What are your general preferences when it comes to your hosting. Do you prefer to have the personal touch from a small company, or do you prefer the anonymity of being lost in the crowd with a big company? There are pros to being with bigger companies, so does the personal touch win over them for you?

Not just for me but I think the personal touch win over if the rest of things (e.g. support) are good

Testimonials from our customers suggest they prefer our personal touch. It's always been our policy to refer to a customer by name rather than sir or madam. And we always try to deliver more than they expect in terms of support.

I prefer personal touch - this is a big reason that we colocate with the company that we colocate with

I also prefer personal touch.

I like to be treated as a human instead of just a hosting package buyer, so I prefer personal touch, be it comes from a big or small hosting provider.

Personal touch, for sure.

I'd rather wait for manual account verification and phone verification from the hosting provider, as we do to our own clients. "Hey there Bob, this is Joe from [company name] and we're just reviewing your account details and confirming your phone number on file. Your account should now be active and you will be receiving an email soon with the details. While I have you on the phone, do you have any questions regarding your account?"

That'll woo new customers and let them know you're on top of your business. We go further than that, but thats something anyone and everyone CAN do yet most do not.

I think personal touch goes a long way. Even if there is a mistake made I am more likely to respond positively to someone who is being sincere and honest with me. And I do like to be called my name instead of Madam.

I tend to feel the same, and having been with a couple of the bigger hosts and been disgraced by their level of service, and the fact that they will drop you like a stone as soon as something goes wrong, I avoid them. Other than the price, is there much that drives people to the bigger places (other than ignorance perhaps?).

Most of our customers tell us that a personal touch does matter. If the host is providing a reasonable quality service, they will likely stay with a smaller host. I think that is true for any kind of business or service.

I don't think anyone prefers to be lost in the crowd. People want dependable web hosting with good customer support.

The only people who would want 'lost in the crowd' would either be those who:

Know everything, need no support.
Scammers, fraudsters, etc. Just trying to be under the radar.

Exactly!!! My vision is to keep it small business, it is what (essentially) drives today's economy...as crappy as it may be!

When I purchased my hosting package, I also got phone verification to activate my account. They even sent me an email first to ask when the most convenient time to call me is. They mean business.

The only negative is if you are a really small company and you have limited hours...or you have a client that urgently needs hosting (maybe his current host shut down, whatever the case may be). Then you will want automatic setup (which we do). If we have any questions or want to follow up (most accounts we do), we give them a call.