Standing still means going backwards
We will soon be moving again to a larger office with even greater ambitions. And to achieve that, we need to tweak our approach from time to time. Because it's not just our opinion that counts, Peter approached our agency clients some time ago to identify the pain points that web agencies encounter in achieving their own goals.
We were told that they are generally very satisfied with us as a hosting partner, but we felt compelled to do more, to support our customers even more and really help them achieve their goals. So after this research, we put our heads together at Level27 to question ourselves, our services, and our support: What else can we do for agencies? The answer is the Level27 fit: Agency hosting.
Agency hosting in 9 questions
Agency hosting has been live for a while now, tested and ready to be rolled out to the rest of the hosting world. Now that the first websites on our new packages are live, we fired nine questions about Agency hosting at Peter!
What is Agency hosting?
Probably the most obvious question, but no less important for that. Agency hosting is a next-level hosting service. First and foremost, we ensure that agencies and their end customers are Relaxed Online, but we go one step further. With a number of extra services included in the product, we want to support agencies in achieving their goals in what is, after all, a tough business.
Agency hosting, is that really only for agencies?
What's in a name? In this case, we disagree with Shakespeare, because the name says it all. Agency hosting is indeed entirely focused on agencies. And by agency, we mean a company that specializes in designing, developing, and managing websites and online applications for clients. The size of an agency is less important. The advantages we offer with this product are relevant for both small self-employed professionals and large web agencies.
Where did we get our inspiration?
As mentioned earlier, we developed this product after conducting extensive research among our existing customers. But this research did not happen overnight. As a growing company, we embarked on a guided strategic process in 2022. This revealed that it was high time to thoroughly update our value proposition, as it was already several years old.
In this context, we engaged in dialogue with all our different types of customers: What concerns them? What are their obstacles and challenges? What are their goals? These questions revealed that our product range was acceptable at that time, but that we were not yet addressing a number of concerns.
After more discussions, these trends became increasingly clear, and we developed Agency Hosting as a product that takes away all the worries for agencies and provides them with all the tools they need to achieve their goals and overcome their pain points. So our main inspiration was actually the agencies themselves.
What is an example of such a pain point from the study?
Something that came up frequently in all conversations was the difficulty agencies have in determining a (hosting) price per website. In a traditional model, an agency can rent a server for a certain price and host several websites on the shared server. The problem with this is that when an agency grows and the server grows with it, prices are constantly adjusted as a result.
For example, suppose that such a server costs $200 per month and hosts 10 end-customer websites, then each website costs $20 per month. Sounds simple! But when a new website is added to the server, the server may need to be upgraded and therefore become more expensive, for example, $300. This means that the costs per website have also increased, but have not been passed on to the end customer in this way. It goes without saying that this entails quite a bit of extra administrative work for an agency.
We have found that agencies find it much more appealing to pay a transparent cost per website. Agency hosting offers a clear solution to this, with three different packages at fixed prices for small, medium-sized, and larger websites: Walk, Run, and Fly. Is there a new project coming up? No problem, there will be a new package with its own limits and a clear cost price. And there's an extra bonus: unlike the server in the traditional model, websites will never influence each other.
How does Agency hosting differ from other services?
The main difference between our other services and Agency hosting is that there is always one project per website. The agency no longer has to worry about how large a server needs to be. Whether it's a website for the local bakery or a webshop like LensOnline, our control panel will always indicate which package you need.
In addition, we developed additional features for Agency hosting, such as Level27 APM. APM stands for Application Performance Monitoring and is an alternative to New Relic that provides a wealth of insights into how websites work. We also developed new services, such as a Sales Academy to help agencies sell their projects and a Tech Academy focused on developers and making their work as efficient as possible.
How does agency hosting help sell new projects?
One answer: Sales Academy! Our research showed that selling websites is a major challenge for agencies, especially when it comes to hosting. At Sales Academy, we respond to this challenge. We look at the agency's hosting offerings together, help with quotes, provide the right documentation, and even accompany them to the end customer.
Of course, the needs surrounding the sale of projects are different for every agency. This requires a highly personalized approach for each client. However, our mission is clear: we aim to make selling projects as easy as possible for agencies by contributing our hosting expertise.
Does Agency hosting also provide useful tools for developers?
Absolutely! In addition to the Sales Academy, we also developed a Tech Academy. The main goal? To make developers happy.
We ensure that the latest technologies are always available in the control panel, so that developers only have to focus on creating and writing websites. This allows them to work more efficiently and waste less time. In addition, at the Tech Academy, we look at how their development workflow (building, testing, deploying) is structured and how we can optimize this process. We do this using documentation, customized consultancy, and various use cases. Spoiler alert: the initial reactions are promising! ;)
How does Agency hosting guarantee online presence?
Keeping websites online has been our core business for 15 years. Thanks to our many years of experience, bringing websites online and keeping them there holds no secrets for Level27. The Agency hosting product does not change this. Whether you purchase a server with 1,000 websites or have 1 website hosted by us in an Agency hosting package, we guarantee online presence for all our customers. Everyone Relaxed Online!
What is the goal of agency hosting?
At the moment, we can be very happy with the initial reactions. Agencies are finding it easier to sell projects, developers are happy and saving a lot of time, agencies can more easily take margins... so the future certainly doesn't look bad.
But we are not taking anything for granted and will always remain critical in order to ensure that our services evolve in line with market needs and customer demands. There will undoubtedly be more features added, otherwise we wouldn't be Level27, but for now, both we and our customers are happy with the result.
