New Services / Features / Suggestions


Brian

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Hello, community. How are you? Hopefully you're doing just fine. As you all know, we take a lot of pride in our services and want everything we provide you guys to be a reflection of that. As we've grown we've been exposed to a number of different requests for services, features, or products which we'd never considered. About a year ago we opened the floor and wanted to create an open book of ideas you as the user want that we don't have. It worked out well then so hey, we're going to give it another shot. In the past year here's some of the new features we've implemented as the result of user suggestions:



  • Custom cPanel skin with the Hawk Host colors / logo on it. In addition to that, the skin also includes quick links to things like your client area, our forums, helpdesk, etc.
  • New reseller plans - we restructured our entire reseller offerings so that the plans include more space, bandwidth, cPanel accounts, and features.
  • New services - We now offer SSL certificates and WHMCS licenses.
  • Locations - We opened up in San Jose and will be adding additional, international locations by the end of the year.
  • Going social - We started up a Facebook page, our Twitter account is just as popular, and we're even using our blog to interact.
  • Support availability - People wanted to see our faces more, so we added more faces! We did some serious hiring this last year to increase our live chat, phone, and helpdesk availability as the direct result of your feedback.

So you get the idea, we like to innovate and we'd like your help. After all, you're the ones using the services we're just supporting it. The above list is by no means complete, I'm sure if I took a poll of the top 3 biggest features from the last year each employee would give me a different set of answers.

We're definitely not the largest host out there with millions in funding and a staff of 500+ to back us. What we lack in size (we're still not small, by any means!) we make up for in talent, determination and a passion to deliver a product we can be proud of.

So here is where you come in. We've seen you guys provide some great suggestions before, ones that completely change the way we handle things. But that's not all we're looking for here. What do other hosts provide, which we don't currently, that you guys see as a must have? What do we currently do which you think could be improved on? Throw these ideas at us, big or small, and we'll evaluate each one.

To give you an idea of what is on our road map in the coming months:

  • More locations - We're going to make a serious push to establish a strong presence in Europe and Asia by the end of the year.
  • Supported software - Our sysadmins are hard at work finding ways to support up and coming technologies, programming languages, and software to integrate seamlessly into our control panel.
  • VPS control panel - Our development team has been hard at work on a brand new, custom built VPS control panel which we believe will compete with the best products currently on the market.
  • Support resources - In addition to the staff we've brought on, we want to push self-help solutions for you guys. This includes our knowledge base, forums, and looking into feedback / community driven resources where all you need to know is right in front of you. There's no reason you as a user should have to rely on our support to fix a common issue, we just need to provide you the resources.

If you've made it this far, you've done a lot of reading. I'll end this here (finally, right?) by saying we really do appreciate everything you guys provide us in the way of feedback, both positive and negative. This thread will be open for discussion, but you are more than welcome to PM me or send me an email ([email protected]) with any ideas / suggestions you'd rather not have out in the open B)

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Hello!

I think it would be a good idea if you had like 1/2 representatives available for live chat in different timezones so you can cater for those who are not in the US (like me.... :unsure:)

Just a suggestion, because for me I've only seen livechat online once!

The ticket system is great, just that I feel more assured when I talk to a person.

* On another host I've noticed the person that is handling the tickets are also online on live chat and if its something complicated they just ask me to open a ticket, but I'm still comforted because I've talk to a person before opening a ticket... I don't know if that's just me haha.

OH and sometimes when tickets don't get answered fast, live chat is just there to tell the person that a ticket is waiting.

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I'm suprised I haven't seen an offer of dedicated server from HawkHost, with your purchase volume at soft layer I would imagin that you can get a decent profit margin, and then offer diferent levels of management.

Also streaming media servers are very profitable market, now that products like wowza media server have provided alternatives to Adobe's expensive licensing.

Another good thing will be to add .Net support via MONO, there is an increasing number of applications using .Net framework and then you can add ms-sql instances as a separate service for business applications.

This is it for now, I'll let you know, if I think of something else.

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I'll tell you what I would like to see. I would like to see the branding aspect taken to another level.

You guys have what is, in my considered opinion, one of the best mascots in the entire web hosting industry, based upon what I have seen, to date. It sports a cape, and comes across as some type of superhero, of sorts. Yet, the poor bird has apparently been abducted by one of your evil competitors, and locked away in either suspended animation or a time-stasis vault.

Why do I say this? Because, while you guys live out your quasi-fantastical lifestyles hobnobbing with industry cohorts and maniacal personalities of web hosting infamy, our good bird of mysterious origin has been confined to a meager existence in still shots for commercial purposes. BOO! HISS! BOO! HISS!

Imagine, if you will - if you can - advertising in another form. A serial comic strip (it can be black and white or color) featuring the resident superhero of web hosting in action, tackling the endless parade of villains that populate web hosting. Instead of locking web hosting's equivalent of Superman in a virtual basement, why not lock Cody in the basement, and set the big, bad ass bird free to kick some ass and to take some names.

To what end? Fun. Anticipation within your industry for each new episode. Greater name recognition. Bringing the brand to life,and injecting it with super powers. Because web hosting needs superheroes like.....uh.....what's his name. So, what is his name, anyway?

DC has its Justice League. Marvel has its Avengers. Web hosting has its.....uh.....what exactly does web hosting have? It has a gator, and a cow, and a.....bird. A bird with no name. Does it have a name? I'll take bird names for two hundred, Alex.

Forget the name. Does it have an origin? Or is it just a mascot, a nameless mascot?

One other thing that I would like to see is a more personalized approach to the human elements of your company. I want to see Cody getting dunked in the water tank. I want to see you guys eating that box of doughnuts. I want to see glimpses of personalities, a collage of moments, a cascade of memories. Give me a reason to visit your forums, here, for Pete's sake. Uh, who's Pete, anyway? Does anybody know?

You guys follow the crowd to Facebook, and you follow the crowd to Twitter. At any point in time, do you intend to lead, rather than to follow? For web hosting, you seek to be a destination - the destination - for those in need of web hosting services. Yet, your site is a bit sterile. I have a high opinion of your web hosting services. So, why do I hardly ever stop by your forums? It's currently a destination to what? For what? Are you guys seeking to corner the market on boring, or what? Hey, that's my job. We, your loyal denizens of web hosting existence, want to see Brian stepping out of the limo and onto the red carpet. We want to see Tony hard at work. We want to see the real Fabio.

The gator doesn't even eat anybody, for crying out loud. What good is it?

While you guys swim in the money down at the Hawk Host equivalent of Scrooge McDuck's money bin, I think that it's time to give something back - to us, your loyal following.

In a nutshell, what I want to see is some imagination being unleashed.

Your services? They're fine. I don't have a bone to pick with them.

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How about overhauling the forums here? The header mis-matched colors have bugged me for the longest time and many other aspects of the theme. :P If possible it would be best to integrate the site with forums.

In terms of hosting/networking, I would suggest little change here. The network currently is fast and pages load in a zip. With that said, hopefully these speeds will remain consistent in upcoming years with the servers not getting packed to full capacity with many customers. (BIG mistake by my previous host.)

Oh..and something I suggested a while ago but I don't believe it was possible then, was integrating the helpdesk to your client area account. But I doubt that's still possible.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thumbs down on the current forum scheme. This is an example of going backwards, where branding is concerned.

With regards to whatever point in time that you Hawks create a real nest (central office), as opposed to a virtual one, I suggest that you have a flag custom made for your company, and fly it proudly. Of course, where you fly it (indoors or outdoors) will largely depend upon the location of your office.

http://forums.hawkho...ndpost__p__5218

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Have you heard of name.com? it's a relatively young Registrar company that has grown a lot in the last few years and now it goes toe to toe with the big ones. Plus it's based on google technology so it has a lot of addons like easy integration with GoogleApps.

They recently released their API but it will be a while till we see a module for WHMCS or Client Excec if at all.

Now that you offer WHMCS for resellers I will realy love to see an exclusive module from Hawkhost for name.com as an alternative to Enom and RC.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...

Hello,

It might sound silly for serious guys who work with keyboard all the time and despise a mouse... Especially since I know that multiple-cross area logins issue is being discussed by the team... And yet...

Did you think it would be a convenient to have cross links for different areas of the site: sPanel, Customer area, Support. I mean: when in Customer Area I can simply click to get to this Forum or to Support area or cPanel... Try to "click back"...

I don't find another way but typing into the address bar to get: from Support to Client Area; from forum, well, to anywhere else; and yes, the special - from File Manager back to Control Panel... No, I understand, I could use "Back" button, a Favorite link or some other nerdy way to get where I need, but is it really that difficult or would ruin the design to place 2-3 links to major areas, especially for people like me, who'd rather "click" on a link than type or something and I need to browse from one area to another multiple times a day while getting accustomed to your site/service and making some decisions...

Maybe I just didn’t look for those links well enough, but if they are not there - I'd think many people would appreciate such small yet convenient addition to your site(s).

Thanks.

Still like it here a lot!.. :rolleyes:

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Currently there is no way to get from our helpdesk to the client area with a single link or any other of our properties, and I'm afraid there is no way to modify that. However, the following navigation options exist:

1) To get to our helpdesk from our client area, simply hit 'My Support' in the navigation menu once logged in and it'll take you there.

2) By default cPanel opens the file manager in a new tab in your browser, so you should simply need to either navigate back to the parent tab or close the file manager session and your browser should take you right back. We cannot modify this as we do not develop the control panel software.

3) There is a nav menu in cPanel titled "Hawk Host Links" -- this contains a direct link to our client area, helpdesk, forums, knowledgebase and a few others.

That said I think you're looking for a more monolithic solution instead of separate properties for each portion, which is understandable. That in mind we use a number of different software solutions for our web properties (Kayako for our helpdesk, WHMCS for billing, IPB for forums, cPanel for our control panel) so a full integration isn't possible without developing a completely in-house suite. As much as I'd like to do that it simply isn't practical currently.

Hope this helps clear up some of your concerns! :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think it would be nice if Hawk Host had a twitter account. I'm not a twitter user myself but I see that some web hosting companies have a twitter account that they use to keep customers informed about new services, coupons, any downtime/maintenance, etc which is pretty cool.

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I think it would be nice if Hawk Host had a twitter account. I'm not a twitter user myself but I see that some web hosting companies have a twitter account that they use to keep customers informed about new services, coupons, any downtime/maintenance, etc which is pretty cool.

Hawkhost is on Twitter

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  • 10 months later...

I would suggest hawkhost to become optimized partner of cloudflare, they offer cloudflare for free to optimized partner. 

 

We're already a hosting partner and we hope to in the near future offer the ability to use railgun which is a big part of becoming an optimized partner.

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  • 8 months later...

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