2015, one full year!

It’s late in the afternoon. A few days before New Year. The Customer Support team is en garde -always an alert guardian- but no one else in the company is working today. From the end of the corridor you can hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner (a place where almost 50 people spend their everyday life needs to be cleaned somehow). I feel as if I am ready to tell you the story of the “Christmas Carol”. The Christmas spirit came a bit late but finally made it. We will now take a small trip back in time, in the year that will soon be considered as past.

This story doesn’t have meanness, spirits and social injustice. However, there are some miracles: small, everyday miracles. If you are wondering how miracles come true, I will just tell you two words: faith and perseverance. We believe in our vision and persist in our goals.

If the word ‘miracle’ sounds a bit much for a field such as ours – “But miracles in domains and hosting?!”- it’ s time for our first stop in time. You will soon understand what we mean by “small, everyday miracles”…

First stop: New services & improvements

We love discovering and sharing. We enjoy creating new services in order to make your online presence complete, safe and easy! That is why, in August 2015, we started providing SSL certificates. To make the best possible, we started offering free SSL certificates with the registration of .GR domains.

It is important not only to launch new services, but also improve the ones you already provide. This is our New Year’s Resolution for 2016! And because we are impatient, we have already began by upgrading the Website Builder. We have also improved our domain names: in May we launched the new live search results and our pricing list. In both cases, we were aiming in making the domain choice easier.

Last summer, due to the Capital Controls in Greece, we all went through hard times. We tried our best to accommodate our clients and we ensured the uninterrupted function of our services. After having overcome the first limitations’ period, we decided to enable Bitcoin payments. By doing this, we gave one more payment option to those who are familiar with the Bitcoin but also to those who would like to discover and adopt new trends.

Second stop: Learning & participating

Papaki, is by nature, a restless company. It wants not only to be innovative and up-to-date with new technologies but also offer to the tech community, without exchange. That is how we started the Docker Crete Meetup. The first one took place in October and my sources inform me that there will be a second one in the beginning of the year. Docker is an open source platform which facilitates developers and devOps.

In May, we introduced in our offices, another new and exciting practice: the Lego Serious Play. Even though this method doesn’t have to do with offering to the community, it has to do with improving the communication between teams. Therefore, it empowers the company’s good function and so your own better service. Lego Serious Play is a method for counselling and dealing with issues that a team may face, through Lego constructions. I am looking forward to using it with the Marketing team!

Third stop: New people & knowing-us-better

In 2015, we grew bigger: 13 new persons joined our team. The number 13 may not be considered as a lucky number but we definitely feel lucky with Papaki’s new family members! It is understandable that with more “hands” we get better organised and we become more efficient. We also launched our “Career Page” where one can find Papaki’ s job announcements. You can have a look, if you are interested.

Since we have been growing bigger, we thought you would may like to know us better: to know who you are talking to and who is in charge of the services you use. That is why we started a blog post series called “The Team” where, every couple of months, we present one of us to you.

We also thought that you would be interested in meeting other people that also use our services. That is why, in the end of 2014, we started shooting video interviews with our clients! Last year, we shot seven interviews from Happy People Online! For 2016, we are preparing many more interesting videos! If you enjoy being in front of the camera and you would like us to present your idea, then don’t hesitate… just let us know!  

Fourth stop: Awards

In the beginning of my text, I mentioned vision and aims -those who help us achieve small, everyday miracles! The fact that we made it into the Inc.5000 Europe list, a list with the 5000 fastest growing companies of Europe, is for us a small miracle that happened in March.

There couldn’t have been a better way to end the year, rather with an award! A few days ago, Enartia, the family brand of Papaki and TopHost.gr won the first prize in the category “Small Businesses” for the best Customer Support of the year! For the first time, we had the chance to present the way our Customer Support teams function and how important Customer Service is for us. And we made it! This award means for us that we shouldn’t rest. Every year, every day that passes we have to do our best in order to offer the best: as far as services but also customer support is concerned. An award is not enough. We always expect your feedback to see whether we are making it right or not!

Oops! The Christmas spirit made four stops, instead of three! The point is not to recall moments of the past, but to understand how these moments will help you make your future even better!

I hope that your holidays are filled with people you love!

Last but not least, is our Advent Calendar: full of surprises until the end of the year!

Because Christmas is not only for children!