Disappointed with poor, slow support

[kanjigirl]

Yesterday I set up a new hosting account for a client using WHMCS. Today, after the domain had propagated, his email wasn't working. Attempting to send email from any account on the same server gave this error:

<email address removed for privacy>:
74.52.179.82 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550-gateway07.websitewelcome.com [69.41.248.30]:39005 is currently not
550-permitted to relay through this server. Perhaps you have not logged into
550-the pop/imap server in the last 30 minutes or do not have SMTP
550 Authentication turned on in your email client.
Giving up on 74.52.179.82.

However, SMTP Auth was turned on and always is. Attempting to send mail to any address on this account from a non-HG account resulted in this:

Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 Authentication turned on in your email client.
Last-attempt-Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:51:10 +0000

I spent 40 minutes in support chat this morning with no resolution and was told that I would 'hear from them via email' when it was fixed. Four hours later there was no response of any kind, and no ticket. I submitted a ticket - and then when I went to check the ticket, it gave me a blank screen.

I visited support chat again. They told my ticket 'had been submitted incorrectly' - but all I did was type it in and click the button. My ticket was unusable so I asked the chat tech to help.

I explained the problem yet again. She told me to change my settings in Thunderbird, and I explained that SMTP auth was still on, and that I also got the same error if I tried to send email to the new account in Webmail.

She tried her own Webmail and got the same result, and then said I would need to submit a ticket (via email this time).

So... I did so. Then I went into WHM, thinking that I should have a look to make sure the box at the bottom of the Edit DNS screen was correct for the new account. I started looking at the settings compared to another account that was working properly...

And that's when I found that one of the nameservers was missing a letter.

Last week after reading about this on the forums, I asked HG to set up the template using my own private nameservers. They did so. However, one of them was misspelled when WHMCS created the account yesterday.

I corrected this and voila! Suddenly the client's email is working perfectly - no more errors of any kind.

I wrote HG again and asked them to check my template - and they tell me there is no spelling error in it. But somehow an error got in when my account was created automatically. This is the first time in 30+ accounts that that's happened.

And just now, over 5 hours after I submitted that last support ticket via email, someone tells me this:

If the DNS was changed last night, then there has not been enough time for the new DNS information to propagate throughout the internet.
As for the relay error that you get when trying to send from the server itself, that should now be corrected.

That's right - it was corrected hours ago by me, when I fixed the misspelled nameserver. It was not a DNS issue.

I spent about two and a half hours dealing with this problem today. In the last few months, HG's support times have increased to about an average of 5 hours for the first response, and when the response comes but isn't resolved, and I wind up talking to 2-3 or more different people, I often get a different story from each one. This is very disturbing and I'm hoping that this improves so I don't have to consider moving.

But I'm very concerned at this point. HG had outstanding, fast support when I started with them around 2006, but this is certainly not the case anymore.

Ticket numbers related to this matter:
GDE-2547779
KIR-2547817
JCV-2547646 (Broken after 'submitting improperly')

[GatorJoshL]

Good morning Debbie,

First I would like to apologize that you had a bad experience with our support. I assure you that this is not a usual thing here at HostGator, we pride ourselves on customer support and I hate to see that things were not done properly.

I just tried to call you and got your voice mail, I would like for you to call me back if you have any unresolved issues. You can ask for me and they will send you to me so we can settle anything that has not been taken care of.

I have looked over your post here and your tickets and checked your name server templates. The name servers are set correctly now to:
ns1.nocohosting.com
ns2.nocohosting.com

In ticket GDE-2547779;
This was handled improperly, and I apologize for the time you wasted trying to get this resolved. Although the message mentioned authentication this is usually not the case, it is almost always either the domain is not setup correctly or is set in a remote domains file so the server thinks that the domain is outside of itself and does not try to authenticate locally.

Again Debbie I apologize about this and can be reached at 866-96-GATOR.

Please give me a call or ask to speak to a supervisor if you have any outstanding issues. I believe that correcting the name servers fixes any future issues you might have, but if you have any domains that need checking we will be glad to do that.

Thank you Debbie and I hope we have everything sorted out,

Josh Loe
Sys Admin lv1

[kanjigirl]

Josh,

I appreciate your reply and phone call. Yes, everything seems to be working fine now.

I'm just frustrated that lately I seem to get a different explanation from each support tech I speak to, like there's little consistency or they're not coming in with the same level of expertise. One person will make a suggestion, then the next tech will override it or say 'that was incorrect, you should do this.'

As a web developer I definitely understand the process of elimination in solving a problem, but your support used to reply in 30 minutes and be right on with their answers. It's a lot different now, and I don't like explaining to my clients that they might wait 4-6 hours before their problem is correctly diagnosed, if not (in most cases) quite a bit longer.

Why is support now taking so long with the ticket system? And is there an expected level of expertise among support staff, and training or some kind of reference system that all are supposed to be using when dealing with tickets?

Debbie

[GatorJoshL]

Debbie,

I understand your frustrations, If I was in your shoes I would be agitated myself. Our support time varies from time to time on the ticket system, it just depends on how many tickets we have in our queue. This week we have had an excess of tickets and we work oldest to newest in order to provide the same level of support times to each customer. I apologize that this is taking so long right now. We are right at 200 tickets right now and response times are seeming to be around 1-2 hours.

There is a varied range of support Debbie, If you call in you will talk to one of our Sales or Chat technicians, this is front line of support and is not for issues that should be handled by administrators, such as name server configurations and such. That kind of support needs to be emailed into support@hostgator.com because that goes right to our Administrators. Yes there is a reference system that is associated with the ticket system, that shows history etc. I am not showing the history where the name servers were changed in the first place, if you email in from a different email address it will not show in the ticket history.

Either way Debbie, if you have any further concerns or if there is anything we can do for you please let us know.

Thank you,

Josh Loe
Sys Admin lv1

[GatorBrent]

I sent you a pm a few days ago. I'm moving this thread until you respond back to me. thanks!