- What is your role at Lunarpages?

As the Director of Marketing & Sales at Lunarpages, I plan to heavily focus on strengthening Lunarpages’ brand awareness this year. This includes driving consumer outreach to increase our sales capabilities, and highlighting our company’s strong differentiators to develop new partner relations. In terms of new Partner relations, I am currently working with the various departments to develop a terrific reseller program for our webmaster and web developer clients.

- Congratulations on passing 80,000 customers! What did you do to celebrate?

This is going to sound kind of funny but although we were all very excited about reaching that milestone, we are a 24-7 service firm and most of us were just doing our normal work that day. I know that we brought up the fact at our last monthly employee appreciation lunch that 80,000 was coming up fast and at this month’s lunch I am sure we will recap this fact & get ready to hit 100,000 customers.

- What one quality about Lunarpages helps it distinguish itself from its competitors in the Web hosting industry?

Lunarpages commitment to quality customer service is what sets it apart from other competitors in the Web hosting industry. There are tons of Web hosting companies that are trying to compete on low prices alone. Unfortunately for their customers, most inexpensive Web hosting providers do not invest in their technology, features, or customer services; leaving their customers with a negative hosting experience. Lunarpages is known to provide the highest quality customer service and as a reliable Web hosting provider in the affordable Web hosting space. Lunarpages will continue to compete in the Web hosting market based on the reliability and service standards that our customers value and have come to expect.

- Can you give us some insight into any upcoming promotions or new products or services you about to announce?

Lunarpages is continuing its commitment to its customers by expanding its services. In the last few months alone we have announced a number of new hosting amenities, from WebBuilder service to a Customer Accounts Page that provides more customers with the control to design and manage their sites. We will also modify our customer service to include 24/7 telephone support and plan to keep that momentum going by launching dedicated servers, a referral program, a reseller program.

- How do you think problems like spyware, viruses, and SPAM will effect the growth of the internet and Web hosting over the next couple of years?

I do not think that there is anything that will affect the growth of the internet over the next few years or in the long term. I also do not think that we will ever completely eradicate SPAM, viruses, Spyware, or any new cyber attacks. I do think that there are investments we can make and levels of vigilance we can establish to mitigate against long term and wide spread destructive attacks. Fortunately because of our protocols and our investments Lunarpages has one of the cleanest names in the industry.

- What other factors do you think will significantly impact the Web hosting market over the next 3 years?

The past several years our industry has seen tremendous growth and this trend is expected to last as consumers increasingly utilize the Internet for both professional and personal use. Last year, there were over 6 million new domains purchased worldwide and that number is expected to grow in 2005 as is the number of Web hosting accounts. Lunarpages always has kept up with the high demand by making continual updates to its infrastructure, and never compromising on customer service.

- How does Lunarpages thrive in such a competitive business as Web hosting?

As many Webmasters will tell you, being different today means providing a reliable, quality Web hosting service. If you search the forums and read what consumers are saying, there are far too many Webmasters complaining about the quality of their Web hosting companies and the lack of customer service. Lunarpages’ reviews continue to be very positive in the forums and the quality of our service levels are appreciated by our customers. Marketing web hosting is fairly straight forward, there is a price point, plan comparisons and service guarantees. Service is what will always differentiate web hosting companies and as more webmasters experience Lunarpages and “other” web hosts, they see that there is really no comparison. Our main advantage is in renewal and repeat business which is a direct result of how we take care of the customer’s needs.

- What is the one thing that makes you jump out of bed in the morning?

Lately one of the fun things that has greeted me in the morning is hearing from our overnight CSR’s about reseller hosting inquiries. We are building a new reseller program that we talk about at Lunarforums.com and usually in the morning I will have several requests for more information from webmasters in Asia, Europe or even the Eastern United states. Working with people in other cultures and other areas of the world and helping them grow their online businesses is personally very gratifying. Periodically I will get calls from resellers letting me know how well their business is going and how much they value our relationship, just as we value theirs, and receiving that feedback is just terrific.

- On the other hand, what is the one thing that keeps you up at night?

Other than a good movie or book, at night I like to jump online & internalize our web hosting plan and see if there are any areas that I can see which we should make stronger. I also search the web for places to market Lunarpages or read about new products or services which may be added to the Lunarpages services that our webmasters can use. Obviously I also like to check out our competition and look for more areas where we can offer a better value for our clients.

- What do you see as the largest growth areas in Web hosting and how is Lunarpages positioning itself to take advantage of them?

The biggest areas of growth are in shared and reseller hosting. Today’s tech savvy consumers understand that Lunarpages provides more features than our competitors and that we have always pushed the envelope to provide better services. Consumers are using the Internet for a range of personal and professional needs. Our objective now is to reach out to the consumers who feel that they are not tech savvy and to let them know that Lunarpages’ features include easy-to-use programs, such as WebBuilder, that even the novice Webmaster can work with quickly and easily. Small businesses are another prime target group for us as they are budget strapped and we can provide them with affordable and quality technical support. We also plan to expand our services by offering dedicated hosting.