I was just about to get pissed with my current web host. A host that I have been using for a few years now, and that I changed to, after flipping from service to service.
Hostgator has had a few hiccups over the time that I started with them to where they are now. They have grown and acquired tremendously, and typically you would think that the customer service would decline.
The last few times that I have talked to the live chat I have noticed a decrease in their ability to help me out. More and more they are simply trying to get me off the line and to send in a ticket. In the “olden days” the live chat peeps would put in the ticket for me at the least, and in some cases I had them go and FIND someone to fix it while I was chatting. That type of service is amazing.
Problems in Hosting Paradise
Fast forward to a couple of days ago, I noticed the other day that Fantastico still hadn’t been updated with Wordpress 2.7 for this domain. This was important since I tried out 2.7 on a couple of my other sites that I manually install on and I found it was a HUGE improvement(You can search, and install plugins from the admin area AWESOME !!!) ,so when I had a free moment I logged onto the live chat to see what was up. Here is the transcript from December 28, 2008:
(2:37:24 PM) Joseph Ve: has entered the chat.
(2:37:40 PM) Joseph Ve: We currently don’t have an ETA on the next Fantastico update
(2:37:56 PM) Joseph Ve: Until then you will have to either manually install or upgrade Wordpress
(2:37:57 PM) Jeff: Any guess?
(2:38:11 PM) Jeff: 2.7 has been out for a month
(2:38:51 PM) Joseph Ve: Really can’t tell ya. We’d have to roll it out to all of our shared servers (five or six hundred of em)
(2:39:25 PM) Jeff: Fair, but isn’t it a security risk to have so many out of date scripts installed?
(2:40:36 PM) Joseph Ve: If there was a serious security flaw in the older version of Wordpress that comprimised the safety of our hosting plan, we would roll it out asap
(2:41:33 PM) Jeff: Alright, I will have to upgrade manually
(2:41:39 PM) Jeff: Cheers, Jeff
(2:41:43 PM) Joseph Ve: Okay, take care and have a great day!
(2:41:44 PM) Joseph Ve: Thank you for using HostGator Live Chat. If you could take a minute to rate your experience with HostGator as well as my overall performance, that would help us to improve our customer service. To do that, just click the button that says Rate and Exit in the upper right hand corner. The survey takes less than a minute to fill out.
Twitter to the Rescue
So needless to say I wasn’t very pleased with the outcome of this.
But I wasn’t going to kick up a stir yet, I am too busy. I didn’t write a post about it, I didn’t t Twitter or bitch about them on the forums, I simply left a response on that stupid survey conveying the lack of usefulness that I got out of the live chat.
But out of the blue someone at hostgator contacted me on twitter. So I replied to them and told them what was up.
This is when it got fast and the customer service experience got a lot better. I told me the domain that I needed fixed and they GOT IT DONE.
When I asked why this was not something that could have been fix eariler.
HostGator Redeemed….For Now
So there you have it. I should have got the service that I felt was deserved from Joesph (see above) when I went to get some help with the Fantastico service on my account. It wasn’t done not because they have to do them all at once and they have a lot of servers, (Joseph Ve: Really can’t tell ya. …five or six hundred of em) or that it is controlled by Fantastico. It wasn’t done because they didn’t want to put in the ticket, either they didn’t know how (doubtful) or didn’t want to.
I feel that when I put in the horrible review that I did after my online chat session, it flagged something. Not sure how they figured out that I was the right guy though. Maybe they just searched my email that I sent the survey from. But going those extra few steps to contact me vis Twitter, and try to remedy the situation. This puts me back in the good books and prevents me from starting my search for an alternative host.
About Jeff
Jeff,
Thanks for your insightful post. I was the guy who helped you via Twitter and reaching out to customers who mention us on Twitter and/or on their blogs is a big part of my job and a considerable part of HostGator’s customer service strategy.
With that in mind, though, I do want to apologize for the disconnect between the service you got from me and the service you got from live chat. We have mostly great live chat agents who will be happy to find an answer for you and/or submit a ticket on your behalf (agents are supposed to do so and we have a form for them to do specifically), but we also have some that aren’t as familiar with the procedures and policies at the company as others.
When we notice these agents are having problems, we work with them and ensure they get additional help, guidance, and training. I’ll ensure that the agent you spoke to gets this additional help (I am going to talk to his supervisor after I finish writing this comment), but do want to apologize for the inconvenience and frustration.
We try to make our management team available via Twitter and our helpdesk in case customers do run into problems. HostGator’s founder and CEO works with customers on a daily basis and there isn’t a day where I don’t help someone out via Twitter or the forums. We’re committed to delivering the best service experience possible and if you ever feel you’re getting less than that, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me personally.
Thanks again for your post and for your comments.
Douglas,
Well thanks for your help, it was a small thing I just wanted to know the update timeline since I love the ability to simply click the button to update my installation, not that hte wordpress install is hard.
Thanks for going that extra step and helping me not go through all of the work to research hosts for such a small issue. That is real pain in the ass.
I was tracking your convo with them via twitter (my username’s nicenerd), and I’m happy to see they helped you out. I’ve been using them for years as well – and so far I’ve had very little downtime (a big plus after using a host that was down once per day at least), their customer service is usually great (or if I get the occasional hiccup – just email them and ask for a manager or the CEO and you’ll get taken care of real quick).
Honestly I think it is amazing that one of the ‘nets biggest hosts is able to keep their customer service going as well as it is.
Bout the only bad thing I have to say is they don’t let you use a shared account as an SVN server – but oh well I guess you can’t have everything. Guess that’s what I get for being to cheap to pay for a dedicated server
Hostgator great, (not being a fanboy) and their customer service is some of the best. It is just that their live chat people seem to know less and less when I get on there. I am hoping that Douglas is right and they are going to be reviewing any issues that they have.
Hello,
I’m the owner of hostgator and was actually alerted to this post from google alerts. I had already started my investigation into why fantastico wasn’t automatically being updated as it should be. A few minutes later I came across Doug’s news email to the company about the situation and how it was poorly handled by a chat tech.
If you ever run into bad support please do email me at xxxxx@ hostgator.com. Thanks so much!
sincerely,
Brent Oxley
Brent,
Thanks for the note, it is a small thing but I am glad it is being taken seriously.
Keep up the great work, Hostgator is really a jewel in the hosting community. I have had a lot of bad experience in the past and found you guys a number of years ago now and haven’t looked back.
Jeff
We figured out what was happening here’s what one of my lvl3’s updated with me on the situation……
“Ok it’s solved. Turns out that Fantastico had set a VAST majority of our servers to run on the 12th minute of 2am. So when this would happen we would completely blow up their server and our updates would time out. I am randomizing them all now across all the servers and it will work perfectly. ”
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! If something else ever comes up please do contact me.
That is great news.
I am glad that something has been done, and it was something that can be relatively easily fixed.
Cheers,
Jeff