Offering an online backup solution is like designing a house. The possibilities are numerous, and the accompanying prices various.

A common mistake is to make decisions for the customer about what solution they need. All is working well, until the customer realizes he cannot retrieve his document as it has been fallen out of the scope of the online backup selection, configured by the (mostly external) administrator who tried to save the customer some expenses in his monthly subscription; expenses the customer would have gladly paid (especially afterwards!) to safeguard that particular data. The other way around is also commonly seen, providers offering their customers a - in the perspective of the customer - huge monthly rate, while some customers only intend to back-up a few financial documents every now and then.

Potential customers need to be informed about the possibilities and their consequences, before an exact and suitable offer can be made. These possibilities contain mainly: the size of their total data, the preferred amount of versions and the backup window. Asking for this information to the customer doesn't make any sense; as with mostly all ICT solutions, the end-user probably hasn't got a clue on what to answer. A translation must be made and this is where the ICT partner can show his true value, for example:

1. Size of their total data:

• Which folders do you want to have backed up?
• Do you want to include your e-mail?
• Which applications should have their data be backed up?

2. Amount of versions:

• How many do you want to keep?
• How long do you want to go back in your file history?
• If this is a long time, is it sufficient to have weekly/monthly backup?

3. The backup window:

• When is the backup allowed to run? Explain that during this time his internet connection is highly used so browsing can be slow.

(Please note that BackupAgent is able to provide a document containing references in speed, data size and duration of backups.)

When these questions have been answered, you can present your potential customer exactly what the benefits and impact on costs would be. The customer is then able to make thought through decisions, like: please increase the amount of versions as we accept the increase in our monthly expense, or: exclude this part of the data as it isn't worth the extra costs. Other conclusions can be made as well, like if the current internet connection is sufficient to satisfy the objectives and needs to be improved.

All customers prefer to hear this in advance, instead of being unpleasantly surprised and disappointed afterwards, especially if they need to make extra changes and costs.

After all it is all about managing customer expectation!