Expanding the network

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More small-business owners are seeking an online marketplace, prompting a Herndon domain name provider to pump up its service as business grows from merely providing Web site gurus with a domain name to walking Internet neophytes through .com and .org.

"In the old days, most of our customers were tech-centricpeople," said Champ Mitchell, chairman and chief executive officer of Network Solutions. "You didn't buy a name if you didn't have tech savvy ... now small businesses want to be online."

In addition to registering Internet domain names, Network Solutions sells accessories, like e-mail and placement in search engines, and assists customers in building their Web sites.

The company, which until 2000 was the monopoly domain name provider, lists nearly all the Fortune 500 companies as customers, Mr. Mitchell said. But those companies already have their sites and their own Web technicians.

Today's customer is a small-business owner who finds his company has to be online to survive in a world where people "Google" instead of pick up the Yellow Pages to find a product.

"People in small business are not technology savvy and are starting on the Internet," Mr. Mitchell said. "We want to deal with the technology and let them make the choices."

The company, at NetworkSolutions.com, responded by putting a greater focus on customer service this year to meet the demands of small-business owners, which total 90 percent of the company's 4 million customers.Network Solutions has found that to attract small-business owners, it has to assure them they are going to slowly walk through how to put a Web site together.

It's a long way from the Network Solutions of 2000, when the domain name industry was opened to competition and the company went into a tailspin.

"We became the company that lost market share faster than any other monopoly -- we were bleeding cash," Mr. Mitchell said.

Customers waited more than an hour to talk to someone, and employees were rewarded if they could talk the customer into buying a more-expensive package.