Today we will not write about technical news or new services, but we will do a “short” reflection. We are not describing any specific cases that you may have seen. This is a general reflection.
Introduction
What has happened to us lately is that our words have been twisted in some discussions, taken out of context. Some things stem from a bad mood in society (in the public), some are perhaps related to the pattern of behaviour on the Internet, sometimes it is an effort to make oneself visible and blend in with the crowd (the so-called sheep effect, i.e. if everyone kicks, so must I...) and sometimes we can see something completely different behind it…
Thanks for the idea:
The article was written by me, Josef Grill, based on the recommendation of several of our customers who regularly or irregularly follow our reactions in discussions. They have written to us quite independently to defend against such criticisms by writing some summary in one place and always giving only a link. That way he won’t have to write lengthy essay exercises in every discussion, but we’ll just write a few words on the topic plus a link.
I’m not ashamed of what I wrote. I’m signing on to make it clear who’s behind this. Various company employees (sometimes simultaneously) appear on different forums under the WEDOS moniker. We are not ashamed of our opinions and we know how to defend them and sign them.
Please excuse any errors. I’m not paid to write essay exercises 🙂
The last impulse for publication is today’s funny situation, when one of our satisfied customers (whose identity we will not disclose, of course), who has several websites with us (without any failures for a long time) and at the same time is one of our big commissioners (tens of thousands in commissions) anonymously posted against us in one discussion…
We were getting kicked, so he started anonymously kicking us too (quite loudly)… He called the customers (of which he has commissions of about 10,000 a month) sheep (others did it) and said false things like others (others did it). He just wanted to be “in”.
The moment we found out his identity (and I wrote to him) it stopped and the behaviour is completely different.
The textbook sheep effect…
Reflections
Maximum openness, everything without secrets
Since the beginning of our activity we have been promoting maximum openness. You know you can ask us anything.
We have made no secret of it from the beginning. We keep you informed about everything that is going on in detail.We have been describing how we have been building and are still continuing to do so. We also described our thoughts and where we are going and where we want to go. We also described the problems, the causes of the problems and how we learned from them. Today we are also publishing our reflections, which is a summary of our thought processes.
Popularity and all that goes with it
There are downsides to our popularity. It has to do with being seen and talked about. The more we are seen, the more we are talked about (written about). For many people it is of course more interesting to write anything negative about us than about a company that has problems (for example, several days of outages or completely dysfunctional customer support, etc.), but it is not so popular.
Growth and downsides
We know that what we will describe in our reflection brings with it success and growth. It’s one of the downsides. Typical Czech traits (envy, resentment and anger) will appear, as well as (perhaps even technical) problems that you could not have anticipated. But we have to deal with it. We’re not afraid of that.
Mistakes, self-reflection, learning from mistakes
Anyone can make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from mistakes. That’s what we follow.
We try to learn from every mistake and every criticism.
We are not without fault
As stated – we also make mistakes. We have never claimed to be flawless and we have never claimed to do everything best.
Sometimes we miss the deadline we promised. Other times there was a problem with administration.
We try to do our best, but sometimes problems or mistakes occur everywhere. Even here. What is important is how you handle such a situation.
We face the problems head on
We never denied any problem, we never made a dead bug. We have had to deal with many problems during our existence. Whether it was an outage or problems with some services. We never denied any problem. He is not and there was no reason to do so.
We solve pleasant situations, but we also solve problems and inconveniences.
Denial was contrary to our philosophy of keeping nothing secret. We do not distort the facts, but on the contrary, we always try to explain them and support them with arguments. We don’t lie. Not on our website and not in communication and not in discussions. We know that any lie would sooner or later turn against us.
We don’t cry in discussions, we don’t spam discussions
It has been repeatedly written about us crying in discussions. It’s not true. We argue, we explain. That’s the difference.
We are not without fault, and we have never claimed to be. We defend ourselves in situations where we are being anonymously harmed or in situations where the truth is presented differently than it actually is.
We are repeatedly labeled as spammers (unsolicited contributors) in various discussions. We don’t go anywhere that doesn’t mention us. We only go where we are written about, whether positively or critically. We always go and explain. We never just go into discussions where nothing is written about us and where we just want to make ourselves visible. With our growing popularity, we are being written about more and more often and so we have to respond more and more often. We always wonder if we are so popular because we are written about or if it is the other way around that we are so popular because we are written about.
We are not the best, but we highlight our strengths
We never claimed to be the best. We regularly and honestly argue only what we have and how we do what. We argue the equipment, we argue the facilities, and we argue the results. We have nothing to be ashamed of. We don’t compare ourselves to the competition. We have repeatedly written to our critics to show what they have and how they have it. Let them show what equipment they have, what facilities they have and what they have done. How many of these direct confrontations and challenges have ended in actual demonstrations? You don’t have to count.
Our arguments about the merits of WEDOS sometimes sound unbelievable (and this bothers many people). But we are describing the situation as it really is. Sometimes the arguments about our strengths look normal (compared to the arguments of others – after all, that’s what everyone has), but the reality is different. Just compare the true information on our website and our services to the information and promises made by other companies and the information they have on their website (not delivering on what they promise, tales of equipment, tales of support, tales of customer numbers).
We offer everyone to come and see us. Anyone can check out what we have and what we have built, and anyone can meet us in person.
We have friends among our customers
We don’t build silent cartels, we don’t build silent partnerships. We’re going our own way. We are not popular with our competitors because we are price and business aggressive. We (the core of our team) have been on the market since 1996 (yes that’s true) and we know the competition quite well. However, we are primarily concerned with ourselves. We devote maximum effort to the development of our services and new ideas. We come up with ideas in business and marketing.
We do our services for our customers. We subordinate everything to that.
We don’t blame anything on the competition unless it can be proven
In many discussions, it has been said that we blame some things on competition, and that we often cry about competition. We’ve never done anything to the competition that wasn’t substantiated.
If we have been reported to various authorities, we have only reported this (in relation to competitors) when we have had evidence that a competitor has filed a complaint. The fact that we have published something like this just means that we want to defend ourselves against such situations (denunciations) and we will not let it happen. The competition is denouncing the authorities because it is their style of competition and they are curing their “commercial impotence”. It’s free and takes a few minutes to file a report with the office. We, on the other hand, have a lot of work to do. We have to go to the authorities, write back, argue and it keeps us from our work. For example, one such complaint that we have been dealing with for several months has cost us dozens of hours of work. We could have spent this time with our customers or our services.
In the case that we have reported on a DDoS attack (apparently) organized by a competitor, we have always written about what and how it is happening. There is a difference if the DDoS attack is on one specific domain (specific customer) or one specific VPS OR on our entire infrastructure across the board or our DNS servers or our routers. This makes it clear that this is an attack on a specific WEDOS customer or on WEDOS as a whole. We have documented one such attack against us and it is already in court (and it was indeed an employee of a competitor). It is therefore necessary to distinguish whether we write that there is a DDoS attack in general or a DDoS attack against us, and when we say that it is in the context of a competitive struggle.
Why did we report on DDoS attacks? There are several reasons for this. Information (we don’t hide anything). We don’t know in advance how intense the attack will be, and it is of course possible that there could be technical problems (so we are answering in advance why this has happened). This shows our stability, quality and performance. We have already written several times that we have managed DDoS attacks over 3 Gbps without any service limitations. It’s proof of quality. We have everything oversized for high performance, we have network devices with a real capacity of 10 Gbps. For example, we had an attack on our secondary DNS server, which was located at a competitor. Due to the fact that the competitor’s network was 1 Gbps in capacity, the competitor’s hosting was unavailable for about 45 minutes.
We behave politely and correctly
When communicating with customers or in public (responses on forums), we respond politely and correctly. We don’t use profanity. That’s not our style.
Arguing with (semi)anonymous people
We spend a lot of time explaining in various discussions. Sometimes there are people who will sign and sometimes there are people who are afraid to sign. This group that hides behind nicknames and anonymous profiles is the most active. They’re the hardest to get along with.
Sometimes we invited someone to sign their opinion and nothing. Sometimes you end up finding out who is on the other side. For example, he is a person who has changed several jobs over the past few years, tried unsuccessfully to start a business several times, and finally runs away from his problems into anonymous discussions to cure his ego. Often they are people with debts and only big words. People who have never accomplished anything on their own, and so they realize themselves on internet discussions, where their (semi-)anonymity gives them strength.
Let’s not lump everything together. There are, of course, people and discussions where communication is mutually critical but still polite and ultimately beneficial.
Anonymity in general
Internet anonymity is bad. We also consider fake profiles that look real at first glance to be anonymous. Often one person has several aliases, uses several accounts, and tries to change public opinion in discussions in the way he wants. It’s sad that people are ashamed of their opinions. If I can’t really sign my name, I shouldn’t be posting anywhere… Many discussion forum operators are unaware that they are responsible for the content of the discussion and therefore there is no shame in correcting and moderating obviously untrue or offensive contributors. It’s not about censorship. Freedom of speech is preserved. They don’t realize that freedom of speech always ends where freedom of another begins…
Anonymous and fake accounts are the “loudest”. It is sad (or laughable) when you find out who is behind it… It repeats itself over and over again. The anonymity of the internet gives these people (often children, sometimes competitors, sometimes desperate and unsuccessful) great strength. None of them would ever dare say the same thing to you face to face. Most of them would never publicly sign their opinion.
As for anonymity and criticism, just compare the behaviour of people on Facebook and other forums. On Facebook we have posts without censorship, but most of the profiles there are real and traceable. For that reason, the posts there are more polite. There are positive ones, but also critical ones. But always within the limits of decency and for the purpose of progress (development). On various other forums that operate without admin oversight, discussions are fierce. The more hidden data and the more anonymity, the more insults, fabricated arguments and unsubstantiated facts.
What’s bothering us?
We don’t mind if someone writes some criticism about us. Every criticism moves us forward. We’ll work on ourselves and get better again.
We are bothered by the twisting of our words, we are bothered by the distortion of facts, and we are bothered by the taking of things out of context.
It bothers us when someone starts writing that we are lying and fails to provide proof despite repeated urgings. It bothers us when someone writes that we did something wrong and thus committed a crime, but it is nonsense.
It bothers us that some things are scandalised, even in a situation where we write to a customer as politely as possible about what they should change on their website to make it more efficient.
We don’t mind reading a headline somewhere that someone has moved away from us. It’s unfortunate in the context that in the same article there is not only a paid advertisement for a competitor, but it is written that the site runs faster on the new server. When we then compare the results using independent measurements, the opposite is true. We’re sorry when someone claims they don’t want to scandalise something, but at the same time they don’t write to us about the problem (both as information and as a remedy), just an article. All this is (sort of 🙂 ) unfortunate. It is clear that the aim is to achieve the awareness of a certain website and to maximize its traffic. 🙂 . It bothers us when someone in pursuit of a sensation to increase traffic to their site has a blinded mind and eyes 🙂 . Then he won’t accept our arguments and just goes on and on with his own.
Do we mind the criticism?
We repeat that as long as the game is played fairly, we don’t mind and every criticism moves us further and further.
Negative advertising also advertising?
Sometimes they say that. I think there’s something to it, too. Nobody wants negative advertising, but it is true that not all people behave like sheep and do not understand our arguments. This is one of the reasons why we go to all the discussions to explain and explain. There are not only vocal readers (contributors) hiding behind their anonymity, but also people who read all the arguments. And based on that, they make their own picture.
The more people write about us, the more we are known and the more we save on marketing 🙂 and the more orders we have.
Can criticism make a positive contribution?
From the above point of view, every criticism is also an advertisement for us. It’s also advertising. Especially when we are criticized for some mistake or for some behavior. Because if we learn from criticism and mistakes, it moves us forward. It may not be pleasant in the short term, but on the other hand, in the long term (and that’s what we are interested in) it will force us to improve, to correct (and maybe even to reflect) and thus move forward in our qualitative development. That’s the positive thing about the whole thing.
Success is unforgivable
What could it be? Is it because success is unforgiving?
We are often presented with the idea that we are “just” bragging and that we constantly publish graphs of how we are growing. Is that a problem? Our achievements and our results are literally outstanding. For example, last year we had a market share of about 38%. We don’t know why we shouldn’t and can’t boast. We don’t brag about something that isn’t true or something that we have to twist. We boast only of what we have actually accomplished.
We are condemned for supposedly boasting too much about our achievements. And yet it is written by people who themselves have accomplished nothing or who boast of the little they have accomplished. Is our huge success something else? Something we’re not allowed to brag about?
For us, it’s not just about the price
Low price is our worst enemy. Many potential customers fear that low price means low quality of service,
We claim to offer a very good price/performance/reliability ratio. Yes, we don’t do individual setups and individual concessions, but our services suit 98% of all sites.
We have round-the-clock customer support that you can reach at any time not only on a fixed telephone number, but also by e-mail and chat.
We have quality facilities, we have our own datacenter, we use only branded machines. And yet we can be so cheap. We explained why this is so at the beginning. Our strategy has not changed and will not change. We have grown to be one of the top 3 companies in the industry since our service offerings were published and yet nothing has changed.
We provide efficient and stable services
We do not host only small and unpretentious websites. We host tens of thousands of websites. Our NoLimit web hosting is the best-selling and most widely used hosting option in the Czech Republic. There are small sites, of course, but also sites that have tens of thousands of visits per day (some clients claim over 100,000 for the Extra version). We treat everyone the same. To the little ones and to the big ones. Take our data traffic, where we are the largest among hosting companies. From this you can clearly deduce that we host a lot of websites and they must be visited a lot.
We always care about the satisfaction of our clients, to whom we provide efficient and stable services.We do not overload servers and we are constantly adding more. Every month we buy hardware for an average of CZK 750,000 or more, excluding VAT. We have about 200 branded servers, the vast majority of which have been running without downtime for hundreds of days.
In terms of stability and performance, we are among the best Czech hosts. We guarantee 99.99% availability of our services and we have no problem to keep it, because most of our services are 100% reliable for many months (despite modifications of our infrastructure, repeated DDoS attacks and various service interventions).
You won’t find reports of our service outages anywhere.
Complaints and criticisms, suggestions for improvement
We have had a special complaints line for several months. In case you are not satisfied with something or have a suggestion to improve our services, you can call or write directly to our top management. Every complaint is individually assessed and resolved. We also welcome suggestions that lead to service improvements.
Do you know how many suggestions and how many phone calls there are? The bare minimum. It’s units a week.
Conclusion
Behind everything is hard work
Our results and achievements do not fall from the sky. Look for hard work behind everything. We do it for the customers.
We’re not going to change
We will not stop responding to discussions, we will not stop explaining. We’re not going to stop being open and start hiding things. We are not going to change our behaviour or our practices.
We value you – our customers – all the more
We are happy to have so many customers. We are happy that we have so many more every day. We are happy that our customers are our best references. Our customers are our best advertisement.
We appreciate it when our customers stand up for us. We appreciate it when they support us and write about their true experiences with us.
We thank all our customers for their trust so far. We appreciate it and do our best to ensure your satisfaction.
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