Dot5hosting Review

Article about:

In the current web hosting market, with the fast pace of technological evolution and associated reduced cost of doing business, hosting providers are relying more and more on great customer service to distinguish themselves and gain market share.

Dot5hosting Review

Dot5hosting appears to be well aware of this market characteristic, and in step with it's customers needs.
I recently did an undercover "mock" shop of hosting services at Dot5 (i.e. they had no idea I was planning to review them.) In the process of researching and checking out their company, I was pleasantly surprised at the speed and efficiency with which dot5 responded to my inquiries and answered all my questions about the features of their hosting package.

They accomplished this with a great little customer service phenomenon that many online service providers in various industries now offer (some more effectively than others) namely, live chat support.

My fictional web hosting customer "persona" was based on the following scenario: I posed as a customer who needed solid Php/Linux hosting, and I specifically wanted to know if Dot5 offered automatic installation of Php-Nuke (a popular open source content management software package used to create and maintain web sites.) I had a few other miscellaneous questions too, relating to things like overages in bandwidth, apache, python, etc.

So, after sliding over to dot5hosting.com and logging in to their live chat support, I promptly minimized the window and began taking notes on the features and pricing of their hosting packages, with very limited expectations about when or if I would get a response from a customer service rep. I don't know about you, but my experience of live chat support has been relatively hit or miss. One hosting company I know of boasts and brags about live tech support, but every single time I have attempted to test it (for over 2 years now...) the little icon on it reads "Offline". I'm definitely not holding my breath.

Which brings me back to my story. Phenomonally, after less than 5 minutes from the time I connected (and this was on a Sunday no less) the cuddly little chat box pops back up: "Hello, you have been connected to customer service representative John" And yes, the name (real or not) really was John.

So, I hit John with my questions relating to Php hosting, support for Php-Nuke, etc. I could tell by the length of time that passed, that he didn't exactly know the answer to the questions off the top of his head. Still, the lag was only a couple of minutes, with a courteous little "just one more moment" midway through, to let me know he was still working on it.

When he returned, the answer I got was thorough and complete. I know this because my questions were based on real scenarios I have dealt with in the past while planning one of my sites, and the answer I got from John gave me every thing I needed to know to make my decision about hosting that type of site with Dot5hosting. It also went very far in earning my confidence in their customer service. There have been times when I would have put up with "just average" hosting if I could only get someone to answer my question or troubleshoot my issue. In the case of Dot5hosting, my guess is that you won't have to worry about that.

As important as customer service is, it isn't the only factor in choosing a web host, although it may be one of the most important ones. This review wouldn't be quite complete without mentioning the other stuff.

Company Background:

Created in 2004, Dot5hosting's servers are located in California, with business headquarters in Santa Monica. They offer support via email ticket, toll free phone support, and of course our favorite, live chat.

Hosting Features:

Dot5 offers linux based shared and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting packages include 20 gb of storage, 500 gb of bandwidth. You can host up to 6 sites on one account. Setup and 1 domain are free (with minimum commitment of 1 year or more.) Many other standard and bonus features are included.

Pricing:

They really score high in this department too. Their best price is available with a 2 year commitment, at $3.95 per month.