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(2:39:25 PM) Jeff: Fair, but isn’t it a security risk to have so many out of date scripts installed?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.