GUS2CAS: Improving our hosting services across the globe

Setting up hosting services in ‘foreign’ territory isn’t something that you can set up in a day, not even if you’re already an international hosting provider. Step-by-step you build up your business, paying attention to your customers’ demands and evolving your proposition accordingly. At Leaseweb, this process became a large ‘behind the scenes’ project we dubbed GUS2CAS. We are very happy to announce that last week, we successfully deployed the first phase of this project. We’ve added important new features to our website based on customer feedback and improved the back end of our ordering system. Read on to learn what has been changed.

What’s new
So what changes will directly impact our customers?

• All US products are now available in dollars
• Automated credit card payments (via a new payment service provider)
• Many usability improvements to make browsing our website hassle-free

Another big part of the project was separating all Leaseweb companies, also known as our legal entities, within our ordering system. As you may know, last year Leaseweb successfully expanded into Germany and the United States, giving us a stronger local presence. However, when ordering services and products through the website, you would still enter into an agreement with Leaseweb BV, the Dutch entity of Leaseweb. This also meant that ‘officially’ you had to contact Leaseweb Netherlands if you had a question regarding your product or service.

Now, when you place your order through Leaseweb.com or the Leaseweb Customer Portal, your contract will be with the Leaseweb subsidiary that’s in the same geographical location. For instance, when you order a server located in the Netherlands, you will get a contract from Leaseweb BV. If you order a US-based server, you will get a contract from Leaseweb USA, inc. This new system allows us to offer more service locations, giving our customers more choice globally.

Deploying GUS2CAS
Monday last week, at the brink of midnight, it was the moment of truth. Big projects like GUS2CAS affect a lot of different company applications. To ensure minimal impact on our customers, an overnight deployment was chosen. That evening a big team of dedicated web developers, system administrators, networking experts and project managers gathered in Leaseweb HQ to work their magic.

It was a long night, with everyone working at full speed to get the deployment up and running. At four o’clock in the morning, phase one of GUS2CAS went live. Afterwards, the whole team worked until seven o’clock to make sure everything was functioning correctly. A couple of minutes later we already had our first US client ordering through the new system – without any problems!

Tired but content, the red-eyed deployment team went to bed while a fresh team of developers came in, ready to deal with any incidents that might occur. We are very proud to say that no major incidents were reported. So all in all, the deployment went as smooth as could be!

The future
With phase one deployed, all improvements for Leaseweb USA, inc. are implemented. In the next couple of months we will focus on getting the new features for our German counterpart live. Of course we made sure all customer information is still correctly registered in our Customer Administration System (we call it CAS for short). This, by the way, is also where the name of the project came from: Germany & USA to the Customer Administration System.

Earlier customer satisfaction survey results and feedback picked up by our customer support department were used to determine some of the basic features. Customer opinion has always been very valuable to Leaseweb, precisely because it gives us a good indication of what to focus on. So please keep on giving your feedback to make sure we always exceed your needs! You can send your suggestions to info@leaseweb.com, tweet them to us (@Leaseweb), or leave them below in the comments.