Internic's White-Glove Service and In-House Expertise Personalize Web Hosting, Security, and Domain Name Management

TL;DR: Originally known as Canada’s first registrar, Internic has leveraged its industry experience to provide hosting, managed services, and security to clients who want a meticulous and well-supported experience. Meaningful relationships with clients are at the heart of Internic’s values. Whether the client is nearby or on the other side of the world, Internic aims to be available and in continuous contact with them. Since spreading its wings and expanding its services, the company is thriving in the highly competitive hosting market — where its clients are duly attended to and even part of the new-feature release process.

As if 20-year-old internet companies weren’t rare enough, Internic still works with many of its original clients.

Once strictly a domain name registrar, the Canadian company has grown to become a go-to web host. A brand known for reliability and quality, Internic focuses on providing high-touch website management for individuals and businesses that need full-service hosting, according to Director of Technology Brett Tackaberry.

“We’ve had customers who have been with us for years, and we’ve been able to support them while adding new features,” he said. “Before, customers only saw us as a domain name registrar; now, they can turn to us for many more services.”

Although Internic has witnessed the creation and adoption of several new technologies, Brett said many aspects of the industry — including the dedication to clients and quality services — remain the same.

Internic customers can take advantage of more than the company’s regarded domain name systems and SSD-powered hosting. The company also boasts a site builder partnership with Weebly, in addition to email services, SSL certificates, and free migrations and domain privacy.

“While hosting is a big focus, we also have all these great things that help people contribute online,” Brett said. “Internic covers the full spectrum of user needs, from a small one-page website all the way up to more complex VPS projects.”

The dedicated teams behind Internic’s white-glove service grew out of the company’s overall approach to customer support, according to Brett. Over time, the company noticed that some clients preferred a higher level of services and interactions with Internic.

“Customers wanted to talk to someone, and they wanted to talk to the same person,” he said.

Those who opt for Internic hosting and the company’s Prestige Services receive access to an always-available dedicated account director, along with specialized packages, rewards, account reviews, and updates. Specialized billing and custom invoicing enable Internic to mold its services to an organization’s accounting needs or purchase order requirements.

The customers have direct communication channels with the account directors and often send requests straight to their inbox, Brett said. Internic’s support managers handle the mundane and arduous aspects of customers’ hosting accounts, along with evaluating and managing their domain portfolios.

“Customers will say, ‘We want to add this to our service; we want to add these 1,000 domains; we want to transfer these domains from here to there,’” Brett said. “The account directors will do a lot of that management by hand. They can make the changes and make sure things go through or call the right person to make sure it happens correctly.”

In addition to the traditional managed services encountered in web hosting and site management, the Internic team provides related services based on the company’s legacy as Canada’s first registrar. Brett told us that, lately, requests for domain name brokering and selling have increased.

“We’ll have folks who want to sell or make some money off the domains they have,” he said.
“We’ll either buy or sell for our clients, and we’ll also act as sort of an escrow service to some degree, making sure the money moves nicely between the parties. Then, of course, we’ll work with other aftermarket suppliers to make sure these sales go through.”

Having someone handle these transactions gives clients peace of mind, as Internic’s role ensures transactions go smoothly.

“Account directors look for all the pitfalls, like fraud, or problems with the transfers,” Brett said.
“Although automatic transfers handle 99.9% of transactions, if something goes wrong with a critical domain name, it’s a critical problem.”

Whereas some companies aren’t always in direct contact with clients, Internic strives to give a personal touch to the customer experience.

“Sometimes customers’ only interaction with their registrar could be once a month, once a year, or even once every couple of years because they may renew for a long time,” Brett said. “While it’s a long-term relationship, it’s not a deep relationship. We try to be different.”

Instead of following the rule of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” Internic actively reaches out to its clients and monitors accounts to ensure customers are getting the most mileage.

The company is committed to working in the best interests of its customers by being user-centric in the way it makes decisions, Brett said. In addition to involving customers in the product development and testing cycles, the Internic team views the collaboration as a team effort instead of a strictly sales-based operation.

“The product manager will show it to a handful of clients and find out the features they like, what they don’t like, and what should be changed or removed altogether, and work with them on crafting this product,” he said. “We’ll be able to give them a deal for the efforts they put into helping us craft the product. Then, we’ll use that information and feedback to move forward into the next iteration.”

With the exploding domain market and increasing availability of affordable internet connections around the world, Internic has found success by expanding beyond Canada’s borders. The company has added services in about a dozen regions around the world in the past few years.

Internic has seen demand grow particularly in Germany and Singapore, said Brett, who added that the countries boast similar audience profiles to their Canadian counterparts.

“I don’t think we could have anticipated where these opportunities were going to come from,” Brett said. “We’re really happy with putting the time into expanding internationally.”

However, the growth doesn’t mean Internic pays less attention to the company’s Canadian base — rather, according to Brett, the company has found that many of the same messages and service offerings resonate elsewhere.

“It’s been nice to offer dedicated Canadian service,” he said. “It’s been nice to be able to grow an audience in Australia in the same kind of way. Even though we’re a proudly Canadian company, we can still go to Australia and say, ‘Hey, we respect your privacy laws and we understand your own local pride. We can use your local currency and host your local servers. We can treat you like a local client and just manage remotely.”