Meet a Helpful Human – Marsha Bennett

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

Growing up on a peaceful river near Lake Michigan, Marsha Bennett spent her childhood fishing and taking long walks in the woods. After being introduced to video games as a teen, Bennet’s fascination with tech was born. 

She eventually moved to Lansing and began taking classes at Lansing Community College, where she graduated with an Associate of Applied Sciences focusing on Chemical Technology. She then received her Bachelor of Science in Information Technology with a focus in Software Engineering and a Master of Science in Management Information Systems through the University of Phoenix. 

Bennett arrived at Liquid Web in September 2017 on the Windows Team, and she currently serves customers globally as a Support System Administrator I.

I heard from people who worked at Liquid Web about the exceptional culture. Not only are there great benefits and perks (like a break room with food and beverages, a weight room, showers, and virtual company parties), but Liquid Web also offers an amazing benefits package. On top of that, positivity and team collaboration are two great qualities of the Liquid Web company culture.

The customer appreciation we receive is very rewarding. Recently, I assisted a customer who was the victim of a ransomware attack. This ticket was a worst-case scenario of what a customer can experience when a ransomware attack occurs, as the backups were compromised and no antivirus, antimalware, or Internet security solutions were installed on the server, which could have possibly helped to avoid the attack. I took ownership of the ticket and was eventually able to access the server via console. When everything was taken care of, the customer was so relieved. Though they thanked me specifically, it was a team effort. 

I always recommend customers ensure they have backup best practices covered for just such a circumstance, in addition to ESET Antivirus and other Security and Compliance Products, such as PCI Compliance, Vulnerability Assessment and Scanning, and Threat Stack Oversight.

Teams collaborate at Liquid Web to ensure customers have the best experience possible. And we lift each other up, too. Our teams frequently boost each other, expressing gratitude for jobs well done and appreciation for explaining internal processes or how specific products work. Happy teams mean positive interactions with our customers. We love that we can make a difference in customers’ experiences and show how much we care through our Helpful Hosting.

Liquid Web offers exceptional hosting support and goes above and beyond with Beyond Scope Support. Technicians at Liquid Web care about customer happiness and success and are willing to take the extra time to dive into technical issues and provide the best solutions to customers.

Once, I had a customer that opened a ticket for an issue on a Fully-Managed Plesk server that had a MySQL InnoDB corruption, but the customer didn’t have backups. The ticket was escalated and I took it over. I was able to repair the corruption, noting for reference the article and the exact commands I ran, along with the results. The customer requested their data be restored as well, which I found and restored, to the customer’s relief.

Through hard work and attention to detail, becoming a Support System Administrator (SSA) was a significant accomplishment for me. Moving into the SSA role has allowed me to improve my product knowledge and teamwork skills, which means I can be a more productive member of the Windows Team and be a point of escalation for internal teams.

Backups are critical for any customer. I assisted a customer with their Data Protection Manager (DPM) Backups, working to ensure their backups were healthy. I was able to alleviate the strain on the DPM server resources by adjusting the protection group schedules to lessen the load at any one time. 

A good backup strategy in place can help customers with audits as well as grant peace of mind in having a backup solution that meets their needs. 

I enjoy explaining how our products can help customers, especially our Windows Managed Engineered Services (MES) products. These products provide centralized authentication and management, high availability, and backup solutions for our customers. In addition, our Windows Team has talented engineers that work diligently in the background to make these options possible for our customers. I am very fortunate to work with such a capable team.

My favorite hobbies include reading, gardening, cooking, fishing, Magic: the Gathering, and practicing the concertina.

I would choose actor, pianist, and artist Anthony Hopkins as my dinner date. He has such talent in any role he dedicates himself to and is a fascinating individual to watch in interviews. Recently, I discovered that he originally wanted to be a concert pianist and is a painter and philanthropist. I enjoy following him on social media, where he frequently posts himself playing piano pieces while his cat watches.