Fun for the Whole Family

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss dealing with families that share one account.

[December 11, 2001]

On the ISP-Marketing list in November, JS inquired,

"How do you treat households where all members use a single account? Would you rather set up separate accounts (including e-mail) for Mom and Dad and each individual child, or do you see it as a given that most households will maintain one account for the whole family?"

LP noted that, as far as e-mail addresses go, it's fine for the whole family to use one account:

"We just assume that the whole household will use one account. We offer up to five different e-mail accounts with their dialup, so they can have separate e-mail addresses if they wish."

Others said they draw the line on multiple logins:

[RY observed] "We don't allow multiple simultaneous logins, at any cost: we consider this theft of service. Our RADIUS checks to see if a user who is trying to log on is already online. If someone is already logged on and a second logon is attempted, both are blown off line and a nasty e-mail is sent to the customer. When the customer calls to complain, and they often do, we explain the terms of service to them. This is a lot of work, but it has cleaned up our customer base from the kind of deadbeats we don't want."

[JB agreed] "Knocking all simultaneous users off line, followed up with an explanatory e-mail covering terms of service, is an excellent, though labor-intensive, approach."

Still others explained that it's a great way to encourage families to get more than one account:

[PF noted] "Almost every duplicate dialup happens because the kids gave away their parents' account info, and they can't get online. We explain to them that someone else is using their account, and they usually make the kid get their own account. Most of the time, they're happy to get the second account."

[LP agreed] "We do have some households that sign up for a second account because of this."

Others suggested allowing multiple logins and charging for it as a value added service:

[BK offered] "Earthlink allows this; if concurrent use is identified, then it's charged at $1 an hour. As an Earthlink subscriber, over the course of a year, I think I've had a total of five hours of such use. It makes it simple to deal with, I pay for the extra bandwidth used, and everyone is happy. If Earthlink did not have such a policy, then I would have gone to another provider. The bottom line is, if the customer needs the option, give it to them—but let them pay for it."

[JG agreed] "Are you in business to come down on your customers or to provide them with a service? Charging them for the time they use earns extra money for you, and makes everybody happy. I was billed for six hours of simultaneous usage a couple of months back, when I had one computer downloading big programs while I was surfing on another. Had my download been interrupted by a service disconnect, I would have been very angry. Serving multiple simultaneous users on the same account strikes me as a value added service, and a pretty simple way to rake in extra dough."

—End