In the PaaS/SaaS industry, if you are not working exceptionally to provide the best experience to your customers, then you are tarnishing the image of your brand. These are changing times. The customers around the world are asking for great experiences from the services they are using. As Brian Solis aptly says: “Experiences are more important than products. Products are manifestations of the experience you want people to have+share.”
Since the years we have launched, our growth has been exponential. The biggest chunk of our growth pie goes to our users. They made us understand what they want from Cloudways by giving us their constant feedback. We kept on making different changes to our online territories – website, platform and support center – with the help of the feedback from our users. Although, our current platform and website met the needs of our customer requirements effectively, however, something felt missing.
To fill the gaps between our users and the promised Cloudways experience, our intuitive developers went ahead and redesigned the web interface giving birth to “Cloudways 2.0,” a new way of using Cloudways.
The New Cloudways 2.0 hems in some surprises for our customers and clients across the world.
Change best fits the need of our customers when they get the chance to share their personal insights over a product or service. Hence, we did the same; we launched the New Cloudways Platform in the invite-only private beta mode for our customers to test it. To do so, we hand-picked a few of our customers and asked them to test the Cloud Platform. We made it easy for our users by doing a small survey, consisting 5 questions, for them to fill and answer.
And here is what our customers had to say about it.
How likely is it that you would recommend the all new Cloudways Platform (2.0) to a friend or colleague? (0= Not at all likely and 10= Extremely likely)
Based on the feedback received by the testers, on average, the Cloud Platform was rated a whopping 8.8. For us, an 8.8 rating means there is much to do to improve the new platform. However, we believe we have done a fairly good job on our homework. 😉
What is your first impression about the new Cloudways Platform?
When we started designing our new platform, we wanted to make sure that our first impression has a lasting impact on our users. With the collected feedback, I think we were able to pin the cloud where it mattered the most. This is what some of our customers had to say as their first impressions about the revamped Cloud Platform:
“It is much more modern and clean than the old one.” – Andrea from WP Site Care
“It is awesome! I love the material design! I am excited that it looks responsive (haven’t tried it). However, it’s still got some bugs.” – Tevya from Fiddler Studios
“It is more compact. So it is easier to see everything on the page without scrolling down.” – Media Lounge
“Very much improved. Feels more modern and seems to account for everything we need it to do.” – Joslex Studios
“I did not think you could make your already easy to use interface even simpler, yet somehow you managed to. I love the new layout – it is clean, attractive, and functional. Just how it should be!” – Fat Panda Design
“It looks a lot cleaner with a more modern design; I think some of the font sizes are a bit small especially the help boxes. Some panels are slower to load than others, at first I thought it was broken as I did not see the loading graphic top left.” – Ed From LimeSharp
“Modern and nice looking, a HUGE improvement which was long overdue.” – Daniel From KnightDigital
“Clear, easy to understand. Viewing all apps at once is a great idea.” -Christian From la Compagnie Descartes
“I like the flat, minimalistic look; the UI is beautiful as well as the functionality.” – Clydeof
“Nice soft, clean and intuitive. Thanks” – Thomas Andersen From Flower Factory.
These are only some of the feedbacks we got regarding the Cloud Platform. Some other adjectives that used for the console include:
- Cool
- Attractive
- Minimalistic
- Responsive
Now, this looks pretty promising!
How easy was it to get along with all the features and actions?
The majority of the testers found it Extremely Easy to get along with the new Cloud Platform. This means that we were able to live up to the expectations our customers had from us.
Recommend any Top 3 improvements that you think must be a part of the Cloudways (2.0) Platform.
Nothing is perfect. Every software has a bug (This is extremely Normal), and so does the new Cloudways Platform. When we asked our testers to recommend us the top 3 improvements, here is what they had to say.
Now, we can not list all the feedback we got, as it would become quite tiring to skim through it all. However, below posted feedback is a crust of our customers, what they want from us.
- Many our testers were of the view that the usage of White color inside the console was a bit too much to the eyes.
- Some testers want to have the feasibility of doing more via the browser, instead of using the SSH function.
- The feasibility of the console could not appeal to some, as a few of the testers found it difficult to scroll through their servers from the Server Managed tab.
- Some users had issues with the icons on the site, along with the font. For some, they are tiny and, at the time, unreadable.
Rest assured, all the recommendations are under review, while some major ones have been dealt with on priority basis. I am sure you would notice the change in the Beta Release of the Console.
Do you have any other thoughts on how to improve further?
Most of our testers were a bit confused about the new feature, Projects, that we have integrated into the console (we are already aiming to improvise). As stated earlier, many users found it difficult to read through but were impressed with the layout on the whole. Along with that, one more recurring feedback we got, concerned about the Team Feature. Users feel that more customization settings for permissions would be beneficial, specially regarding application access.
As for the rest, our users were all praise for the platform, praising Cloudways for being awesome and providing an outstanding service.
Wow, now that is some feedback.
Considering that this post is only a crust of the total number of feedback we got from our testers, we are restlessly awaiting for more!
Feedback is not the only thing we went out gathering from our customers. We wanted to see how much our users love Cloudways. Moreover, we were honored to see the responses. Here are some of their testimonials that they presented as an extract of what our users think about us.
Mitch Wainer from DigitalOcean says,
“Its awesome. You guys have designed a great platform. It looks very user friendly.”
Dennis Morrison from Magnet Builder says,
“With Cloudways, I always know I am using the latest technology. They are focused on creating a user-friendly interface which gives you the confidence of knowing that your server is highly protected. Seconding there exceptionally fast hosting is their amazing customer service and support. What I must say for every domain owner Cloudways is my first choice for web hosting.”
Christian J. Baudchon from la Compagnie Descartes says,
“At MapsCompany.com, we sell printed maps – and above all, we want to focus on the special relationship we build with our customers, providing them with the exact map they need to fulfill great trips across the planet. However, to succeed, we need to maintain 3500 products, all in English and French, with six different websites combining Woocommerce and various plugins, across four different countries… Without Cloudways, it was a nightmare. Now, we manage seamlessly various hosting providers depending on their geographic and technical advantages. Put simply; Cloudways is an awesome platform that enables us to focus on our core business responsibilities. Moreover, their new interface is even better than the old one – clearer and faster.”
Christian Johansson from lclondon says,
“The fact that Cloudways regularly enables new features and stays updated with the internet web standards – makes our lives a whole lot easier!”
Ryan Sit from PicClick.com says,
“Cloudways has been the greatest and easiest improvement by far that I’ve done to my business in the past few years. I have not found any other setup easier and scalable than Cloudways. Every needed feature is there, and all the latest ones like PHP 7, WordPress 4.5 and Magento 2 are quickly accessible. Site speed for SEO is one our critical requirements. Cloudways allowed us to move server locations/hosts around and tune to the fastest speed we have ever seen. Most importantly their customer support and response time is second to none. PicClick.com loves Cloudways, and are happy to support them in any way we can!”
Riccardo Silano says,
“We are using Cloudways to host a dozen of VPS. OS security updates work like a charm. Indeed, I have nothing to do to make it happen; Moreover, CW customer service takes care of our queries in the best possible way, and support is always reachable.”
Ben Schwartz from FatPandaDesign says,
“I did not think you could make your already easy to use interface even simpler, yet somehow you managed to. I love the new layout – it is clean, attractive, and functional. Just how it should be!”
Jeff from Joslex says,
“Very much improved. Feels more modern and seems to account for everything we need it to do. Always happy to contribute!”
Mike Barnett From MediaLounge says,
“More compact, so easier to see everything on the page without scrolling down. The summary page is a very useful page for me especially when you have many servers. Being able to group servers together would be useful by adding a label to each server.”
We launched it in the beta phase but observing its gaining popularity from our customer feedbacks and beta testers; we believe that it is time to shift our console to the new changed Cloudways 2.0.
We would like to present our gratitude graciously to all our participants. The new Cloudways would have never been a possibility if it had not been for the efforts of Team Cloudways!
The changes are quite prominent from the moment you enter into the new Cloudways. You can check out how the new Cloudways Platform is different from the old one by visiting it with your current account e-mail. If you are a new customer, simply sign up and check out what new delights it holds for you.
Owais Khan
Owais works as a Marketing Manager at Cloudways (managed hosting platform) where he focuses on growth, demand generation, and strategic partnerships. With more than a decade of experience in digital marketing and B2B, Owais prefers to build systems that help teams achieve their full potential.
