SupportHost: Delivering Quality Customer Service, Speed, and Security to Help Businesses Reach Online Audiences

TL; DR: The team at SupportHost prides itself on delivering high-performance, secure web hosting at accessible prices. As its name suggests, SupportHost is committed to client care, which is exemplified through its hands-on approach to customer service. At SupportHost, it’s all about meeting customer expectations, solving their pain points, and helping connect them with their online audiences.

According to a report by FinancesOnline.com, researchers expect the global hosting industry to grow at a CAGR of 18% from 2020 to 2027. This is largely due to the demand influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, as many business owners recognized the need to move operations online and spin up websites to keep their virtual doors open.

The growth story is the same the world over. In Latin America and Central Europe, for example, retail eCommerce sales grew by 36.7% and 29.1%, respectively, in 2020. And Argentina saw the most development with a 79% growth rate. These percentages show the rapid adoptions of web solutions and why streamlined hosting solutions are necessary.

This pandemic-related growth parallels the environment in which SupportHost CEO Ivan Messina created his company. Over a decade ago, he launched SupportHost to help people in Italy reach their online audiences. He realized that he needed to bring the change because, at the time, hosting providers in his region weren’t delivering on the necessities for a business to thrive online.

Ivan told us that support was also a major motivator for him. The lack of quality customer service by hosting providers in Italy was a personal pain point. So, he addressed it through the development of SupportHost’s hands-on approach to customer service. However, the company’s value proposition doesn’t stop there. SupportHost has also directed its attention to providing exceptional security and speed for its clients.

“In the beginning, support was the main focus,” Ivan said. “That is why I picked the name. Now our three focuses are support, security, and speed. Because it makes no sense to have fast support and a fast website that is always hacked. So these are, like, the three main focuses.”

In 2010, the number of Internet users in Italy was at 48.9%, and it has increased steadily since then. But even as this increase was occurring, the Italian web hosting market was experiencing a shortage of hosting providers who were offering decent services. Ivan said he experienced frustration with this lack of support and high-quality services firsthand.

“When I first started, it was very difficult to find a decent host in Italy. You couldn’t use overseas providers because of the latency. If you had to use a European company, it’s most likely you wouldn’t know the language. You also found yourself having to pay for something you didn’t want,” Ivan told us.

Ivan said he recognized the need for better hosting options. So, he proceeded to develop his own answer. As he had once been a consumer himself, he understood the required features of an efficient web provider. He wanted to counter the low customer service standards and cloudy business practices within these limited hosting companies.

“Another pain point was the support. Either you would talk to someone who had no clue like a Level 1 admin and they would just send you a link to a tutorial. Or you had slow support. So if you had a problem, you would be offline for at least a day, probably more,” Ivan said.

Through SupportHost, he made hosting more accessible for a growing market that needed more solutions. With it, people no longer had to worry about searching internationally for server offerings. Creating SupportHost helped eliminate the burden of language barriers and latency concerns for web hosting buyers in Italy. The company offers its services in both Italian and English.

SupportHost aims to provide its customers with quality solutions to keep their websites up and running. Customer loyalty is imperative to its business model. By placing its customers first, the company wants them to trust in its solutions above anything else. SupportHost seeks to deliver on a level where people want to become lifetime customers of its hosting services. They plan for long-term success instead of short-term gain.

One way SupportHost prioritizes customer needs is by limiting the number of websites on its servers. The company avoids overloading its servers because it helps reduce the “noisy neighbor” effect and distribute long-standing performance across the entire infrastructure. Depending on website size, it assigns and fixes the number of websites on each server.

“Of course, you have a lower margin, but you have happier clients. A happy client will send us more customers. And we have been growing organically for most of the time. So this strategy works for us,” Ivan said.

This characteristic also increases speed. For clients who own eCommerce businesses, their sites must have the basic necessities of speed and high performance to accomplish success. Ivan explained that speed is invaluable to the company’s service features. So by managing a specific number of websites on each server, SupportHost clients don’t need to worry about a monopoly over bandwidth and other sites dragging down their loading times, which could cost them their own customer base.

The company also offers top-notch 24/7 support. Ivan said he understands how important customer service is to maintain a website. SupportHost has on-demand tutorials and associates on standby ready to assist customers. The company also monitors its services every five minutes and sends technicians to solve a problem even before contact.

Ivan said he also takes the time to read through customer reviews to improve SupportHost business operations and align them with buyer expectations.

“I read personally all the answers to the email. So I say, ‘You’ve been with us for six months. What do you like about the service? What do you want to be changed? What is missing?’ We always try to get feedback. The best person who can give you feedback is the one using the service every day. Sometimes, it gives us really good ideas that we implement,” he said.

Now, SupportHost is working on new security measures to limit performance disruptions. These new measures will help decrease downtime and secure customer websites. Downtime caused by security attacks can be a serious problem for website owners. They can manifest at any time and can impact the profitability of their websites.

Ivan tells us the company desires to maintain customer trust in SupportHost facilities. So, taking care of security precautions is a priority for SupportHost. It wants to tackle the potential of DDoS attacks and prevent them from taking over customer sites.

“We notice an increase in DDoS attacks. The downtime was usually around five minutes. We want to reduce that to 10 seconds. So we’re working on a cluster of machines using a hardware firewall plus pfSense. It’s not ready yet. It’s in final testing. It’s like advanced protection,” Ivan said.

SupportHost continues to innovate and find ways to protect its clients. Customer satisfaction will remain a driving force in its business practices as the company progresses.