XXL Webhosting, based in the Netherlands, has been in the hosting industry since 2000. Today, the company manages more than 30,000 websites on its servers and boasts a whole range of clients; from startup entrepreneurs and e-commerce companies to multinational corporations and government institutions.
Like many web hosts, XXL Webhosting had problems with blacklisted servers causing email service disruptions. Blocked email caused frustration on the part of customers, who then tied up the host’s support team with help tickets. It was costing the company considerable time and resources to get off blacklists as quickly as possible and restore customer email traffic.
Blacklisting is a vicious circle. If it is not solved at the root cause, it will happen again and again. When XXL Webhosting’s servers were blacklisted for the fourth time, founder Sander Cruiming realized the company needed a smarter way to deal with the problem.
“It was frustrating to inform customers about a blacklisting, get delisted from all the blacklists and once it was fixed, deal with it all over again the next day because another customer got hacked. We needed to find a solution once and for all,” says Sander.
In early 2017, XXL Webhosting met and spoke with the MailChannels team at a hosting event in Europe. They tested out the MailChannels Outbound Filtering trial version and quickly signed up for the service.
“We had MailChannels Outbound Filtering up and running in two days, it was a smooth process”
1. Improve IP reputation
Frequent blocklisting meant that XXL Webhosting needed to clean up its server reputation fast. The company wanted to be proactive and prevent blocklisting by filtering out spam before it caused their server IPs to be blocklisted.
2. Reduce customer churn
Customer complaints skyrocketed whenever an IP was blocklisted, which caused XXL Webhosting to experience a higher rate of churn. If these issues were solved with a suitable outbound spam filter, Sander and his team felt it would significantly reduce the number of customers closing their accounts and moving to another hosting company.
3. Save valuable resources
The XXL Webhosting team’s time was being taken up in dealing with frustrated customers whose mail had been blocked. The blocklisting problem made their work reactive rather than proactive, troubleshooting the issues rather than using their time to work on something more useful and beneficial to customers and to the company. Outsourcing for a solution would save this valuable time to channel into more productive work.
Prior to signing up with MailChannels Outbound Filtering XXL Webhosting had tested out a popular inbound service that also offers an outbound filter. However, the service proved unsuitable. “The filtering wasn’t accurate enough so spam was still being sent out,” says Sander. “Plus it took considerable resources from the server, like CPU and memory resources. We weren’t happy and the results were not clear enough.”
Cloud-Based
Due to memory issues with its previous outbound spam filter, the company wanted a cloud-based solution offered as a service rather than integrating software onsite. “We had MailChannels Outbound Filtering up and running within two days. We have 60-70 servers using the solution so it was a smooth process,” says Sander.
Excellent Spam Filter
MailChannels Outbound Filtering uses digital signature technology, checking the content of each email message against a real-time updated database of known spam signatures. It tracks dozens of minute-by-minute statistics about each email sender. Unusual trends in message volume, suspicious content, recipient validation failures and other statistical signals enable fast identification of spammers.
Spam Alert System
XXL Webhosting wanted a spam filter that would alert the team immediately once a compromise is detected. “We needed automation so the moment spam is being sent out, we are noticed and can hook into our system to block the individual customers sending out spam. These are automatically noticed about what’s happening without the need for any manual work on our end,” says Sander.