Skaboosh

www.skaboosh.com Download as a .pdf

Summary

John Biscevic founded Skaboosh so that adventure-seekers had an easy, online tool to make reservations with recreational businesses such as sky diving outfits or white water rafting companies. In order to do so, he needs two things: an always on website and a hosting partner that can ensure security for the credit card data he collects from customers. Additionally, he wanted a host that offered help when he needed it, and not deliver the usual pain associated with customer service. With FireHost, he's found all of this and feels confident that his site will never experience a service outage or a successful hack attempt.

Challenge

Originally hosted by a household hosting brand, Biscevic had experienced pain points trying to reach the firm's customer service department. "It took hours just to get them to call us back," he said. "I need my site to be up and operational all the time and if my host won't call me back when there's a problem, I'm going to have trouble."

Security was also on Biscevic's mind. While Skaboosh does not process credit card transactions, it does collect and store credit card numbers when customers make a reservation. "If a hacker successfully got into our database and stole our customer's personal information or credit card numbers, it would devastate the trust our customers have put in us and would be an extremely painful event from which to recover."

While attending an industry event, Biscevic bumped into a trusted colleague that had also experienced customer service issues with Skaboosh's former hosting provider. He listened as his peer shared how he had hired an independent auditor to examine the security of FireHost's offering and was excited by the results. "This is someone I trust and his auditor basically said that on the scale of ?vulnerable' and ?secure' hosting providers, there's a whole other category beyond secure that's called FireHost." After validating his colleague's data, doing his own research, and eyeing FireHost's impressive customer list, Biscevic decided it was time for Skaboosh to book its own adventure with FireHost.

Solution

After deciding on FireHost, things moved fast. "Most of our migration was complete within a day and was surprisingly smooth," Biscevic said. It was not lost on him, either, that FireHost was as responsive as it was secure. "We worked on our migration with three different FireHost engineers and every one of them was available, knowledgeable and responsive. I never once felt like I was dealing with a typical customer service rep. These people are pros and they are extremely courteous."

That level of customer service and deep technical knowledge didn't wane after the migration was complete, either. "FireHost reps actually pick up the phone. If we need something they get moving on it immediately and if they need to call me back on something they do so within minutes. It's easy to get things rolling with FireHost because they know their stuff inside and out."

To date, Skaboosh.com has enjoyed the growth of its website with zero downtime and no hacks. Biscevic appreciates that he can see for himself, every day, how his server is being used and the kind of attacks on his site that FireHost blocks. "Having this level of transparency and control over my server is a bonus, but it's one of my favorite perks of hosting with FireHost."

Biscevic has been so impressed with FireHost that he regularly recommends the company. "Peers ask me all the time who we use for hosting. I just tell the truth – if you need your site to stay online and be secure, and if customer service matters to you, FireHost is the only call you should make."

Visit Skaboosh's secure website:
www.skaboosh.com