In this interview, we had a great pleasure to talk with Mr. Vladimir Duka from Unlimited and learn more about this success story.
Take a few minutes to read this excellent interview and learn more about it.
You have been on the market for more than 6 years now. What is the story behind UNLIMITED.RS company?
The first international company from our group was established in 2008. The idea of starting a hosting company in our native Serbia was born back in 2011. to be realized four years later in 2015. The goal was to transfer the successful model we have with brands abroad to our domestic market. Speed of service – primarily website response, security, reliability, and support, and that the price is acceptable to the vast majority of the population. We knew how to do it and maintain it in the long run, but the question was how to present it to users in Serbia.
Although we did not advocate the UNLIMITED.RS space to be the basis of Web hosting offers, it was unanimously decided that the brand be called UNLIMITED.RS. The idea is to make it a simpler choice and to bring a dose of carefreeness to users who are thinking about how much space they actually need. We especially liked the idea of removing a lot of unnecessary restrictions and that even the basic package provides everything that users need.
Our website and offer became available on the Internet exactly at midnight on February 1, 2016. Maybe half a year for preparations seems too long, but keep in mind that everything was done from scratch even though it may not have been necessary at the time, from our own network in multiple locations, RIPE NCC membership, buying and setting up multiple servers, creating a bilingual site, putting the whole system on its feet, implementation of card payments from the very beginning, arranging offices and hiring people.
We noticed that you were developing your company from 2011 and you opened in 2015. What were the challenges that you faced when you were starting out?
In the first 8 months, we reached 300 clients. It was harder than we expected, because, although a detailed market analysis was done and a competitive offer was provided, we still thought that something was missing. However, from the feedback we would regularly receive from customers, we knew we were going in the right direction. Each market reacts in its own way, and the Serbian market definitely reacts somewhat more slowly than others.
In 2015, a large number of providers in the region didn’t even provide SSL with the basic packages. We thought that this is not a fair approach, because by doing so you are automatically forcing people to buy the bigger package since SSL is something that is necessary. That’s why we decided to offer everything you need for carefree work in the smallest package. We are probably the first in Serbia to introduce daily remote backup on all packages, it may not be necessary, but it is important because – backup is most important only when needed.
The rather monotonous offer of VPS and general hosting services on location in Serbia has accelerated our plans to expand our services directly to locations in Serbia, and at the beginning of 2019, we built our own network in Belgrade in the largest data center in Serbia. The SMART VPS packages presented then still offer the best value for money, not only in Serbia but also in the region and the personalized offer of Dedicated servers with our maintenance is recognized as a favorite among business users in Serbia and abroad.
What are the main products and services of UNLIMITED.RS?
Our main products are our Web Hosting Packages – https://UNLIMITED.RS/ Which were significantly improved in 2019, with only minimal price increases. The hybrid storage system completely switched to SSD, Cloud resources doubled, Apache was replaced by LiteSpeed on all packages, users received support for Shell access, Remote MySQL, NodeJS, Python, Ruby, and later for Redis separate instance. Now the SpamExperts outgoing filter is active by default on all packages, which greatly reduces the chance of sending an email ending up in a spam mailbox. These by the look of it, small things, represent our strength.
Another very exciting thing for us is that from 16.12.2020. we started offering Belgrade, Serbia, as the location of the server for all Web hosting packages, at the same prices as before. Of course, the location in the Netherlands is still available, and the user can choose where he wants to host the data. In addition to the new location, we have improved our existing tools and introduced Memcached caching with OPTIMUM + and larger packages.
We noticed that you are offering Audio streaming as a product. Can you tell us a bit more about this product?
Since not a lot of hosting providers offer those services in Serbia, we taught it would be very interesting to include them in our offer. And it turns out we were right! Audio streaming, or radio streaming, is a service for transmitting real-time audio over the Internet. With this advanced Internet technology, there are no limits: you can be heard globally, on all continents. And you don’t need any licenses or permissions for broadcasting! In addition to that, we also offer Video Streaming, which is not listed on our website, but we can deliver it at the request of our users.
What are the main markets where UNLIMITED.RS is present at the moment? Are you planning to expand on other markets as well?
We are a Serbian company, so our main market is Serbia. But we are also very present in the Balkans, as we have users from Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, etc. We do plan to expand our market towards Europe, but there are a few economic limitations we are facing in terms of payment, taxes, etc. so it is a slower process than we would like it to be.
Customer satisfaction is very important for each company. How UNLIMITED.RS is handling customer satisfaction in general?
We strive to have maximum efficiency. Our idea is that the users have complete and UNLIMITED.RS freedom, from simple and mostly instant domain registration, domain nameserver management, free redundant Apollo DNS, migration EPP code on click, and centralization of all services and domains through a single user panel. For all the mentioned processes and almost 99% of the requests, it’s not necessary to contact technical support at all, and when that is inevitable, there are many ways to do so – from live chat on the website to phone available at least 12 hours a day, and 0-24 support via email or ticket. We also thought about security, you can use additional verification by phone or computer to further insure yourself.
Gathering professional and kind people who will be committed at all times and give their maximum was definitely the biggest challenge. Providing quality customer support has been a priority since the very beginning. Our technical team will provide support over the weekend and at midnight, even on the first day of the New Year, there will be no difference. The average response time to a support ticket in the past 2 years is less than 40 minutes. Our technical team doesn’t start from the fact that the problem is on the user’s side, so we investigate every user request in detail, and with advanced monitoring systems that monitor services from multiple global locations, we identify the problem before the users even notice it.
A lot of customers are not familiar with hosting, how it works and what are the services. What is your approach with these customers?
Well, there is no shame in that, that is our approach! And let’s be honest, how many of us would actually know anything about the hosting industry if we weren’t working in it? Not a lot, we imagine. We try to level with them and explain all this “complex” hosting technology with terms they are familiar with. We often use the comparison – the domain is the address, hosting is the land and the website is the house. So you need land to build a house on, and you must have an address. Also, we tried to cover all of the potential questions, processes, and unfamiliar terms in our knowledge base and blog posts. The key is to be understanding, polite and we strive to provide every customer with the best possible solution for their needs. It should be mentioned that no one will be left without an answer, even in cases when they are not our users.
There are new technologies, products, and services on the hosting market each year. We are sure that from 2015 until now there are a lot of products that have made a difference in the hosting industry. What is your opinion on how fast the hosting industry is changing? Are there any new technologies that you are tracking and planning to introduce in the near future?
Great question, we are extremely proud to have brought some technologies that are not common in the Web Hosting market, even on a global scale. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) in delivering dynamic pages, which we plan to further improve as new versions arrive, as well as well-known object-cache services such as REDIS and MemCached which are separate instances on the server you manage from your cPanel. In addition, various optimizations at the server level for faster response, which is our main goal – that each website works as fast as possible at all times.
If we talk about the Web hosting industry in general, I think that the key moments have already happened, we have entered the mature years, similar to the mobile phone industry. It is up to us to constantly bring even small valuable changes for users in the form of tools that we develop on our own.
We have to mention the Covid-19 pandemic and its influence on the hosting industry. Has this pandemic affected your business in any way? What is your opinion about the hosting industry when the pandemic is over?
To be completely honest, it did not affect our business, but we are aware that it did affect others, as well as our customers. With that in mind we as a provider tried to be a helping hand as much as we could, we offered deferred payment, various forms of incentive, etc. all in order to be of support to our users and continue our successful cooperation. In some sense, the pandemic also contributed to the industry demand, as everything has shifted to the online world (as a new normal) we are not sure in which percentage, as we are constantly growing as a business, but it certainly did.
You have been on the market for 7 years now. What are your plans for the next 7 years? Where do you see UNLIMITED.RS?
Well, like any other business we will strive to grow the number of our users and continue to improve our offer and services. We are of the opinion that the belief – foreign hosting providers are better than the local ones – is completely wrong and that this kind of generalization is bad, like any generalization after all. In fact, from our experience, the most catastrophic scenarios came from the largest and most famous companies, not to mention them publicly.
We are glad that Serbia has great hosting providers and people who do it properly, certainly much better than many companies abroad. We are proud that we have influenced the situation on our market to improve, that we have set certain trends and standards that many have adopted. And the best is yet to come.
Finally, is there anything else you would like to share about UNLIMITED.RS with the hosting community?
We want to thank our users for the trust and support they have given us! Also, we are very proud of the fact that most of our customers came to us through referrals, and we know that a good referral is the best ad. Even though our ads are visible on Google, multiple local and national radio stations, as well as on social networks, our statistics show that a recommendation is perhaps the most common source of new users, which we are especially pleased about.
We can promise our current and future customers that we will be your safe partner and that together we will celebrate our next big jubilee.
