First week experiences

[n1313]

I am a new customer, and this is my story about HostGator and its technical support, based on one week experience. I apologize for mistakes in the following post, I am not native English speaker, so please bear with me

Fo this first week I had a lot of different problems. Long story short, the Live Chat is great. I really enjoy the speed of response of these guys -- they solve my small problems in seconds, literally.

The ticket system, unfortunately, isn't that good. First of all, the email notifications of answers don't have the link to the ticket itself, so I have to do some clicking in order to view the whole conversation. The next bad thing is that tickets are processed by several admins, and it is not rare situation when their answers to my question contradict each other. So be prepared for some confusion that might occur on difficult issues.

And another bad thing about ticketing is that these level 1 admin guys sometimes don't have time or knowledge to look into the issue thoroughly. I asked them via ticket if they can tweak MySQL configuration on my server to allow me do full-text searches on three-letter words (by default it is restricted to four letters or more). They refused to do this and sait that this will put too much load on the hardware. I replied that my site is not MySpace and it receives mere thousand of visits per day. I also mentioned a story of my friend (he also hosts here), who asked for the same thing last summer and was satisfied immediately. The answer was still "no". So I decided to escalate this issue by myself and went directly to Doug (user GatorDHanna on this forum), because his posts looked very, erm, kind and caring My decision was right, as Doug forwarded my ticket to Ford, a level 3 administrator, who listened to my reasons and resolved my issue in my favor in a blink of an eye. Hurray, happy ending!

Well, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that these level 1 guys were ignorant or not qualified enough to handle the case. I understand that dealing with such great number of clients can be quite tough, and there is always possibility of miscommunication or misunderstanding. Maybe that was the case. Anyways, I am fully satisfied now, thanks to Doug and Ford's efforts. HostGator is good.


p.s. I am especially pleased by the politeness and patience of the support, even when I do something stupid

[GatorDHanna]

Thanks for your post and for your honest review.

Our level one administrators are able to resolve a vast, vast majority of problems, but other people are always available in case a problem cannot be resolved. I'm glad to hear that you gave us a chance and that we were able to help you quickly and easily.

Thanks again for the kind words! Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.