Meet a Helpful Human – Chris Stone

We’re the employees you would hire if you could. Responsive, helpful, and dedicated in ways automation simply can’t be. We’re your team.

Each month we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting.

Meet Chris Stone

Chris has worked as a web developer, designer, and manager for 24 years, starting his career pre-Internet building websites on California State University servers. He’s worked with over 20+ companies and contracts, hundreds of clients, and thousands of websites, working with DotNetNuke, ASP, ASP.NET, C#.NET, Telerik Sitefinity, SharePoint (MOSS and WSS), and has been focused on WordPress since 2007. He had been hosting a collocated server at a Liquid Web data center since 2016, and realized how much more support he received from Liquid Web than any other web host he had hosted with. He began to refer clients to Liquid Web, counting on their legendary support to help him and his clients in their times of need. When an opportunity arose in 2019 to join the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting, he jumped at the opportunity due to his belief in our mission and values.

We sat down with him to learn more about him and his journey.

Why did you join Liquid Web?

I joined Liquid Web because I was in a support chat for a client’s website late one night a few years ago, and I realized that in the three years of hosting hundreds of clients at Liquid Web, their Support had always been there to help in less than a minute, without fail, 24/7/365. After years of being on hold for as much as an hour for clients with web hosts other than Liquid Web, I realized I really wanted to be part of the team that did this incredible one minute support thing, so I searched their Careers Page until I found a position where I could make a contribution.

Today, I’m an Affiliate Program Manager and work with a superb, fun, and dedicated group of people on our Affiliate Team.

Is there something specific at Liquid Web that you just love?

I love the Helpful Human culture that flows through everyone, especially internally. At my first All-Hands meeting (our annual Q&A with Leadership), I discovered that from top to bottom, Liquid Web is an open and caring organization. People care about you inside of Liquid Web as much as they care about the company and the customer, which is truly rare. In most organizations, it’s all about profit and the customers: that’s not how it is at Liquid Web. They have built a culture unlike any other.

It’s legit, amazing, and refreshing.

In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?

Liquid Web invests in their employees both personally and professionally. Besides the intangible benefits of working with wonderful people across many departments, the tangible benefits are far superior to benefits I’ve experienced with other companies. We receive amazing health benefits, which are absolutely essential for my family, and it provides much better coverage at a lower cost for us than I have had with other employers. That’s truly something I am grateful for.

Tell us about a truly rewarding experience you’ve had with a customer.

I received a Slack message from a Liquid Web Support team member that I had worked with when I was a client for Liquid Web stating that he was chatting with a former WordPress client of mine who had nothing but great things to say about me. And my former client wanted the Support team member to relay a hello from him to me. I also found out that the client now hosts all of his clients with Liquid Web.

Building relationships that last beyond company and career transitions is both rare and rewarding.

What is one thing you wish our customers knew about their hosting?

I’m constantly sharing comments, posts, and emails with notes about our 59-Second Initial Response Guarantee. But it’s not just the speed at which Liquid Web responds to issues for customers that is impressive. Many other web hosting companies offer triage support, meaning that the initial person you speak with will not have the authority or knowledge to solve your request or issue. At Liquid Web, the first technician you work with almost always has the ability and knowledge to resolve your request or be able to dive with you into the issue and solve it alongside you. Only the worst issues roll into tickets.

Even more importantly, Liquid Web Support handles requests that fall outside the normal scope of work; we call this “Beyond Scope Support.” These are the issues that other web hosting companies won’t touch, and Liquid Web Support techs are happy to dive in and help as best as they possibly can, even though it isn’t necessarily their responsibility to do so. They are that helpful.

I have never encountered this level of support anywhere else in the Hosting Industry.

Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?

I love hanging out with my wife and kids, landscaping, gardening, and cooking. But my favorite pastime is writing and studying fiction literature and screenplays. I have a book of short stories published on Amazon. One of my favorite quotes about writing is by one of my favorite authors Robert Heinlein, “Yes, I write but I only do it in private and I always wash my hands afterwards.”

What is your nickname at Liquid Web and why?

My Affiliate teammates call me “The King of Dad Jokes.” Here’s a few classics that are sure to get your audience staring at you:

“What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?”

“Can you drop an egg on a concrete floor without cracking it? Yes, it is very hard to crack a concrete floor with an egg.”

“Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees? Because they’re so good at it.”

What is your favorite TV show?

I wait until the end of the season and binge watch everything at once so I can enjoy the entire story continuity of the whole season at once. Some of my top shows are Breaking Bad, House of Cards, The Americans, Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, and Man in The High Castle.

If you could have dinner with one famous person [dead or alive] who would it be?

If I could have dinner with any famous person, I’d love to enjoy an evening of dinner, wine, and cigars with Mark Twain. Many don’t know this, but Mark Twain had a dry sense of humor which effortlessly pops out of his work in The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm (and look up his quote on smoking cigars in moderation). His work, and life, is an inspiration to me for my writing on fiction.

We hope you enjoyed our series, and stay tuned for the next Helpful Human profile.