Digitization has been swiftly adopted by many industry sectors. Even the demands for IT spend have been continually growing for web hosting and digital and e-commerce services in the small and medium spaces. The adoption has turned more rapid due to the sudden COVID crisis. The pandemic has proved the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. This has caused a sudden surge in the demand from organizations moving business online, shifting to remote work, the increase of telehealth, and the proliferation of subscription-based services and e-learning.
In this age of technology, numerous solution providers are offering a bouquet of products to the consumers. However, distinguishing itself from this crowd is the Liquid Web—that not only offers the consumers with the best and widest choice of hosting products but also assists them with the most helpful humans in hosting. “We believe the more you need technology to fuel your business, the more you need expert, caring people to be there for you,” says Jim Geiger (CEO at Liquid Web).
Established in 1997, Lansing, Michigan-based Liquid Web is an industry leader in cloud solutions and software. It caters to mission-critical websites, online stores, mobile and web applications for SMBs, and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them. The company is popular for its high-performance, managed services, and exceptional support. Today, Liquid Web has evolved into a family of brands that globally empowers the Web Professionals to create online content and commerce without concerns. The company’s unwavering dedication to providing impeccable products, service, and support to power the online potential of the customers has been the reason for the honor of Inc 5000 recognition for 12 years.
Broad Portfolio of Products
Liquid Web has a broad portfolio of products—built the way consumers want to buy and manage. These products, services, and support are designed especially for the mission-critical sites, stores, and applications for SMBs and for the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them. This wide range of products covers almost every project. Likewise, managed services assist the consumers to rely on the highly trained experts of Liquid Web to deliver the security, speed, and reliability the consumers need. Jim asserts, “Our nearly 600 employees provide the high-touch, human support that SMBs crave.” This team of individuals is committed to evolving service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of the web-reliant, professional customers.
Liquid Web has been popular due to its people-plus-technology support that goes above and beyond the expectations, clients have from the hosting provider. Liquid Web has built a business on the philosophy that the more these entrepreneurs need technology to fuel their business, the more they need expert, caring people to be there for them. This practice has earned it a Net Promoter Score of 67 making Liquid Web one of the most loved brands in online hosting with customer loyalty that rivals Apple.
Next Step towards E-commerce
Liquid Web is also animated in evolving e-commerce practices for the SMB segments. Over the last decade, commerce has shifted online—not just for the established organizations like Amazon, but also for millions of smaller companies selling their wares and capabilities. Liquid Web is making technology accessible and valuable to the hard-working SMBs that may not have the resources to stay current on the evolving technology. Being customer-centric, Liquid Web has managed to innovate the industry’s first Managed WooCommerce platform. It launched VMware Private Cloud Powered by NetApp to offer enterprise-level features and functionality at affordable prices for small to midsize businesses and added Microsoft Windows Content Management solutions to the portfolio.
A Veteran Leading from the front
“I’ve built a career leading technology companies who focus on meeting the needs of small and mid-size businesses,” said Jim. He has worked in management and ownership capacities in many related fields, including telecommunications, metro fiber deployment, cellular, complex web hosting, VoIP, and cloud services. For 15 years before Liquid Web, Jim founded and developed Cbeyond into a leading provider of VoIP and cloud solutions. His past successes have led him directly to Liquid Web.
With Liquid Web his goal is to lead the team towards the vision to be the World’s Most Loved Hosting Provider by driving the strategic focus on web-dependent professionals and keeping the customer at the center of its strategy and culture. Jim believes that if web presence is the key to fuel business then whom consumers chose as the host becomes more important. He intends to have an industry-leading hosting experience that drives web-dependent companies to think of Liquid Web as the hosting provider of choice and a partner in the revenue side of their business. Being a veteran, Jim has leveraged all his experience towards building a strong team and inclusive culture.
Staying Kind and Generous
The team is building the services and products for the clients and this makes them the most important asset of any organization. At Liquid Web, the employee health was given the most priority amid crisis. Jim responded swiftly to shift the staff to remote working and stay there throughout the pandemic. As a COVID response, Jim asserts, “As we continue to adapt to the evolving crisis, we’ve seen remote work become the norm, and online channels become increasingly essential to helping us all stay informed, remain connected, and conduct business that might have been done in person just a few weeks ago.”
Currently, the culture committee has innovated creative ways to socialize, with an entire intranet site devoted to virtual team building. Jim and his team have effectively maintained communication and stayed in-touch, anticipating, and accepting the challenges as they work through this time of crisis. The leadership team is also constantly encouraging the team to be kind and generous with the people around them, regardless of those being co-workers, or customers. “My goal is that we can lean into optimism, staying diligent and helping our customers as best as we can,” concludes Jim.
Building Innovative and Lucrative Applications
The pandemic crisis has impacted many businesses adversely especially the small and mid-size businesses. Following this, Jim adds, “Of course, we’re worried about the health and survivability of our small and mid-size business customers.” Consequently, he is focusing on building cost-effective payment plans and waiving of bandwidth overages as these entrepreneurs manoeuvre these unusual times.
Apart from this, the team of Liquid Web is eager to launch an innovative Store Builder application to make it easy for customers to get to their first sale faster with its Store Builder app that builds proven home page designs. In addition to this, the team is building Cluster on Cloud capabilities for the larger Magneto agencies and launching a Cloud Server Product that will cater to big business technology solutions to the small and mid-size business entrepreneurs.
