I had an idea - a community centric place on the web that didn't revolve around a profit margin. A development community, completely dedicated to something which i'm very passionate about.
Sharing of knowledge and experiences in and around my favorite development platform, namely C#.Net
First I knew i needed a hosting provider and a platform which to build the community around. The choices today in finding a hosting provider that actually takes good service to another level or has your interest at the top of the priority list, is harder than you imagine.
Anyways, this all came about when Orcsweb offered me hosting - for free. Now i know that usually the thumb rule is, you get what you pay for. But here is what I would call a massive exception to that rule.
When I started to set up the CSharpZealot community, i ran into a few issues - and the first thing I did each time this happened was to email the support staff at Orcsweb. Normally this was at night, really late actually, and to begin with I fired the questions off just before going to bed (that would be around 2am or later), expecting to find a solution to my question in my inbox the next night.
To my surprise - actually it was nearly a shock - the email response came a few minutes later. I thought at first it was a tease - an automated response email with the first paragraph sounding like this "this is an automated response, do not respond to this email as it is not monitored". But lo and behold it was from an actual person, and not just a response letting me know they're going to look into things. No, it contained confirmation that my issue had been resolved and if there was anything else they could do for me, just let them know. And this wasn't just a one-off incident. It was a constant (pleasure??) way things was dealt with.
This in itself is remarkable seeing as most other companies has a near 24 hour turn around for submitted support tickets. To offer this quality of service you need to seriously know what you're doing.
So, how do they do it? Who are they? Well, I located one of their staff and had a bit of a chat.
Q: What, or who, is Orcsweb?
A: We are a Microsoft Gold Partner hosting company, specializing in managed services on Microsoft platforms and are focused on providing superior service and support.
Q: What distinguishes Orcsweb from the multitude of other hosting companies availabel today?
A: We believe striving to the #1 in Service and Support "is" what separates us from other hosting companies. In addition, we strive to provide the most stable, responsive servers and to provide a hgh level of customer service experience.
Q: What made you choose to set as high level of service as you do and how do you sustain the service level?
A: Our service objectives are driven both by what we believe our clients want and deserve, and the recognition of teh critical importance of our service to our clients' business. We strive to provide the kind of service we want for our business. Sustaining our service level has been accomplished by considering our client needs as our first priority, and by building a team of skilled professionals that enjoy helping clients.
Q: What role do you see yourself in, with regards to the hosting industry?
A: We provide a service for clients that need a stable, reliable environment to host their business processes and Internet applications, accompanied with superior service and support, so they can focus their resources on their core business.
Q: How do you stay on the bleedege edge of technology when it moves as fast as it does?
A: Staying current is always a challenge, especially since new products and/or product updates come out so frequently. Keeping current is something that provides a direct benefit to our clients and also creates satisfying accomplishments for our team. Focusing exclusively on Microsoft technologies helps narrow our focus, but it is still challenging. It is challenging in positive ways though because our team thrives on learning new things and overcoming challenge situations. Almost since our company’s inception, we have focused on providing the latest technologies. We’ve had a very positive response from our clients, so we have strived to continue offering the newest products available. We often work with products through the beta cycles so that when they release we are already familiar and experienced with them. We also have a close working relationship with Microsoft and various people directly on certain product teams, which helps provide additional insight into specific technologies.
Q: What attacts customers to Orcsweb in the first place?
A: Client referals and repeat business are responsible for the great majority of our new business. We believe that if we focus on providing superior service and support to our existing clients, they will become our best "advertisements"
Q: Why should a customer choose Orcsweb's dedicated hosting service rather than pick another shared hosting service provider?
A: We provide both shared and dedicated hosting services for everything from a relatively simple site with low volume usage to dedicated webfarms that can handle millions of visits per day. We feel, and our clients confirm by communicating back to us, that we are the best choice for businesses that need high reliability with superior service and support.
Q: Do you offer other services than hosting?
A: We specialize in hosting; it is our only business. All of our service offerings are centered around and are part of our hosting service.
Q: What, if anything, would you see accomplished to bring Orcsweb further ahead in the field?
A: Our core vision is to provide the best customer service experience possible. This along with having a highly technical staff and stable systems keeps moving us forward
Q: Do you use off-the-shelf solutions to manage your infrastructure or do you customise your management applications to suit the needs of you and your customers?
A: We use a mix of off-the-shelf solutions and custom applications we built for our own use – depending on the best fit for the specific need.
Q: What made you choose the Windows Server platform as your chosen hosting platform?
A: The company founder needed someone to host sites on Windows and could not find anyone to meet his needs both technically and with good service. This resulted in the formation of ORCS Web, and our initial choice of Windows.
Q: What can customers expect to see improved in the future from Orcsweb?
A: We continue to improve our client Control Panel and will expand our features for the foreseeable future. Clients will also be able to find more information themselves in our knowledge base in the near future. We will be offering geographical redundancy where needed for clients’ disaster/recovery capabilities. We also will continue to offer leading edge technologies and provide the best Microsoft hosting experience.
Now I hope you know them a little bit better - I for one can see why I've received the service I have.
Orcsweb is now the greatest supporter of the community, and for that I would like to thank the following people who i have dealt with on their team - in no particular order:
Steve Schofield
Desirée B. Harris
Artur Perz
Pamela Dean
Jeremy Hodges
Jeff Graves
Rick Barber
David Weber
Thanks guys, for making this the best services I've ever received from a hosting company in the form of a response time less than 10 minutes, reliable servers and a superb support staff. Thanks for supporting this community.
Regards
Brian H. Madsen - Founder CSharpZealot.Com
Microsoft MVP Visual Developer ASP/ASP.Net