a simple enough concept, don’t you think?

If you want money to come in (on time even) make it easy for your customers to pay you.

• accept cash
• accept checks
• accept credit card payments
• accept debit cards
• accept pay pal
• accept online payment options
• accept money 24 hours per day 7 days a week
• Make the payment process easy to find
• make the payment process easy to navigate and use
• Don’t make it difficult or frustrating

Your customers do not need an excuse to NOT pay you.  They do not need an excuse to delay paying you either.

Here’s an example that I encountered today with Ipower.  My credit card month and year needed to be updated.  They sent me an email telling me as much.  But their email looked like a phishing scheme.

So I tried to go directly to their site and log in somewhere into my account so I could update my cc date. 

My account wasn’t set to bill again for 7 months.  I was being proactive.

They didn’t appear to have any way for me to login, update my credit card and pay them!?

Now, I happen to know that their phone support sucks.  I do not say that casually.  I have had an extensive amount of experience with their phone support and it has never, ever been good.  Bad information, no positive results, and hours and days spent on hold listening to very bad hold music.

Avoid Hold Times with Live Chat

So I tried to avoid the long hold time, by using their LiveChat functionality.  In the past this has been much faster (although not much more successful).  It also enables me to get a written transcript of the conversation and advice, which you need with IPower.

Unfortunately, the chat service had a hold time too!  20 minutes of chat hold time.  Now, I’ve seen lots of companies online over the year that do customer service well and that do customer service poorly and everything in between.  From Amazon to Audible to North Face to even more obscure companies.  IPower seems to be a company that is unable to get any control over their business processes.

At least there was no bad hold music.

So to save you some ranting and raving in text, I put together the above video of the incident to highlight the problem. 

Excerpt of the Email Exchange

Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting Ipower. I understand your hesitance, we do not have it linked on our website, if you chose not to do it through our secure link you can call 1-888-511-4678 option 3. There is an extremely long hold time at this point so please do it when you can set time aside.
Thank you

Rhonda S.
Billing E-mail Team

>
> Can you show me how I can navigate to this area from your website, so
> that I can confirm that I’m not going through a phishing link?

Excerpt of Chat Session

Chat InformationPlease wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationAll operators are currently assisting others. Thanks for your patience. An operator will be with you shortly.
Chat InformationYou are now chatting with ‘IPower’s Comment’
My Comment: hello
IPower’s Comment: Hi Brett. I apologize for the wait time. My name is Winston, how are you today?
IPower’s Comment: How can I help you today?
My Comment: There is no secure place where i can log in and update my cc info
My Comment: I would call your phone support for billing, but hold times are over an hour
IPower’s Comment: Due to high phone contact volume, we are unable to assist you on a timely manner.
IPower’s Comment: I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
IPower’s Comment: Also, you can e-mail the information to billing@ipowerweb.com.
My Comment: no problem, its been like that for years
My Comment: I cannot email my credit card information
IPower’s Comment: Brett, you need not have to worry, our e-mail is secure. In case, if you do not wish to send e-mail you can contact our Billing Department at Phone.
IPower’s Comment: You can contact our Billing Department via email or phone.
IPower’s Comment: Toll free : 1-888-511-4678 option 4
IPower’s Comment: Outside USA : 602-716-5398 option 4
IPower’s Comment: E-mail : billing@ipowerweb.com
IPower’s Comment: Fax number :
IPower’s Comment: 1-602-307-5438 (Inside USA)
IPower’s Comment: 011-1-602-3075438 (Outside USA)
IPower’s Comment: Hours of operation :
IPower’s Comment: Mon – Fri : 7am – 10pm PST
IPower’s Comment: Sat – Sun : 7 am – 7 pm PST
My Comment: and wait an hour to pay you?
My Comment: is there really no where I can login and do this?
My Comment: I have hundreds of accounts with you, to call for each of these is not really possible.
IPower’s Comment: Unfortunately, you cannot update the credit card information from your end.
My Comment: You almost make it easier to switch to a different company than to update the date on a credit card number.
My Comment: not your fault just commenting on the irony
IPower’s Comment: Yes, I do understand your concern. However, we are on the process of upgrade of the our vDeck which will also provide interface to update the credit card from your end.
IPower’s Comment: This upgrade should be done soon.
My Comment: weeks or months? my domain doesn’t expire for 7 months
My Comment: the domain I received the automated cc notice about
IPower’s Comment: It might take some months.
My Comment: I guess I’ll use that as my barometer to determine whether or not to stick with iPower. I appreciate your help.

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With server prices continuing to get cheaper, the primary cost these days is one of professional support and support systems.  Bandwidth is becoming less of a factor as well, the primary cost driver is people.