One year -- So far, so good!

[jeff_s]

I've been with HostGator as a reseller for over a year now. So far, so good!

*Service (uptime and performance) ... A+
In a year, I think I have had less than two hours of downtime. (knock on wood...)

*Support:... B- ( sometimes A, sometimes C- )
I seldom ask "simple" questions.

I have noticed lately that support has been leaving tickets "On Hold" after giving a "try and see" answer, rather than rushing to "Close" the ticket. New policy? If so, it's a good thing, and certainly improves my perception that support "cares" about a resoultion, even if it's only for my psychological benefit.

Support is always very prompt. "A" for that. But sometimes more prompt than effective.

My biggest peeve is a support person not reading the question and therefore "answering" the wrong question or replying asking again for information that's already been provided. Next would be receiving a wrong "answer" from someone obviously not qualified -- just pass it up the line without offering a "guess", please. But I have these same peeves with almost any technical support these days, and HG is certainly much better than others in this shared hosting industry. That's how I ended up here.

System administration could/should do a much better job of proactive communication with your valued clients. An informed client is a happier client!! And proactivity would result in fewer support contacts, therefore saving HG money! Answer a question once, before it's asked, instead of fifty times afterwards, yes?

Post a (pre-event) upgrade schedule and (post-change) change log/event log for each server. That could be done right here within these forums via a read-only category containing a thread for each server, for a quick, easy, tidy way to achieve this. You might have avoided two support tickets just from me in the last two days, had such a resource been available.

I've never yet had an account or script suspended (knock-knock again) and I fully understand the occasional need to do so for the greater good of the "neighborhood". But after reading the many justifiably superheated threads here where someone was suspended without notice, I feel this is a case where HG should spare no effort to contact and inform the victim, rather than just letting him discover the suspension hours or days later -- especially for an established client or for a reseller!

All in all, count me as a happy HostGator reseller.

-Jeff_s

Originally Posted by jeff_s

I have noticed lately that support has been leaving tickets "On Hold" after giving a "try and see" answer, rather than rushing to "Close" the ticket. New policy? If so, it's a good thing, and certainly improves my perception that support "cares" about a resoultion, even if it's only for my psychological benefit.

The policy has always been in effect. In reality though as the system will allow you to 'respond' to closed tickets (and automatically reopen them upon every response) it is mainly psychological as you stated. We do care about each and every client and do our best to ensure that you're satisfied by the end of every ticket!

Originally Posted by jeff_s

Support is always very prompt. "A" for that. But sometimes more prompt than effective.

My biggest peeve is a support person not reading the question and therefore "answering" the wrong question or replying asking again for information that's already been provided. Next would be receiving a wrong "answer" from someone obviously not qualified -- just pass it up the line without offering a "guess", please. But I have these same peeves with almost any technical support these days, and HG is certainly much better than others in this shared hosting industry. That's how I ended up here.

With the sheer amount of tickets sometimes it's easy to get confused and 'misread' a certain part of the ticket. While it's something we do our best to reduce there is always a chance that part of a ticket will be overlooked accidentally.

Originally Posted by jeff_s

System administration could/should do a much better job of proactive communication with your valued clients. An informed client is a happier client!! And proactivity would result in fewer support contacts, therefore saving HG money! Answer a question once, before it's asked, instead of fifty times afterwards, yes?

Post a (pre-event) upgrade schedule and (post-change) change log/event log for each server. That could be done right here within these forums via a read-only category containing a thread for each server, for a quick, easy, tidy way to achieve this. You might have avoided two support tickets just from me in the last two days, had such a resource been available.

This is something I personally would like to see implemented for users (a thorough 'changelog' available directly via their cPanel rather than the forums, though). It would save both our end users and ourselves time and money.

Originally Posted by jeff_s

I've never yet had an account or script suspended (knock-knock again) and I fully understand the occasional need to do so for the greater good of the "neighborhood". But after reading the many justifiably superheated threads here where someone was suspended without notice, I feel this is a case where HG should spare no effort to contact and inform the victim, rather than just letting him discover the suspension hours or days later -- especially for an established client or for a reseller!

I certainly agree and we make absolutely every effort to ensure users are notified upon suspension. The majority of the cases that you see here on our forums or elsewhere on the net are simply the result of users having their 'contact' address set to a domain that's hosted on our servers.

The result is that their suspension notice simply doesn't arrive on time (or arrives afterwards).

Continue to enjoy your service!