Many businesses, including internet-based businesses, strive to provide "service that exceeds customer expectations". In fact, that is a common phrase used in mission statements for both online and offline businesses. For an internet business, having a website that loads quickly and is available all the time is crucial to meeting customer expectations. To exceed customer expectations, the website must be user-friendly and easy to navigate as well.

Considering these necessities of service that exceeds customer expectations many website owners look to their web designer or website developer to make their website fully functional as an advertising, sales and customer service tool. Website designers and developers certainly play a huge role in crafting a website that works and fulfills customer expectations. What many website owners do not realize; however, is that their commercial web hosting service can truly make or break their website in terms of it meeting customer expectations.

There are four things that are common with inexperienced commercial web hosting service providers that can literally bust the earning potential of an internet-based business. These are commercial web hosting services that experience frequent or unreasonable amounts of downtime, commercial web hosting service providers that go out of business leaving you high and dry, commercial web hosting service providers who don't back-up their servers regularly, and commercial web hosting service providers who do not provide adequate security measures to prevent your website from being hacked.

If you own a website that generates revenue, every second that it is down can result in lost revenues. If your commercial web hosting service goes out of business and takes your website offline, you may lose all of the files associated with your website and the expensive web development features that were put into building your website. Relatively, if your commercial web hosting provider doesn't make frequent back-ups, all of your website information and features can be lost forever.

Inadequate or non-existent security measures on the behalf of your commercial web hosting service can result in your website being hacked by competitors or ornery people which can result in downtime for your business. Inadequate security measures can also decrease customer confidence in regard to conducting online transactions with your company. In a nutshell, the instability or poor business practices of a commercial web hosting service has the potential of totally destroying your company's reputation as an internet business that provides service that exceeds customer expectations.

So, this brings to mind the question - "What should I look for in a commercial web hosting service?"

Important aspects of commercial web hosting services to be considered and compared in the analysis and selection of a commercial web hosting service provider include:

1. The capabilities of the commercial web hosting service provider's servers

2. The access options of the commercial web hosting service's hosting packages

3. The features that the commercial web hosting service offers for email

4. The back-up procedures practiced by the commercial web hosting service

5. The experience and longevity of the commercial web hosting service

6. The reliability and relative downtime of the commercial web hosting service

7. The services and software options made available by the commercial web hosting service

Other things to consider when choosing a commercial web hosting service is the commercial web hosting service's reputation in regard to technical support. The reports provided by the commercial web hosting service that can be used by your company to analyze your website's performance and the source of traffic to your website is also of some importance as is the web-based administrative tools such as an online control panel that enables you to effectively manage your website.