What is your name and title?
Tiara Rea - I manage the Lunarpages Affiliate Program and work in our Business Development Department.
Could you please give us a brief history of your company?
Lunarpages Web Hosting started out way back in 1998, before most of today's hosting companies existed. Our CEO, Ron Riddle, started offering free web hosting from a couple servers in his bedroom. Lunarpages then opened up LunarForums.com, a community for webmasters to interact, offer suggestions, and even get assistance from Lunarpages staff and customers. The need to grow was really huge, as our loyal hosters were begging for more space, bandwidth, and features.
So Ron opened up Lunarpages to the shared web hosting world around 2000 to offer affordable web hosting for personal websites, ecommerce, and soon for big businesses and Fortune 100 giants alike.
Today, Lunarpages operates out of 3 datacenters and 2 optimized call centers, hosting over 140,000 customers worldwide. We have about 16 customizable web hosting plans, including Windows, Virtual Private Server, and Dedicated Hosting. We also offer an award-winning Affiliate Program and give away Free Web Hosting to educational K-12 Public Schools & organizations.
What are your target markets?
Honestly, we love them all! From the really new beginners who have never heard of web hosting to the programming gurus who need SSH, Ruby on Rails, and guaranteed RAM - we'll host anybody, for a price anyone can afford.
For example, our LPQuicksite hosting plan is geared towards customers who need a simple solution and a 1-2-3 hosting setup - simply choose a domain, pick a template, and you're done! Plus we help with the design and development if they need. But alongside that, we house some of the biggest dedicated servers on the planet, so we really host people from every walk of life.
What are your strengths?
I think Lunarpages biggest strength is our customer service. Whether you're signing up for a new web hosting plan or need technical support, we have about 100 staff members ready to assist. With that thought in mind, our other great strength is our ties to our community. We interact with our customers on many levels - via our Blog, Newsletter, Forums, or even through emails, interviews, and contests. We love our community and each customer is a part of our family.
What makes you different to other hosting companies?
The family-values aspect is a huge part of what helped us grow, so we like to hold those values close. We simply want to offer the best, most affordable, and secure web hosting plans in the world. We continually reach out to our community for suggestions, and let me tell you, in this business, it's hard to compete when everyone else is so cutthroat. We like to stick to our values and treat each customer as family.
How do you see the web hosting market changing in the upcoming few years?
The hosting market itself is so competitive these days - I can only see that aspect getting worse in the future. But as far as Lunarpages is concerned, we'll continue to roll out new offers and better web hosting plans for our customers. We have expanded about 200% in the past year, so I only see us growing and optimizing for our customers. We're really excited to see what comes next!
Where will your company be in 5 years?
Right here! We're not going anywhere. We've been family owned since 1998, and have absolutely NO plans to merge or change that. We care too much to let our customers down like that. I think in 5 years, we'll still be offering the most competitive web hosting plans and the best customer service.
Do you have any interesting changes coming up in the near future?
There are a LOT of huge changes in store for Lunarpages. And don't you wish you knew what they were? ;) All I can say is STAY TUNED! And read our Web Hosting Newsletter to get the scoop before anybody else.
Why should somebody choose your company over another host?
No other web host in the world can beat our customer service or prices. We actually answer the phone when you call, and promptly respond to your emails with friendly, informative answers that not only offer assistance but help you understand how to fix them as well.
Is your web hosting 'green'?
That's definitely one of those big changes I was talking about. Every day we are getting more and more green. It's something that's not changeable overnight, but we care very deeply about our community and environment, so all I can say right now is stay tuned. ;)
Thank you very much for the interview!
Make sure to read our review of Lunarpages.
