Companies that rely on cloud services may be aware of Rackspace’s reputation for providing what the company refers to as “fanatical support.” This relentless focus on customer satisfaction and zero downtime stems from Rackspace’s unique culture.
Founded in 1998, Rackspace is based in San Antonio, Texas and maintains eight data centers in locations including Texas, Illinois, Virginia, London and Hong Kong to provide its customers with fast and efficient cloud storage service.
Company Culture
Many companies put up cheesy motivational posters on their walls in the hopes that they will inspire employees to work hard and be good team players. Rackspace decided to go with a whimsical cartoonist to bring its employees inspirational messages.
Social Media Director Rob LaGesse hired cartoonist Hugh MacLeod to come up with some inspirational drawings for the company’s walls. MacLeod responded by drawing a cartoon emblazoned with the phrase, “If you’re just here for the paycheck, don’t expect to last long,” which provides insight into the Rackers’ devotion to high quality. Rackspace wound up purchasing hundreds of thousands of dollars of MacLeod’s artwork to hang on its walls and place on items such as t-shirts and greeting cards.
The devotion to making their employees the best doesn’t end at what’s on the walls, though. At Rackspace, employees enjoy such perks as free soft drinks, an on-site coffee shop, free transportation by shuttle between their offices in Austin and San Antonio and the ability to train on technical and non-technical issues via the Rackspace University.
Employees are encouraged to personalize their workspaces. The company gives workers paid volunteer days so they can participate more fully in their community. Any employee who has worked at Rackspace for more than seven years is eligible to take a four-week sabbatical to relax and recharge their batteries.
Harnessing Blog Power
Rackspace knows how to harness the power of blogs. The company hosts dozens of blogs from its employees, including the president, CTO and CEO. If you want to know what’s on the mind of one of the company’s content marketers, you can check out details on her blog and then jump over to see what’s being posted in one of the Linux engineer’s blogs.
This transparency and willing to communicate enables potential customers to gain insight into how the company operates. From engineers to product managers to SMB advocates, you can follow any of these numerous blogs to get the latest news and insights into this cloud services company.
Better Customer Service
Customer service is a key element of Rackspace’s success in the cloud services industry. Employees know that their customers are depending on them to deliver 100 percent uptime for their cloud backup and data services.
Rackspace employees adhere to six company values:
They provide fanatical support, strive for results first while putting substance over flash, commit themselves to greatness, offer full disclosure and transparency in all things that they do, cultivate a passion for their work and treat one another as if they are friends and family.
Companies that want to not only succeed but also thrive and grow will want to study Rackspace’s success and learn from its corporate culture for clues about how to build tight-knit, fanatically supportive teams.
