Com­pa­nies that are vying for the bur­geon­ing cloud com­put­ing and host­ing busi­ness have some fierce com­pe­ti­tion against indus­try heavy­weights. Ama­zon, Google, Microsoft. Yep. That's some stiff com­pe­ti­tion. You may not com­pete with the likes of these behe­moths, but you've still got your own mar­ket lead­ers to go after, right? So what can you do with­out spend­ing all your heard-earned capital?

If you’re the Texas-based com­pany, Rack­space, you focus on cus­tomer service.

Tak­ing on the Ama­zons of the world

Bloomberg Busi­ness­week pro­filed Rack­space and dis­cussed the 12-year old company’s strat­egy for not only stay­ing afloat, but charg­ing ahead in the highly com­pet­i­tive indus­try of host­ing and cloud com­put­ing. The com­pany has wres­tled with the ups and downs that strike many tech­nol­ogy com­pa­nies, includ­ing hir­ing and retain­ing top pro­gram­ming tal­ent, stretch­ing cash in a capital-intensive busi­ness, and stay­ing ahead of the tech­nol­ogy curve.

Rackspace’s Chair­man, Gra­ham Weston, has man­aged to pull his com­pany back from the brink of dis­as­ter and drive the busi­ness toward 30 per­cent annual sales growth by mak­ing cus­tomer ser­vice the mantra of his busi­ness. In fact, the company’s main brand plat­form is “fanat­i­cal support.”

Whoa. Really?

Not “the most advanced host­ing ser­vice” or “the fastest tech­nol­ogy,” but sup­port that goes so far and above typ­i­cal cus­tomer ser­vice it’s best described as fanat­i­cal?

Yes. And it’s working.

Putting fanat­i­cal cus­tomer ser­vice into action

As an exam­ple of Rackspace’s com­mit­ment to cus­tomer ser­vice, com­pare what hap­pened when Ama­zon had their cloud-hosting ser­vice crash ver­sus what hap­pened when Rack­space lost cloud power. From the article…

Ama­zon sent its cus­tomers a two-week credit and an apol­ogy let­ter. A sin­cere ges­ture, for sure, and appro­pri­ate for a com­pany of Amazon’s size.

When Rack­space lost power, its employ­ees per­son­ally called thou­sands of cus­tomers to apol­o­gize, explained what was occur­ring, and issued refunds. The com­pany was insis­tent on per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion while they worked out sys­tem kinks, and their cus­tomers were pleased by the effort.

Rack­space has also been known to do things such as send cus­tomers pizza when they know the cus­tomers are stuck at the office late, or call them and sing “Happy Birth­day” over the speak­er­phone. The cus­tomer ser­vice cul­ture, in short, is deeply inter­twined in Rackspace’s busi­ness model.

Apply­ing Rackspace’s cus­tomer ser­vice lessons to your company

So what can we learn from Rackspace’s approach? The com­pany proudly adver­tises their cus­tomer ser­vice phi­los­o­phy, and they’ve cre­ated a web­page ded­i­cated to pro­claim­ing their tenets. Here’s what they do:

Trans­parency and lis­ten­ing skills: The company’s employ­ees are trained to be trans­par­ent and lis­ten to the cus­tomers. Rack­space under­stands that cus­tomers want a com­pany that can hear and understand.

Resource­ful: Rack­space empow­ers their cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives to solve prob­lems and be resourceful—their cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing goes one step fur­ther than sim­ply solv­ing issues from a manual.

Skills: They take their cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing for tech­ni­cal sup­port seri­ously. Rack­space invests, really  invests, in their employ­ees to make sure their staff are knowl­edge­able and experts at guid­ing cus­tomers through prob­lem solv­ing and tech­ni­cal sup­port issues.

Account­abil­ity: Rack­space under­stands that cus­tomers want to work with a com­pany that takes respon­si­bil­ity for prob­lems and is accountable.

Time­li­ness: They pride them­selves on prompt, atten­tive service.

How does your com­pany mea­sure up?

Regard­less of the field you’re in, choos­ing to make cus­tomer ser­vice the hall­mark of your brand will set you apart, even if your tech­nol­ogy isn’t the best, or you’re not first to mar­ket, or you don’t have the most inex­pen­sive prod­uct. Assess­ing your cur­rent cus­tomer ser­vice deliv­ery, mak­ing needed changes in peo­ple, processes and tech­nol­ogy, and invest­ing in cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing, will help you shine through a crowded, com­pet­i­tive marketplace.