Great hosting providers?

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
What do you believe sets great hosting providers apart from the masses in the eyes of prospects? Is it simply price? Support? DDoS protection? Uptime? Or a combination of what?
 
It is the location, support, uptime, and price. DDoS protection comes included in most cases depending in hosting provider.
 
The only differentiating factor in this business today is support. If you stay proactive with your relationship with clients, this will stay with them for a very long time. I remember when we hosted this forum with HandsOn Hosting (@bigredseo previous company), I was blown away by their support's occasional reach-outs to me, informing that they will be upping the server specs, at no additional charge. And that was without me asking! Perhaps it did cost them a little, but that kind of management retains the client and inspires them for a very long ride with you.
 
The main two factors for us, and what we advise our clients, is Speed & Support. Price is secondary. I'm happy to pay triple the "going rate" if I get great speed and awesome support.

As @Artashes mentioned, customer support is a huge factor, and communication is key. It doesn't matter what went wrong, it matters if it's communicated and there's a level of transparency. I want to say "full transparency" but that can be difficult. Moving the line a little is acceptable in some cases, but denying things and hiding things is not acceptable. If someone screwed up, be up front. It's so much easier than trying to remember the lie anyway! "I fried the power supply as we accidentally flipped the power switch from 110v to 220v shutting down other servers, so the servers in that bank are restarting." A screwup? Yes. Acceptable? Maybe. Human? Yes, crap happens! Policy in place so it never happens again? We hope so! :)

As for the server upgrades that were mentioned for Hands-on, those did cost a little extra, but there was two reasons for doing it:
  1. it gave better speed to the client, which means their site runs faster, etc. Good for the client.
  2. a better machine usually meant less downtime on our end, which means less tickets, and less issues for admins
The bonus factor was that it built that relationship and goodwill to a customer, which means a longer-lasting customer, and usually additional referrals. So, if it cost us an extra $5k/month, it generated an extra $15k - that's a net $120k/year with fewer issues? I'll take that bet all day long!
 
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