posted 05-18-1999 01:12 PM               

We kissed too many frogs before finding a website hosting service we can enthusiastically recommend. Virtualis of Studio City, California, is the sohodojo "Service Provider of Choice" for nanocorp websites. [See below: Virtualis has been provisionally removed from the recommended provider list.]

The customer has to come first...

Some hosting services start out friendly and helpful, then lose it. Others never had it. The culprit most often is the "Law of Large Numbers" which sends signals to the growing hosting service that they must be doing something right because their business is expanding beyond expectations. The growth breeds arrogance and results in a loss of respect for "the little guy"... that's us, the nanocorpers.

During the Internet Gold Rush, hosting services needed to do little more than hang out a shingle and price competitively to grow like crazy. Trouble is, this accretive growth is the seeds of its own destruction. These wayward hosting service think they can treat customers like dirt because there are hundreds more tomorrow to replace the disgruntled ones lost today. Way bad idea.

No business, no matter how big, can sustain itself without a 100% customer focus. When folks tell you your service stinks, suspend disbelief, listen and fix what is broken. Most don't get it. Fortunately, Virtualis does understand and puts its customers on the proverbial pedestal.

Virtualis walks the walk...

The thing that impresses us the most about Virtualis is its "open book" approach to tech support. No matter what anybody tells you about hosting services, bottom line is that it is all about tech support and customer service. It doesn't matter how many MIME types your hosting service can stream or how much monthly bandwidth you are allotted if your site isn't up and working as much as possible.

Bad tech support chews up a nanocorp's valuable time and energy. And since your time and energy are limited, wasting them on lame tech support is costly. After having it up to here with a truly awful provider, Advanced Internet Technologies, we went shopping for a new hosting service with tech support in mind.

When we stumbled on Virtualis' "Six Step Plan" for making a hosting service provider decision, we resonated with the message, but since we still had a bad taste in our mouths about "Talk the talk, but not walk the walk," we were skeptical.

We took them up on their third step recommendation, "Test their tech support," and fired off a "twenty questions" issue into their SupportSnap(tm) system. Almost instantly we got back our issue management confirmation. Our tech support request was logged in the system and the clock was ticking.

In less than half and hour, we had a personalized and informative response from the Senior Reseller on-call. The answers were right on. We dug deeper and kept liking what we read and heard. We took the plunge, placed our order... and boy, are we happy we did!

We placed a Mega server order to host the JFS Consulting nanocorp websites. That means we are set-up with jfsconsulting.com as our primary domain with each of our "nano-subsidiaries" as virtual hosts under that account.

We'd be kidding you to say that coordinating the move of five sites was a piece of cake. We had our share of glitches getting all the "ducks in a row." But throughout this transition we found the Virtualis Support Team to be top notch, and above all, caring and supportive.

sohodojo becomes a Virtualis Reseller

We like Virtualis so much, it was easy to decide to become a Virtualis Reseller. We use them and we are confident that you will find them as competent and caring as we have. Follow this link to learn more about Virtualis and their hosting packages.

If you are looking for a quality hosting service, please consider Virtualis. As a Virtualis reseller, your order helps the dojo. The revenue stream we get based on your server order is an important part of our business model. We sell what we use and believe in.

And since a nanocorp is only as good as the reputations of its founder/owner/sole-employees, you can be assured that we only offer the products and services that meet our high standards.

Virtualis is a winner, and sohodojo is pleased to be a Virtualis Reseller.

posted 03-28-2000 12:13 PM               

Well, we are sorry to report that even Virtualis is not immune to the "Money changes everything" syndrome. Despite their exhortations to the contrary, the last few months of Virtualis service has been abysmal, bordering on infuriating. We understand growing pains, but this is much more on the 'lost their way' variety of screw-ups.