Welcome to The Planet’s Blog… I think?
May 14, 2007 by Doug Erwin, Chairman and CEO in Doug's Place
I find myself in unfamiliar waters with the launch of our new corporate blog today … this is new to me and very uncomfortable … I am used to dealing with customers, face-to-face and one-on-one … or making speeches to large audiences … i have never liked communicating through the written word … this new world of the masses and forums and blogs is strange … I do not like “hanging out there” … control freak I guess … but also because it takes me so much time to put my thoughts down on paper … a very very big time consumer … of which like you … there never seems to be enough time … (in my next life I want to come back and study the sciences so I can work on slowing down the rotation of the earth, therefore giving people 28 or 30 hours in the day) … oh well … my marketing team has told me I must join the 21st century and get on with it … don’t get me wrong … I love talking to anyone who will listen about our company and what we’re doing … i will talk for hours about our plans and dreams and progress here at The Planet … but as I have already said … it has usually been through speeches and personal meetings with customers … but … here goes …
Anytime you merge two large companies there are going to be challenges … and we’ve made no secret that we’ve had a few … simply said … we’re trying to take the best of the two, compare it with anything on the outside and pick the best of breed in all we implement … we knew making these changes would not be easy but ultimately it would allow us to deliver better products and services to our customers …
we are driven to become the best at what we do … we realize that we need the best trained employees and tools to accomplish this … we are willing to spend the money to do this … and we’re already spending a chunk of dough on training our teams and buying tools that a world-class company must have …
we’re attacking the customer support and technical support areas first … we went out and hired a top-notch industry expert who has built many large, highly efficient world-class customer support centers for Fortune 500 companies … Jim Picone is the guy … the support centers he has built are easily 10’s of times larger then our needs … so we gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse and had him pick his family up and move them to Houston … we are thrilled to have him and as a lot of you have already mentioned in the forums and notes to me … there is already a difference … and we have just begun …
we have consolidated the dallas and houston call centers into one … we have invested in a system that now allows us to record and monitor the quality of our responses to the service calls so we can evaluate the rep’s performance and provide on-the-spot coaching and training … we are buying an entirely new phone system that lets us collect and review stats for the first time … it is hard to deliver world-class services if you don’t know how many calls you are getting and what hold times customers are experiencing … (hopefully that phone system will be installed within the next 8 to 10 weeks) … we are also evaluating a crm system … more work to do here … should be making the decision shortly … all of this is part of the millions of dollars we told you we are going to spend in order to build a world-class experience for our customers … you will see great strides with customer service each and every day … we are moving as fast as we can …
we are in the process of increasing our wages so we can keep and attract top talent … we are implementing a program to test our current and future technicians allowing us to have three levels … we will have criteria for them to work toward and goals they need to accomplish before we promote them … we are putting this in so our employees will view working at the planet as a place they can grow and have long term careers … in the past we paid poorly and taught them the basics and then they left for more pay … churn hurts and we want to keep our good employees … we will help by paying for them to get certifications … we will provide tuition reimbursements … and we will create a culture that rewards good work and customer focus …
Throughout the company we’re creating a culture that focuses on customers, ownership, integrity, trust and passion … a lot of powerful words but it is our rallying cry … we will prove it to you day by day … baby steps first and then great strides …
We have a lot to do … but we’re moving and we’re headed in the right direction …
so wrapping up my first entry (and it only took 2-½ hours) … let me thank you for your business … we all appreciate your business … we realize that you pay our salaries … thanks for the feedback you give us … keep it coming … it makes us work harder and run faster …
thanks for reading …
“Be careful … it’s a jungle out there …”
- Doug
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No results.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Man - this really made me miss the Erwin manifesto emails.
Lots of …
“It’s a jungle out there”
Good times.
Congrats on nice first blog Doug - looking forward to your second edition.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Great job!
May 15th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Congratulations on a great first blog post. Welcome to the web hosting blogosphere from theWHIR Bloggers.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Welcome to the blog world.
May 15th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Hey Doug! I just read your blog
I agree, I wish there were way more hours in a day, so I support you in your endeavors for your next life!
Things are progressing, and we all appreciate the time you put into the company
May 15th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Yep… welcome to the blog world!
May 15th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Boy … do … I … like … ellipses …
May 15th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Hey, great blog. Enjoying it immensely.
May 15th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Indeed, welcome to this world of blogging. I think you’ll enjoy it.
May 15th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Hi Doug,
With all new experiences there are learning curves. In my pursuit of excellence, I brood over words. I consider myself a word smith. I liken my experience as to a sculptor who takes a slab of clay and slowly removes bits and pieces of clay until he creates a work of art. If you can see yourself as a artist that paints with words you may have a more enjoyable experience as you -like I do on a regular basis- muddle your way to a finished product.
My encouragement to you would be to see your experience as a process, not a destination.
Craig Second Chance to Live
May 16th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Hey … I … Really … Liked … Your … First … Post …
I … Think … You … Use … To … Many … Periods … Though
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May 16th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Welcome to the Blog world … keep working
May 16th, 2007 at 6:49 am
What is the deal with all of the dots and lack of punctuaction? I found it very difficult to finish reading through the post because of this. I would expect more from a CEO………(see what I did there!)
May 16th, 2007 at 8:16 am
This gives me hope… my choice of punctuation has always been limited too:
… ! ? !?! ..
May 16th, 2007 at 8:16 am
By the way… good blog… you’re doing well
May 16th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Doug,
Welcome to the blog world! Yet another great way to reach your customers. I just noticed the launch of the blog on the New&Releases page on theplanet and thought I would take a look. Now that I am here and have read what you have to say, I do have to ask how you feel about an article I ran across on stopbadware.org:
http://blogs.stopbadware.org/articles/2007/05/04/stopbadware-identifies-hosting-providers-of-larged-numbers-of-sites-in-badware-website-clearinghouse
In the article they reference “badware” sites and 2,000+ that appear to be residing on theplanet servers. Thoughts?
May 16th, 2007 at 11:42 am
…
maybe…you should…have someone…proof read… before…
…
posting…?
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use…ellipses…much…?
… CEO? …?…?…hhrrm?
May 16th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Welcome to the blogosphere, guys! Let me know if you ever want to chat about corporate blogging - it’s my pet obsession. Keep things open and sincere here and you’ll go a long way.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Hey, lay off the guy. Everyone has their own style. For some it’s a pristine arrangement of perfect grammar and spelling; others may prefer more of a conversive style of writing. Just remember, like anything in the world… you don’t have to read it if you don’t like it.
Keep up the blogs, Doug! Can’t wait to read more.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Jackie - Appreciate your comment. We take this issue very seriously at The Planet and have a highly enforced Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP). Our Abuse team works around-the-clock to respond to, investigate and take remedial measures regarding spam, phishing, fraud, hacking or other violations of our AUP. That said, as a host of more than 2.8 million Web sites our size and scale keeps us working 24×7x365 to stop badware. We’ve been in contact with stopbadware.org to gather more information on the issue they’ve raised. We also work with a number of organizations to maintain the highest standards for protecting the Internet community and our customers. Thanks.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Congratulations, Mr. Erwin!
One thing that comes to my mind though is the world’s greatest (in my opinion) hosting company is not hosting this themselves?
Anyway good to see you on the blogging world.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:12 am
tem que ter atendimento em portugues
May 17th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
mark … thanks for stopping by … our blog team looked at several options and selected wordpress because of the depth of its offering … we’re leveraging the popularity of wordpress in the blogging community and the stats they provide to measure our performance … hope you’ll be a frequent reader.
May 17th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
I too … do not understand this blogging and intraweb nonsense … I am just a caveman … I make my point with a wooden club …
May 17th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Mr Erwin,
Nice to see the CEO of a company out and about, mingling with the common people. When are we going to hear from the normal techs about life at The Planet? There used to be a lot of great technicians at The Planet and I wonder if any of them are still around. Gbock, Dstevens, Zwilliams, Bwalker, Bclark, and Asmith are just a few who were all very intelligent people that used to answer my phone calls and tickets but it seems like they’ve disappeared as of the merger. Have they been lost from the fold? If not I’d love to see input from them on what’s going on in the company.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Posting in a blog is the best thing you’ve done Doug, it allows us non US clients to get a sense of your self. And it has really opened my eyes to your dedicated and commitment to your company and to your customers.
Speeches are good, however they can only really be heard by nearby people. Words in a blog can be read from anywhere and will last forever.
This is also the type of thing that Robert March (HeadSurfer) did to get such a large following - he communicated his efforts to the people. It’s a good thing to see you doing it.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
[...] the majesty of The Planet’s blog - hosted on the WordPress site (?!) - the first entry was made by Planet big shot Doug Erwin, and [...]
May 21st, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I appreciate you taking the time to write this, I was a very angry customer during the initial stages of the merge (some things still aren’t sorted), however things are getting better. They aren’t quite back to the levels of EV1 in it’s prime but I see the direction you’re headed and I like it, for now.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:35 am
purebredkitten … most of those folks are still here … and they’re still doing great stuff at the planet … they’ve been promoted into new roles in the company … and they’re still an important part of the team … we have a number of bloggers in the queue … stay tuned for more … thanks.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Doug … you are clearly a man of action … I worship you … may I bear … your child … ?
Please … do not take this … lightly!
… … …
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Great post - just got started in blogging recently.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
purebredkitten,
I am still here but I have changed departments quite a few times over the last few years and I have moved away from a direct customer facing position. I do try to sneak in a few customer ticket updates when no one is looking
May 25th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Well I’m glad you’re still around GBock. Perhaps you can go and train the new people that are working on the technical support to be as good as you and the people I mention above?
Doug,
I remember the days when the phone was answered in 2 rings and I would get Asmith or Bwalker. They were both professional even when they were cracking jokes with me about my business. The few times I ever had problems with support Bclark or Dstevens would step in and promise that the issue would be handled and it was done quickly and usually by them.
I’ve always respected that your management was as technical as your noc engineers.
Zwilliams and Gbock were both worth the money I would pay for admin time and I would try to escalate it at night so I know one of them would get the issue first.
I’m glad to hear that most of these people are still with you. My suggestion for you is to take them all under your wing and try your hardest to keep them and the other members of the Planet that existed two years ago no matter what. The ones I’ve named are worth probably 10 times what you pay them just in the money and headaches they saved me when I had hardware failures. You should be very proud of your engineers as they’re the ones the customers will interact with more than any other department. Don’t believe that hiring cheap for quantity will ever make up for the quality you have with these people.
May 27th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Hey Doug,
It’s really cool to see the CEO up and about with the people and everything. quick question (Whats with the cute little smiley face at the bottom of the blog?) Anyway, like what I was saying, its nice to see the CEO is actually HUMAN and not so up tight and everything so I’ll defeintly be looking to hear more from you and your blogs and what else you have to come. I’m not a Planet customer but I one day I will be.
Take Care Doug
May 27th, 2007 at 9:12 am
As a critic of TP and EV1 merger, it’s good to see steps in the right direction. Written word will have to be key Doug, communication is of utmost importance, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Just look at the response to this blog alone.
Look at what Robert Marsh did with inviting customers to EV1 and getting their opinions. If you do something similar, it’s good PR and you’ll get the best insight.
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Hi.
Nice site! And some really helpful information there. I’m sorry for beeing a little off-topic, but I want to ask you about the design of this site. Did you make this template yourself or got from any templates website? I am using joomla myself, but want something better..
June 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
peter … thanks for stopping by … our webmaster created the custom header and we’re using the blog template provided by wordpress …
June 5th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Doug– welcome. This is should be a great experiment, to have your blog on a free hosted site, instead of controlled entirely in-house.
Stanley– that smiley face, which I also do not like especially for cross-cultural audiences, is a graphic marker for WordPress.com to collect user data. They haven’t taken my suggestion to change the marker.
http://stats.wordpress.com/g.gif?host=theplanetdotcom.wordpress.com&rand=0.042821496422249083&blog=1090809&v=wpcom&post=20&subd=theplanetdotcom&x_theme=default&x_lang=en&x_dc=dfw&x_adt=0&x_public=1&x_mapped=0&x_ads=no&x_noads=seen%2Cfirefox%2Cnotsearch&x_plugin=snap&x_pagetype=permalink&ref=http%3A//theplanetdotcom.wordpress.com/
June 6th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Hi, just wanted to say you have a very nice blog, am gonna add it in my website in the blogs section, but i think you should replace your background with a better one.. but this is just my opinion
cheeeers.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
[...] I was so ready to rant and rave about this, with the goal of making them at least pay for VIP hosting if they were going to use WordPress.com instead of one of their own servers, but then I found the very first post on their blog, Welcome to The Planet’s Blog…I think?. [...]
July 10th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Wow, since your first post this blog has grown a lot already. Seems your guy were dying to talk to us. I love the quality of the posts. I like dots too btw…
…Best of luck and keep up the good work!
November 9th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Hello Doug!.
Nice Header, your domain name is one of the best I´ve seen. Welcome to the blog World.