Been having a little peek at our WordPress maintenance packages? Excellent, that’s just what we like to hear! You may now be wondering why we offer three different options. Below, we’ll explain in more detail, and highlight why the best choice may not be quite the one you think.
Here at Soto, we offer three distinct support options:
1. Ad-hoc support: You let us know when something’s wrong, and pay us to fix it – simple!
2. Pre-paid hours: Buy a block of time upfront, so you can come to us quickly when there’s an issue
3. Retainer: An agreed number of hours spent tending to your site each month, for a recurring fee
Now, if you’re looking at those options, you’re naturally drawn to 1 and 2, right? We all want to pay as little as possible, and ad-hoc support and pre-paid hours fit the bill. They both mean that we’re always just paying for the fix we need, whenever we need it. Great!
Why, then, do we offer a retainer option?
Well, we’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s actually our most cost-effective WordPress solution.
Here are two huge benefits of retainers that can help maximise your support ROI:
1. Ongoing maintenance
Pay-as-you-go support is absolutely perfect for one-off help desk assistance, emergency website fixes, and ad-hoc tasks like refreshing images and updating product listings. But while we may all like to think that’s everything we need, the truth is that most of us need a lot more.
Maintaining a website hasn’t been an ‘every so often’ job for a long time. As the digital space has become more competitive, it’s no longer enough to work on a site, then sit back and put your feet up. For a website to really drive results, it needs continual care and attention, with regular tasks carried out – like blog updates and ongoing performance improvements.
2. Proactive monitoring
You may have noticed that, when describing ad-hoc and pre-paid support, our focus was on you coming to us when you hit a snag. The problem is that this means you’re already aware of an issue by the time you speak to us. And if you’re aware, your visitors probably are, too.
Here’s a quick example. If you’ve already read our previous post that asks, ‘How well is your contact form working?’, you’ll know we talk about taking over site maintenance only to find the contact form hasn’t been working since… who knows when? The site owner has no idea. And stuff like this happens all the time. With a retainer, we’re able to use these hours to monitor what’s going on. We’ll uncover issues like this – and more – before you even know they’re there!
It’s the difference between having someone proactively looking after your site, and simply letting your site slowly become out-of-date and vulnerable. By keeping an eye on things, we can pick up on issues quickly, resolving them before they’re able to ruin your visitors’ on-site experiences.
What’s included in a retainer?
Essentially, we’re here to check all the moving parts of your website every month. We make sure that when a valuable visitor comes to use it, they won’t be disappointed.
Of course, we’re not here to tell you what to do. And we offer ad-hoc and pre-paid support for a reason: for some people, they’re the right solutions. But if you’re looking to get the most for your money, our retainers can be the best option. You can commit to as little as two hours per month, over a six-month period, which can be used for any of our support services.
Fed up with things going wrong? Want to prioritise cost efficiency? Ready to secure your site’s future? Contact us to set up your recurring monthly retainer, and keep your website in tip-top condition.
