Originally, Lunarpages entered the Web hosting marketplace with the
intention of becoming one of the best Web hosting companies for
businesses, especially in the ever growing SMB marketplace. As our
reputation for service reliability and excellent customer service
grew, many of those individuals who had their business sites hosted
with us started to host their own personal sites with Lunarpages.
Our customer base then began to refer us to their friends and
family members for their sites. Recognizing that many of our new
customers were using our service for personal sites, we began to offer
value-added features like a free Website builder and scripts that
would help them quickly build blogs, forums, and photo galleries for
their personal sites.
Our current customer base is well represented between business,
ecommerce, and personal sites.
What significant changes have you seen in the Web hosting
marketplace over the last 12 months?
There have been many changes in the last 12 months with respect to Web
hosting, especially in the new customer acquisition tactics as well as
cost-cutting measures, like outsourcing customer service. While we
have consistently tracked the ever increasing needs of our customers
and always increased our plans to accommodate most every request they
have made, including adding JSP, ASP, and Perl, to our packages we
have avoided the gimmicks of overselling just to bring a customer in
the door. We believe in providing the highest quality Web hosting for
an affordable and fair price.
Our customer service team is all in house and all trained and
managed by our senior staff. In the last 12 months, we have found that
some hosts who entered the market to make a quick buck have started to
turn to less reliable customer service standards, including limited
support hours and outsourcing support to remote locations with no
training or oversight. We are proud of our reputation in the industry
and of our support standards. We hope that other hosts will start to
reverse their poor support standards in 2006.
What are the milestones of your company, from inception to today?
We have had many different milestones here at Lunarpages, some more
significant than others. Two of the achievements we are most proud of
are having been recognized as the Web hosting company with the best
rated customer service department and the most reliable Web hosting
provider in the industry. Several independent Web hosting ratings
sites have rated Lunarpages #1 in both of these areas and we have won
more than a dozen awards in the industry for these accomplishments.
What advice do you have for someone who is just starting a hosting
company?
Our best advice to those entrepreneurs looking to start a Web hosting
company would be to make sure this is an industry you are passionate
about. This is not an industry for those looking to make a quick buck
nor is this an industry that allows for a normal work schedule. Our
industry demands qualified professionals who are willing to go the
extra mile for their customers at any hour of the day or night.
Too often we have heard of companies that have had great marketing
plans for new customer acquisition growth but not enough skill or
manpower to take care of clients who have 24-7 demands. At Lunarpages,
we have customers all over the world who need support at all hours of
the day and night. Unless you are ready for the dedication and
commitment of a 24-7-365 business, the Web hosting industry may not be
for you.
How do you walk the fine line between growing to meet the
anticipated needs of new customers and growing too quickly?
Customer growth is obviously an area of focus for us here at
Lunarpages, but not without the understanding that as our customer
base grows, so must our investments grow in our support personnel
department. Everyone here is involved in understanding where our
company is today, where we are projected to be next week or next
month, and where we would like to be in a year. As everyone watches
our customer base grow, we know our human resource department is on
top of hiring highly qualified support candidates. As well, our senior
support staff are ready to train our new employees with an intensive
regiment to bring them up to speed with the responsibilities of
providing our customers with the highest service quality available.
Please indicate benefits your company has to offer that you feel
would be good reasons for clients to choose you over your competitors.
Hosting with Lunarpages provides a number of advantages and
benefits over our competition. We are rated as the most reliable and
customer friendly Web host in the affordable Web hosting market. Our
feature list cannot be beat when it comes to value-added options,
including a free Website builder, the ability to host multiple sites
on one account, and a much broader range of integrated systems
including JSP, ASP and Perl. The #1 reason is our customers feel
secure that hosting with Lunarpages will provide them with their best
option for hassle-free Web hosting at a very affordable price.
What do your lower price point hosting solutions include and at
what price?
Lunarpages’ Shuttle Plan is the lower priced of our two hosting
packages. We have made several upgrades this year to enhance the Web
hosting features for those customers this year. At $7.95 per month for
an annual contract, our Shuttle Plan includes the following:
400GB/Month Bandwidth
Up To 3000 MB Storage
Host Several Sites Including One Extra Hosted Site For Free
Free Website Builder
Unlimited E-mail Accounts
Unlimited E-mail Forwarding
Unlimited E-mail Auto Responders
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
Web Mail
cPanel Control Panel
CGI-BIN
Unlimited MySQL Database
Unlimited Parked Domains
FrontPage Extensions
Unlimited Subdomains
Dreamweaver Compatible
Unlimited FTP Accounts
POP3, SMTP and IMAP
SSI (Server Side Includes)
Fantastico Script Library
Online User Statistics
2,000 Mbit Connectivity
High-End Servers
We Will Transfer Your Website For You
What do your higher price point hosting solutions include and at
what price?
Our Voyager Plan is our higher end plan and starts at $22.95 per month
for an annual contract. It includes the following:
Up To 4000 MB Storage
800GB/Month Bandwidth
Free Website Builder
Unlimited E-mail Accounts
Unlimited E-mail Forwarding
Unlimited E-mail Auto Responders
Web Mail
Control Panel
CGI-BIN
Unlimited MySQL Databases
Unlimited Parked Domains
FrontPage Extensions
Unlimited Sub Domains
Dreamweaver Compatible
Unlimited FTP Accounts
POP3, SMTP, and IMAP
SSI - Server Side Includes
Shared SSL Certificate
Anonymous FTP Available
Fantastico Script Library
Online User Statistics
2,000 Mbit Connectivity
High-End Servers
We Will Transfer Your Website For You
We also have a dedicated line starting at $99.00 per month. This
line is much more customizable and we encourage customers interested
in a dedicated server to email
How is your data center connected to the Internet and what level of
redundant connection does your organization have?
At Lunarpages, we understand the need for quality partnerships in
everything we do and we do not believe in taking short cuts to save a
few bucks. Our main colocation facility is located at One Wilshire, in
downtown Los Angeles, which is the third most connected building in
the world. We have the most rigorous power failure backup systems
available in the Los Angeles facility and we have invested in a
$250,000 Dell backup system to make sure none of our customers’
content and information would be lost if we did have a major outage.
In September 2005, Los Angeles experienced its worst power failure in
history. While our building’s power was out for several hours, all
of our customers accounts were 100% up. Many of our competitors’
customers experienced huge downtimes resulting in millions of Web site
hours of downtime.
What do you view as the most important requirements in a support
system for a world-class hosting organization, and what does your
company do to fulfill these requirements?
The most important factor in having the #1 rated customer support in
Web hosting is our employees, hands down. We look for and hire only
the most qualified candidates and we train them to handle any issue
that may come their way. We understand that qualified candidates are
hard to come by for us and for other Web hosts. That’s why we make
sure we provide the best pay scale, health care, and retirement
savings options for our employees so they share the rewards of
providing top notch service in one of the fastest growing Web hosting
companies in the world.
