If only all service companies could be like Rackspace
It's been a particularly bad week for customer and client service from two very important vendors to us (*ahem*...Omniture & scene7). Rather than focus on the negatives, I will instead post my 100% satisfaction with the service and support of Rackspace Managed Hosting.
Web-based support that can be trusted for a speedy response
Rackspace has both phone and web-based tech support, but they are so speedy and courteous at responding to web-based support messages that I routinely go there first for a question, request, or resolution to a problem. How many companies can you say this about?
You know the drill: the cryptic support hierarchy laid out on a company site, insisting you search their knowledgebase first (which is always sub-par and rarely has the answer to your question), presenting you with a customer service contact form, and if you're lucky, a toll-free support number.
I can't tell you how many times my only point of contact is an e-mail address at a vendor either for their "technical support" or for an account manager. I always am concerned that the e-mail will go into a black hole and never be returned (e-mail is such a terrible way to manage tasks). I've been so accustomed to this, that I always end up BCCing myself so that I know to flag the e-mail for later follow-up. Otherwise, I'll forget about it and I may never hear back unless I resend the e-mail.
A customer knoweledgebase that just works
The Rackspace support model is equally as fantastic. You have an account manager and essentially a "dedicated" team of support techs of varying skill sets that you'll basically always deal with throughout the week. Each message is signed by the tech, an entire log of your conversation is available in their support ticket system, and it all just works -- it's a complete CRM solution customized for their business and the customer benefits from their collaboration. No matter who you talk to, they can access the same information anyone else in the company can access (aside from sensitive information like server passwords). What a concept!
Better yet, the account managers can access what the support people are doing with your account. Not the case at some vendors who have departments operating in silos.
Managing customer expectations
There's nothing I love more than to report a problem or submit a request, get a response within a 2-hour window with a list of "next steps" and when it will be resolved by. Sometimes a customer problem is not a simple, 30-minute fix, either. Even the problems that keep Rackspace scratching their heads over the course of the week are kept up-to-date on a daily basis each week and always have a senior technician checking in on the status each day.
With these other vendors, I am the one checking in with them. Where's the client service in that?
Anyway, thank you, Rackspace. Always a pleasure to deal with you.
What does a CIO do?
I've come across a few posts lately as well as some confusion (in the office and in blogs) about the roles and responsibilities of the CIO (Chief Information Officer). A CIO is not "the computer guy," "web guy," or "a techie." A CIO essentially bridges the communication barrier, knowledge, and strategic gap between the many departments of a business that require technology (whether they realize it or not) to solve business problems.
Big-picture thinking
The CIO is a strategic position because it requires big-picture thinking, and the ability to quickly and effectively identify broken processes (or lack thereof) where technology can be integrated to improve efficiency and the bottom line -- or better yet, drive new business and capture market share. Driving new business and capturing market share is really a critical area where a CIO can contribute -- because it requires a heavy dose of business intelligence and market awareness.
But I thought the CIO was the head of the IT department?
The IT department is an operational entity, responsible for executing the support of the daily technical needs of employees, implementing new technology as a result of a business need, or implementing/building new services as a result of a business need. IT still needs the "business need" delivered to them as well as an operational manager who manages the department. Depending on the size of the organization, there may be multiple operational managers within the various divisions of IT. The CIO will guide the functional managers in IT to implement solutions that satisfy current and future business needs/problems.
Why don't other departments just talk to the operational manager(s) of IT?
Typically, departments (marketing, HR, Finance, engineering, etc.), lack the technical expertise to be able to identify exactly what they need to solve their problem. IT can normally listen to these problems and provide a very specific solution. The problem is when these solutions are implemented in silos. Over time, you have many "one-off" IT projects, built as temporary fixes or workarounds that gradually grow into a substantial maintenance burden and waste of IT resources.
This is where a CIO-role plays a strategic role. The CIO has visibility to multiple departments and layers of the organization. The CIO thinks about all of the needs of the various departments, takes future needs into consideration, and plans for scalability. The "silo effect" is neither fun or fair to anybody in IT and as a company grows, managing all of these silos becomes cumbersome and uninspiring -- and costly. To undo years and years of silo'd development is usually a major undertaking.
Alright, so the CIO doesn't manage the IT employees. What is the CIO involved in, then?
To quote an excellent editor's note from InformationWeek, "CIOs are less involved in day-to-day operations and technology implementation and more involved in business strategy, revenue generation, business-process management, and customer relations." This article was written in July 2004 and still holds true today. The only addition I would make is that the CIO is also heavily involved in online strategy because it is such a critical customer touch-point and is a major source of revenue generation (directly via e-commerce or indirectly via offline sales), customer relations, and requires strategic business-process management.
We’ve landed on a managed hosting contract
In a previous post, I outlined how we were looking at managed hosting for SuperMotors, to replace the current colocation contract we've had for nearly 2 years. After much negotiation with Rackspace, PEER 1, and INetU, none of them were able to come up with a proposal that was attractive enough as ipHouse's offer. Here's how things went down:
4th Place: INetU
I really liked their website, the fact that they promoted their customer satisfaction rating (which is really high, at 96%), and they offered FreeBSD (my OS of choice, and where my comfort level is). Unfortunately, their pricing structure is not setup for high-bandwidth environments, as their bid came in much, much higher than the other 3 ISPs who were bidding on our business. Kudos to them for not straying from their core competency, but probably not a viable consideration for us in the future unless they make significant changes to their billing model.
3rd Place: Rackspace
I have real-world experience with Rackspace and their managed hosting, so I knew what to expect in terms of service and support. They did an excellent job in coming down on the costs of their hardware to match PEER 1's quote, but just were not able to match the bandwidth (they could not go higher than 1000 GB/mo -- as this is their standard bandwidth package). They could have gone higher, but at $1/GB, which would have gotten very expensive for us. Had bandwidth not been the primary driver behind our decision, Rackspace might have been our final decision, just based on my past experience with them as a managed hosting provider.
2nd Place: PEER 1
Excellent sales follow-up, paid attention to my blog, and had the best overall price between INetU, Rackspace, and PEER 1. However, in the end, they did not offer FreeBSD for an operating system and required a 12/31/06 commitment date, which would have meant 2 months of overlapped billing with our current ipHouse colocation contract and the new PEER 1 managed contract. Also, switching ISPs would have meant dealing with DNS switches for our customer's domains, dealing with e-mail account downtime for customers, transferring data over the Internet to the new servers...the list of "cons" went on and on. Granted, this would have been the situation for INetU, Rackspace, or PEER 1...which is why we went with ipHouse:
1st Place: ipHouse
Our current ISP where we've colocated for many years now. We're comfortable with their support, their sales staff, and their network reliability. This, combined with the fact that they will run a managed FreeBSD server for us, matched the PEER 1 bandwidth quote, beat the PEER 1 hardware quote (PEER 1 uses commodity hardware to keep costs down where as ipHouse is getting us new Dell servers). Plus, not having to deal with the IP change, DNS changes, e-mail downtime, etc...everything just made sense for us to stay with the current provider, and for less than we're paying today. We also bumped up our colocation contract expiration date by 30 days to get started with managed hosting even sooner. Bottom line: no overlap in hosting contracts, faster time-to-production with managed hosting, more bandwidth, better/faster/more reliable servers, less cost.
Moral of the story
- If you're near the end of your hosting contract, always shop around to see what else is out there. The grass may be greener on the other side.
- Put a competitor's bid in the hands of your current ISP and see what they can do about meeting or beating the bid.
- Prices are usually negotiable. Never take the first offer and always talk to the rep via phone or e-mail about the quote so they can understand your level of commitment for hosting.
- By renegotiating, you may be able to enter into a new/better contract a month or two sooner than expected -- and thus not have to wait for your existing contract to expire, as long as it means your current ISP keeps you as a customer for a longer period of time.
- It's more expensive for an ISP to obtain a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer for slightly less money.
Google Apps for your Domain – 8 domain limit
I've been a Google Apps for your Domain user/administrator since they first launched the service with just e-mail hosting. It wasn't until recently that I noticed they offered more services than just e-mail hosting:
- Calendars
- Chat
- Customized Start Page
- Domain Web Pages
I realized that calendars and chat were basically available, what I didn't realize was that you could toggle them on/off. I also realized that there wasn't a waiting list for signing up new domain names any more (though the service is still in "beta"), too. I proceeded to setup google apps for 7 other domain names, making a total of 8 domains that I use Google apps for. After trying to add a 9th domain, I got this message:
Thanks for your interest in Google Apps for Your Domain. Unfortunately, we are not able to invite your domain
Sincerely,
The Google Team
Bummer! But, I can't complain. I'll take free e-mail hosting for 8 domains. This also means I can clear off all of the e-mail accounts on our mail server which makes one less thing to setup when we switch ISPs. What I also like is the ability to host web pages on a domain name with Google, meaning I can eliminate all of the one-page domains that we host, as well. Can't wait to see what's next with the service -- hopefully full integration with Picasa, Gmail mobile, and other Google applications/utilities.
What is so difficult about this sales process thing?
I deal with vendors on a daily basis, most of which are a pleasant experience. Then there are the others that are either, too pushy and only interested in the sale, and then there are others who cannot close the sale because of a simple question.
Take Peer 1, a managed hosting company who we are strongly considering to have handle SuperMotors.net hosting. Everything checks out on their website - professionally designed, up-to-date information, current press releases. Not much in terms of comments on their managed hosting service online, but that may be because this is still a relatively new market for managed hosting with not a lot of competitors and customers. The price looks good, the company looks good, but when I ask for 2-3 existing customer references (of equal or higher contract terms as we're considering) from the sales rep I've been working with, I get nothing. Last communcation from the rep was on November 13th. It's now December 5th. I've sent follow-up e-mails re-requesting 2-3 customer references on November 14th, November 26th, and December 1st.
I guess e-mails are not good enough and I'll need to call. It shouldn't be this hard for us to spend money. Not only is this annoying, but it speaks volumes about their commitment to customer service. Do they even have 2-3 customers that are going to give them top marks? Strike 1 for Peer 1!
Blog by Eric Long
I'm an experienced online marketer, information architect, digital strategist, and social media enthusiast. I'm passionate about providing outstanding cross-channel experiences for considered purchases (with a focus on mass customization).
About Eric Long
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