5 Reasons Why Less-Known Hosting Companies Offer Better Service

When you’re trying to choose your first hosting plan it can be easy to be pressured into opting for a major provider. The largest hosting companies typically offer the cheapest prices and there are a lot of coupons online that make it easier for you to receive discounts. Although the most well-known hosts have many satisfied customers, there are also many complaints surfacing online about how they simply don’t care about their customers. The following are 5 reasons why less-known hosting companies offer better service than the industry giants:

The Will to Compete

In basic terms, many of the larger corporate hosts have lost their will to compete because they have become complacent with the amount of customers they have and are resting on their laurels. After all, when you’re pulling in millions of dollars in revenue it won’t hurt to lose a few clients here and there. On the other hand, less-known providers understand the importance of satisfying every customer by offering the best service possible, because if they don’t then a single complain could significantly tarnish their reputation.

New hosting companies go the extra mile to make sure you are fully satisfied because they if they don’t you will be leaving to become part of the horde of consumers that fall into the wallets of corporate hosting kingpins every year. Although smaller hosting providers can’t afford to launch fancy PPC campaigns and persuade you with “state-of-the-art” datacenters, they have a stronger will to compete and are therefore more likely to take your complaints seriously and do everything possible to rectify them.

The Need to Establish a Reputation

When a hosting company is starting out they usually offer promotions that give customers access to rebates in order to attract new prospects. These startups know that in order to establish a reputable presence in their niche they absolutely must meet the demand and satisfy the needs of everyone they deal within a timely and efficient manner.

With so many hosting reviews and consumer advocacy forums and sites online, a single mistake could result in negative comments that could seriously hinder their ability to solicit new business in the future. Thus, customer service is usually top-notch, expeditious, and friendly. If you’re a small business owner and you want someone to treat you with the same respect you treat your clients with, dealing with another small-to-medium size enterprise (SME) would be the best way to secure hosting services that are courteous and affordable.

Fewer Commitments

This is another great benefit of hiring the less-known hosting companies. Larger hosting companies have to deal with the requests and concerns of hundreds or even thousands of clients each day through their phone lines and email support services. This burden often creates a strain on the customer service departments, and typically results in the outsourcing of administration, troubleshooting, and maintenance tasks.

When you call your hosting provider you don’t want to speak with an incompetent person who is only trained in basic aspects of hosting, and you don’t want to wait on hold for a long time waiting for the assistance of a qualified technician.  Smaller hosting companies have fewer commitments so they treat each service call with higher level of priority and take a more personalised approach to providing support.

Uncluttered Hardware

When you deal with a larger hosting company, unless you’re purchasing a dedicated hosting plan, chances are you’ll be using a partition on a server that is already crowded by hundreds of other webmasters and their sites. This means you’ll not only run the risk of experiencing decreased performance because of the workload being placed on the server; you’ll also have to deal with more downtime due to routine maintenance procedures.

Although almost every major uses uptime guarantees to assure customers that their site will be operating optimally most f the time, there are times when sever administration must be performed. BY dealing with a smaller hosting company you can be sure that their servers are not as cluttered as the shared or VPS partitions of major providers. Even if you are searching for a dedicated hosting plan, smaller hosts usually offer competitive pricing because they know they have to offer some type of selling point that will convince people to consider them over the many established companies.

Unique Discounts and Rebates

When a hosting company is beginning their endeavours they usually join webmaster and hosting forums in order to network with people in the online community. In an effort to attract prospects they frequently offer special coupons that provide steep discounts and rebates. In fact, if you contact the owner of a new hosting company  via private message on a forum you can often work out a deal to secure hosting services for a very low price or in exchange for some type of web service if you are a writer, SEO agency, developer, or other online service provider.

Imagine how long it would take, and how much effort you would have to put forth in order to get in contact with the owner or supervisor of a major hosting company, and consider how difficult it would be to get them to work out a deal with you on a case-by-case basis. In essence, most well-known hosts just don’t have the time or the resources to take a one-on-one approach with each of their 500,000 to 1 million customers – it just isn’t feasible. When you’re purchasing hosting from one of these mega-hosts you should expect to have to go through a gauntlet of run-arounds whenever you have an issue, as corporate protocol stands above your needs as an individual.

Conclusion

Overall, less-known hosting companies care more about their clients, have hardware and support agents that are not as burdened, and offer loyal customers the opportunity to obtain discount prices through exclusive venues. If you want to support the growth of other small businesses, and deal with people who