India’s HostingRaja — A Fast-Growing Company That Makes Hosting Affordable Without Sacrificing Reliability or Customer Support

TL; DR: When it comes to business goals, HostingRaja aims high. Through multilingual technical support, a robust selection of hosting plans, and continuous innovation, the company has created a unique value proposition in hopes of becoming India’s No. 1 hosting provider. Now with secure WordPress Hosting and innovative customer service solutions, HostingRaja aims to stay one step ahead in a rapidly evolving industry. //

Dhanasekar Mani had been saying it since 1995: The internet will create a massive business opportunity.

But it wasn’t until years later, while working as a project manager at Samsung India, that Mani took serious action. “I wanted to start something in the web industry because I knew it would continue to boom,” he said.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Mani quickly taught himself web design before opening an online design agency. He began to build the company’s online presence and decided to host its website in the US. Much to Mani’s delight, his customer base began to grow. There was just one problem: Whenever he needed customer support from his host, he faced a significant language barrier.

“There were a lot of challenges with the US-based hosting company, mainly concerning support,” he said. “We were in different time zones, and the customer service representatives used an American accent while we used an Indian accent. The level of support was not up to the standard we were expecting.”

Then, it came to him. “I thought, ‘Why don’t we start a hosting company in India and provide support in local languages?’ There are many languages spoken in India, so we could provide support in those languages — plus, having the servers in India would help sites load faster.”

In 2012, Mani founded HostingRaja. Since then the company has grown to provide an incredibly comprehensive selection of shared, cloud, VPS, and dedicated server solutions coupled with same-language support to more than 150,000 clients.

According to Rosetta Stone, 95% of consumers across the globe live outside the US, and only 5.6% of the world speaks English as a primary language. Significantly, when it comes to purchasing decisions, 56.2% of consumers say the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important than price.

With these facts in mind, it’s easy to see how a company’s inability to cater to non-English-speaking consumers presents a disadvantage in the global hosting market. HostingRaja’s multilingual support approach, on the other hand, gives the company a serious competitive edge in India.

“We are mainly focusing on Indian customers,” Mani said. “Everything is situated in India, and we provide support in multiple regional languages including Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu.”

HostingRaja’s team of experienced technicians is available day and night to ensure servers are up and running without problems. But, that’s not the only thing that sets the company apart. Mani said customers often point to three characteristics that make HostingRaja their provider of choice.

“No. 1, we are a very affordable hosting company,” he said. “No. 2, we save them time — whenever they need help our support team replies with a proper solution within one hour. No. 3 is peace of mind. Customers know their hosting solution will be completely taken care of without headaches.”

Mani said word-of-mouth marketing is serving HostingRaja quite well. “We get 30% to 40% of our new customers through referrals from our existing customers, which speaks to the quality of our services,” he said.

It’s no secret that the hosting market is saturated. It’s a prosperous industry, and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Numbers don’t lie: Recent studies have concluded that in 2017, the market for cloud computing and hosting services was worth approximately $101 billion.

“Day-by-day, the hosting industry is getting more competitive in terms of big players coming into the industry as well as new technologies,” Mani said. “In India, many players have been in this industry for a long time. There are also many bigger organizations like Google, AWS, and Azure that want to get into this industry very aggressively.“

In this competitive environment, continuous product development is a must. Mani told us HostingRaja uses any customer interaction — positive or negative — to fuel product growth.

“From difficult customers, we can learn a lot of things,” he said. “When there’s a ticket that’s not immediately resolved, my technical managers and the CEO of the company will talk with the customer to understand their pain points and develop a solution to the problem.”

The company also evolves its products using keen industry insight. Much like Mani predicted the internet would become a major force, he’s now projecting that Kubernetes will play a significant role in managing containerized applications.

“I feel that Kubernetes hosting will play a major role in the coming few years,” Mani said. “We would like HostingRaja to become the market leader in Kubernetes, so we just launched a Kubernetes platform.” According to Mani, the new platform is ideal for automating deployment and the operations of containers across clusters of hosts.

HostingRaja’s hosting solutions run the gamut. The company offers shared, virtual, cloud, and dedicated servers, plus a range of domain services. All premium and unlimited plans feature unlimited email accounts, a free domain, and a free SSL certificate.

Shared plans start at just 65 rupees (which equates to about 95 cents in American currency) for one site, one subdomain, and two FTP accounts, plus free cPanel. Starting at 732 rupees ($10) HostingRaja’s VPS plans include the choice of Linux or Windows hosting; both of which come with an optimized control panel, free migration with zero downtime, free site optimization, and cache optimization. The company’s high-performance dedicated hosting is also available for both Linux and Windows starting at 4,499 rupees ($62) with a free managed support option.

One solution Mani is particularly proud of is the company’s Optimized WordPress Hosting. “We have come up with a fast, secure, and reliable WordPress Hosting solution that integrates with WordPress to provide a lot of security options to customers,” Mani said.

Mani told us the platform has received a positive response from clients, and it doesn’t hurt that HostingRaja takes the time to guide them through new offerings. “Whenever we bring forth new technology solutions we explain them to the customer,” he said.

Aside from security, HostingRaja’s Optimized WordPress Hosting includes managed support, themes, setup, and installation at no charge, plus a 15-day trial period.

The poor customer service Mani received from his hosting company years ago inspired him to create his business. Today, he’s determined to ensure his customers never feel the same.

In customer service, however, there are many pitfalls to avoid. A recent survey indicates that the leading causes of customer service frustration vary, with respondents citing lack of effectiveness (27%), lack of speed (12%), and lack of accuracy (10%) as the most prevalent offenders.

To keep customers frustration-free, HostingRaja recently implemented a two-pronged approach to customer service that combines the best of artificial intelligence and human support.

“Generally, when you send tickets to a hosting company, they may take, on average, six hours to respond,” Mani said. “By leveraging AI, we can often keep customers happy by delivering a prompt solution within five minutes.”

The artificial intelligence system, known as Chatbot, provides users instant technical support. If Chatbot cannot solve the issue promptly, users simply escalate their request, and a team member will respond. Chatbot is also handy for creating an email ID for your domain, change PHP settings, and unblocking your public IP address.

Whether through multilingual support teams or artificial intelligence, HostingRaja is enabling customers to seek the support they need through whatever channel necessary.