ProHosting: Competing Against the Industry Giants

As the web hosting industry continues to grow, the shared hosting market has become increasingly competitive.

Even a quick, cursory look at the market reveals a growing trend: with the exception of a few bells and whistles, there is a significant amount of overlap in service offerings throughout the shared hosting market space.

Quite often what you will find is that companies and individuals looking for web hosting services will sign up with one of the bigger names. This decision is made on the basis of reputation, while others trust the experience and track record that companies like IBM bring to the table. This happens despite the fact smaller competitors are often able to offer better prices and more complete service packages.

These days, it is not enough to have state of the art facilities, reliable uptime and 24/7 technical support. Nor is it enough to compete solely on the basis of price. Faced with fierce competition, companies are looking to offer “something extra” to give themselves a leg up on the competition. This is more crucial for the smaller players than it is for the giants such as DellHost, Interland or Verio.

ProHosting is one of those “smaller” companies taking on the industry giants and looking for that extra edge. Based in Provo, Utah, ProHosting is the leading web hosting service provider in the "mountain" region.

ProHosting offers some of the most competitive pricing and service packages in the industry. A basic hosting package goes for $17.95 with no setup fee and a money back guarantee. This package includes most of the typical web hosting fare such as unlimited e-mail addresses, technical support, bandwidth allotment and generous storage space.

But with all those choices out there, why choose ProHosting?

ProHosting distinguishes itself in the marketplace though its firm commitment to offering the best customer service in the industry, says ProHosting President, John Probst.

The centerpiece of ProHosting’s customer service commitment is 24/7 tech support for all its customers. This is in sharp contrast to many competitor packages that provide only e-mail tech support or phone support during business hours only. Even worse, while many companies offer tech support over the phone, it is often difficult to break through the long wait times.

John Probst, President of ProHosting, guarantees customers that “if you call us, we pick up the phone right away and someone is there to take care of you.” Between 9:00pm and 5:00am mountain time, your call is directed to a technical support agent who is on duty and calls you back right away.

This aggressive approach to customer service also ties in with ProHosting’s e-commerce service offerings.

ProHosting has partnered with e-business solution provider, icommerce to bring its customers “Shopzone, ” a software program specifically geared to the needs of small and medium sized enterprises.

“Shopzone” is simple and easy to use. Vendors are able to design and create simple e-commerce sites through the use of a browser-based wizard. The software allows customers to quickly set up an e-commerce site without incurring the typically high startup costs or getting bogged down in technical issues. According to Probst, “in five minutes we can have someone up and running, offering e-commerce online.”

Shared hosting is a perfect fit for small e-commerce sites that don’t carry the larger traffic of the industry heavyweights. ProHosting plays to this advantage by offering e-commerce as an add-on to its hosting packages.

In short, user-friendly products and total customer service have helped ProHosting stake a firm place in the shared hosting marketplace.