Chris Raidboxes

New in Raidboxes Support Team: Chris

What does Raidboxes look like from the customer's perspective? How do you manage to make support seekers happy? And who is happily snoozing under the palm tree in the office lately? 10 questions for our supporter Chris.

Chris, you've been a client since 2016 and FREE DEV at Raidboxes - and now you've more or less switched sides. What have you learned about us during this time? What was your impression?

While looking for a good host for a demanding client for whom I had just implemented a WordPresssite, I stumbled across Raidboxes rather by chance. What convinced me (and ultimately also the customer), apart from the clear performance boost, was the fast, competent and relaxed support. Fast pages, happy customers and the commission as FREE DEV was an unbeatable combination for me.

What I had to get used to at first was the different approach, in contrast to the usual "mass hosters". No web-premium-extra-plus packages with countless, sometimes useless lists of features, but ONE WordPress installation, but consistently geared towards performance and security. Full stop.

Raidboxes continues to grow - be part of it

You want to help realise the best WordPress hosting worldwide? Then become part of our team now. You can find open positions on our jobs page - on site in Münster and remotely in the home office. Read all about the many advantages you have as an employee of Raidboxes\.

This "minimalism" also continued in the back end. Few, simple and - at least in the beginning - partly little explained buttons that do exactly what they say. Sometimes I didn't know if I wanted them to do what they said 🙂 But then the support from Raidboxes helped me again and again.

Why Raidboxes?

What ultimately convinced you to apply to us? With your portfolio of skills, you are certainly quite sought after in the working world...

I watch the start-up scene in general with relative interest and many great start-ups have either completely drifted away after initial success or have been sold (e.g. Wunderlist). What I liked about Raidboxes was that, in addition to all the business news and articles, it also became clear that the company values sustainability and the common good. In my last time at the agency, I mainly dealt with clients from the agricultural and heavy transport sectors.

One day I came home and realised the hypocrisy of what I was doing: on Fridays I go with my son to the Fridays for Future demonstration and help him paint posters with polar bears, and on Mondays I make sure that even more, even bigger lorries clog our roads with great landing pages. You are in your daily treadmill and do your job to the best of your ability - but at that point I realised that I wanted to change something. I already liked the company philosophy and the product at Raidboxes - so why not just apply?

In general, what makes a workplace and employer where you are happy?

In addition to the things I just mentioned, such as sustainability and the common good, and a product or service that I can stand behind, open communication is important to me - even across departmental boundaries and at eye level. An interesting team and opportunities for further training round off the whole thing.

From self-employment to the agency

You were a freelance web designer, photographer and lecturer for many years. Then you changed to an agency. Why?

The question is easy to answer: I have become a father! As a self-employed person, you sometimes work on a project for three months and then wait another two months for your money. That's fine when you're responsible for yourself - with a family, a regular income and paid health insurance are important factors in being able to sleep peacefully.

Apart from that, I have never completely let go of my freelance work. I've been lucky enough to be able to look after some clients for years in the areas of web, print and photography. And I still take on interesting projects from time to time.

At Raidboxes you work in 2nd level support. How concretely does your agency experience help you? And are you more patient with our customers because you know both sides?

Whether I am more patient remains to be seen 🙂 In any case, my experience as an agency and as a hosting customer helps me to understand the background of support requests. FREE DEV- and hosting customer helps me to understand the background of support requests.

trusted shops
A selection of the voices on our support

Through my training, I now know why some things are the way they are. But that doesn't mean that I now find them more logical or self-explanatory. But it certainly helps me to explain exactly these things and to answer the enquiries empathetically, effectively and above all to the satisfaction of the customers.

What makes good support

How do you deal with requests where there is quite little knowledge on the client side?

Little knowledge is always relative. With a developer or an agency, one naturally expects a certain technical understanding and can talk technically on a similar level. But even a florist who doesn't have the big money for an agency and wants to set up a new domain herself can of course expect help with support. On the other hand, I don't know anything about flowers 🙂 .

What constitutes top support for you personally, how do you measure the success of your work?

As a support customer, two factors are particularly important to me: competence and speed. If I have the opportunity, I always use the chat support. Because I hate being stuck in any telephone waiting loops. With e-mails, I don't even know whether my request has arrived, let alone when it will be answered.

As a supporter myself, I try to live up to my own expectations - and that's not easy, because I can be a really demanding customer 🙂 I feel successful when those seeking help feel taken seriously. And when, after our conversation, they know what steps they have to take to deal with their concern. Helping them to help themselves, so to speak.

If the customers no longer need the support the next time they have the same or a similar request - then I have done the job right in my eyes.

What is your first impression of the team and of your induction?

The team at Raidboxes welcomed me in a friendly and open manner. I see a variety of very individual professionals. The diversity of characters is at least as great as that of clothing styles and hairstyles. Everyone seems to bring their experience, personality and expertise to the table. And when it comes to the matter at hand - namely to keep improving the product Raidboxes and to live the values of Raidboxes - everyone pulls together intensively and constructively.

You also brought along a new RAIDBOXER: Flecki. How did the trial day with him in the office go, and can we continue to look forward to him?

FleckiMy little white family dog (a Maltese) got to know everyone on the day of the trial and checked who would give him strokes or treats (or both @Leefke!).

Flecki Raidboxes
The photo shoot with Flecki

In fact, he got quite a few of them and was quite disappointed the next few times that he wasn't fed continuously. All in all, though, he likes it. And he has his own little area in the support room right under the palm tree.

What do you do when you're not helping our customers?

In the time when I am neither working for Raidboxes nor freelancing, I am mainly a creative Münster family man. Spending quality time with the family - and preferably as much of it as possible outside - recharges my batteries. That is the most important "pastime" for me.

My interests all go in the direction of the digital age and how you can combine the digital with the analogue. That's why augmented reality is a topic that fascinates me. If I had to name specific hobbies, it would be everything to do with film. And then recently - thanks to my membership of the Urban Sports Club sponsored by Raidboxes - sports and fitness. But first and foremost is photography and digital image processing. Years ago I got together with a few photographers and digital artists under the name Münster-Foto to realise projects together - at that time even partly in the darkroom with 35mm film.

Since almost everyone involved has a family now and many are no longer in Münster, this has pretty much fallen asleep. Whenever I can, I still go out and take photos or edit pictures from my own archive in Photoshop. Some of them can also be seen at www.muenster-foto.de. Lately I've been out and about with my new 360-degree camera, testing how the digital results can be transferred to the analogue world.

Working at Raidboxes: Your questions

What questions do you have about Raidboxes? Feel free to use the comment function. You want to be informed about new postsfor WordPress? Then follow us on Twitter, Facebook or via our newsletter.

Did you like the article?

Your rating helps us improve our future content.

Post a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *.