2023 has been anything but ordinary for everyone around the world. Although there is something optimistic and hopeful about looking forward to a new year, it’s nice to look back and recognize good fortune, no matter how big or small.

The No-IP team has been fortunate in a lot of ways. For one thing, we surpassed 35 million accounts created over the history of No-IP! This number doesn’t happen overnight: It takes many moving parts and some of the most talented employees to reach this type of milestone. Take a look at how each team has gained new members, made technical advancements, and kept customers happy.

Marketing

There were a lot of exciting developments from the Marketing team last year:

Hats Off to Natalie!

Natalie Goguen, the Marketing team’s Visionary, was promoted to Senior Marketing Manager back in April. However, she’s been positioning No-IP as a market leader in DDNS and managed DNS for the past 13 years. Besides leading the Marketing team, Natalie wears other hats involving team-building events and company growth initiatives. Her impact and contributions are what have helped No-IP be the company it is today, and everyone at No-IP is grateful for the vital role she plays. Congratulations again, Natalie!

Helping Us Help You

In 2023, No-IP embarked on a significant mission to enhance your online experience. We redesigned our blog to be more user-friendly and informative, ensuring you can easily find what you need. Our updated sign-up process and GDPR-compliant strategies provide a smoother and safer experience for you, our amazing customers.

This year also saw the launch of exciting initiatives, including an insightful ebook and a series of engaging content. Our video series simplifies tech topics, making them more accessible and understandable.

Your feedback played a crucial role in our targeted marketing efforts, leading to more relevant and engaging content across all platforms. And this is just the beginning! Stay tuned for more innovative updates designed to improve your experience with us.

Customer Success

The Customer Success team has been busy working on enhancing customer experience:

Knowledge Base

The reason we’re so confident in our Knowledge Base is because our stellar Customer Success team keeps it up-to-date and consistent. Who better to refine our database of 331 user guides than the team that works the closest with our clients? This year alone, the team updated, edited, and published over 150 Knowledge Base articles. Most of these updates were completed by Daniel, the CS Team Tech Lead.

The team completed 96 internal tickets that included Knowledge Base additions and updates, service and product testing, creating new tools for the team to use, building new processes, improving skills through special projects, and building internal how-to guides for training and support.

Keep in Touch

Customers have the option of contacting our Customer Success team via ticket submissions, email, or phone call. In 2023, the team accepted over 3,400 phone calls. Interestingly, the phone calls averaged six minutes, which indicates they were issues that the team was able to help resolve quickly.

We encourage our customers to provide the Customer Success team whenever they reach out to us. They are not mandatory, but they are appreciated in order to get a proverbial litmus test on how effectively we’re helping customers. In 2023, the Customer Success team not surprisingly maintained an average Satisfaction score of over 90% throughout the year. You can read more about our amazing US-based Customer Success team here.

Performance Reflects the Leadership

So, who do we thank for leading all these awesome metrics? Jenny Baker, whom many of our users have had the pleasure of working with or speaking to over the years, was promoted from Customer Success Supervisor to Manager in November!

In her new role, she will work with leadership to develop and drive new team goals and initiatives that raise the level of service No-IP provides. Additionally, Jenny will coordinate with other department managers to ensure alignment and support new features and products. Furthermore, she will lead Department L10s and communicate company initiatives to the rest of the Customer Support team.

Development and Software Engineering

The Development and Software Engineering teams made lots of strides in improving our products and features and expanding the No-IP team. Our VP of Engineering, Kyle Beach, and Jason Puccinelli, our VP of Operations, had a number of things to share that happened throughout 2023 for both teams:

Welcome Back!

The Development team welcomed back Nick Wehrhan, who used to be an intern at No-IP before moving to Berlin, Germany, full-time.

Partnerships

In the past, customers would always ask if we were a Virtual Private Network (VPN) company, but now it’s a service we offer! We partnered with IPVanish to offer No-IP Customers exclusive pricing for VPN services. No-IP developed another partnership with DigiCert for all new Secure Socket Layer (SSL) offerings.

It’s a Launch Party!

There were a number of launches last year:

• Vital Encrypt DV SSLs that are now available with Enhanced, Pro, and Plus Dynamic DNS
• Pro Dynamic DNS, which provides a new professional service with the flexibility to host Dynamic DNS on a custom or No-IP owned domain
• Dynamic Update Client (DUC) Keys, which enable customers to generate unique and secure credentials for Dynamic DNS update clients

Improvements

There were a number of customer-facing improvements this year. For instance, the team implemented an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) across the company.

We are always working to support our international customers, and we now provide full translation support for No-IP emails in Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Italian. Furthermore, all No-IP emails have been revamped to support translated content.

You can also thank the Development and Engineering teams for improving our sign-up flow to make it more streamlined for customers to sign up for No-IP, as well as the numerous UX/UI improvements to No-IP’s customer portal, including a dark theme. Billing has become easier with added support to pay with Google Pay and Apple Pay.

Infrastructure

David Jonas, our VP of Platform and Chief Architect, shares a few behind-the-scenes work that happened in 2023:

Welcome Aboard!

No-IP welcomed a few new members this year. Jonathan Reed as a DNS Site Reliability Engineer back in April. In less than a year, Jonathan helped upgrade the entire DNS network and substantially improved DNS network metrics, visibility, security, and, above all, management. Joe Garrigan also joined the team as a Platform engineer. This role spans both the disciplines of system administration and software development with the goal of providing a cohesive and reliable environment to develop and run applications, which one could refer to as a “platform.” Although he started in November of 2023, his presence has already impacted the team.

A Team Effort

The Infrastructure team spends a good amount of time supporting initiatives that come from other teams. A big project this year was PHP upgrades, particularly for the dynupdate service. The team also welcomes support from other teams. In particular, Aden Webster from the Customer Support team has been instrumental in continuing the No-IP headquarters office upgrades. A big round of applause to Aden!

The Infrastructure team also acts as a small software development team. In 2023, they made major progress on a new DNS backend and API to power No-IP. This is a huge thanks to Emilio Wuerges for shouldering most of the weight. We expect to have our first customers on it early in 2024!

Special Shoutout

A lot of what the Infrastructure team has accomplished is special thanks to Chuck Musser. Without his hard work and flexibility, this blog would be much shorter!

Dynamic Connections Week

A very special event No-IP held in August was Dynamic Connections Week. All members of the team, remote and on-site, were invited to Reno, Nevada, for team-building, bonding, and networking opportunities. It was even a chance for some employees to meet the team in person for the first time. The event was a huge success! You can read all about it here.

Looking Forward to 2024

There are good things to look forward to in 2024, and we cannot wait to reveal some new changes and improvements to our customers in the upcoming months!