Verio – “Great technical opportunities, products and services going downhill”

Pros

The level of technical knowledge gained on the job is phenomenal compared to other similar jobs. High level of access to systems and servers provided unparalleled opportunities to learn and grow for those motivated to do so, and upward career movement was very possible once those skill sets were exercised. Each tech was basically a systems administrator in the making.

Cons

Policies were making all the pros above less and less effective. New products and services moved a highly trained technical staff into roles that were mundane and more typical of support situations, which in turn downplayed those skills, and in turn took away access and many opportunities to learn and grow. In the end, those skilled techs who stayed turned into glorified customer service reps.

Advice to Senior Management

Turning Verio into a clone of every other shared hosting system out there cannibalized and diminished its value to the VPS customer, and employee satisfaction went downhill when access levels were brought down and Tech 1s were turned into Customer Service Reps. A lot of good talent was lost to the company in a few years, and the support quality has degraded as a result. Verio went from being a great VPS company with fantastic support to a mediocre and over-priced Shared Web Hosting company with standard (which is to say bad) support.