Quick Technical Support Guidelines

[GatorShashank]

Hello Everyone,

We have had clients who have been with us for many years now and they would agree with the fact that our technical support has always been the standout and consummate part of our services. Our policy and efforts for top notch technical support are still the same and I am more than certain that each of our clients expects us to provide fast and accurate technical support all the queries sent to support anytime of the day. Believe us, we are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week at your service and each member of our support team is more than keen to assist you with your issues. Still, once in a while we get reports from clients where in some issues are being delayed or a ticket not being addressed in a timely manner. Customer Satisfaction has always been our top priority and we are concerned about each such incident. We are making attempts to speed up the ticket response times and reply accuracy which will lower the number of such incidents automatically. We need cooperation from your side as well for this cause. That is the reason why I am posting this thread to pinpoint some general guidelines which clients can use when contacting us for support.

I have been a part of the Hostgator Support team for a long time now and over the years some general anomalies have been noticed with the tickets we get. We understand that most of the times tickets are submitted when there is an emergency and so specifics are usually missed out. In fact, specific information is all we need to provide immediate fixes . So I’ll try and address each one of them as below:

1. Incomplete account information.

We get many tickets a day where in the account information itself is missing from the ticket. Although our new helpdesk has a feature which shows the account information in the ticket itself but if the request has been submitted from an email address which is other than what we have on file, we do not see this information. Following is an example of a ticket sent from a mail account not on file with us where in all the account information is missing:

Ticket Email : something@gmail.com
Ticket Subject : Site down.
Ticket Text : My site is down with internal server errors. Please fix it asap

You can notice above that the mail account this ticket was submitted from neither does the ticket text specify any domain name. We would need to respond to this ticket asking for the domain name which is having these issues which will delay this ticket. But if the same ticket is submitted with the text as below:

Ticket Email : something@gmail.com
Ticket Subject : Site down.
Ticket Text : My site domain.com is down with internal server errors. Please fix it asap

A simple domain.com in the above ticket saves one reply and time for the fix. If you are a reseller and have one of your client’s site affected with some issues, the following format would help us to service your request asap.

Ticket Email : something@gmail.com
Ticket Subject : Site down.
Ticket Text :
My main domain is resellerdomain.com. The site I am having issues with is domain.com. The above site is down with internal server errors. Please fix it asap.

2. Missing Pertinent Issue Information

We get a lot of tickets where in the issues are referenced very vaguely which also delays these tickets. Having precise information on hand about the issue helps us to start working on the actual fix asap, rather than guessing what the issue might be. A few examples of vague ticket texts are as below:

1. “One of the scripts installed on my domain.com site does not work as expected. Please suggest a fix”
2. “I am not able to receive mails from a friend of mine. He sent me a few mails but I did not get any”
3. “My email does not work”
4. “My FTP does not work”
5. “My Cpanel has some missing icons”
6. “My crons are not running”
7. “Accounts are not installing properly on my server”

You will see that each of the above has the actual site URLs or the mail ids/domains affected missing from them completely. We will only be able to start working on such tickets after we reply back and get the relevant information again from the client. We do not expect tickets to be sent to us in a particular format but a general structure like below would perfect for us resolve tickets without any cross questions.

• Ticket Subject: Site Issues
• Ticket Text :
• main domain : domain.com
• affected domain or URL or mail account : domain2.com or domain2.com/file.php or mail@domain2.com
• Issue explanation with errors: The URL / mail account is having 500 errors or 404 errors or ….. errors.
• Steps to duplicate the error/issue (if any)

You can see above that we would not need to ask for any further information if the ticket is received with the details as above.

3. Missing Login information

At times we do need the exact login information for troubleshooting issues related to ftp and email accounts. So when submitting tickets which have issues isolated to particular accounts and need a password for us to duplicate the error, it would be good if we get this information before hand in the tickets. The helpdesk link https://tickets.hostgator.com is SSL secured and passwords can be submitted from this interface instead of sending them through emails. As a part of the data security measures we apply, it is our policy to verify account information and user identity when clients ask us to do server side changes like DNS record updates, data deletion etc. We usually ask clients to submit the last 4 digits of their Credit card on file or the last paypal transaction id for such verification. To avoid delays due to this verification policy, we would like to urge clients to submit this information when opening the ticket itself if the tasks covered by your ticket involve server side changes.

I believe if you use these guidelines, the actual resolution time for tickets will be reduced by a considerable margin. We have had a new helpdesk recently and we will be having a new billing system soon. These are our attempts to keep things organised and provide quick access to all the aspects of our services. So if we get some cooperation from our clients too, we will be able make the entire Hostgator experience a smooth ride for everyone in the Hostgator Family.

We appreciate any suggestions you might want to get added to these guidelines.

[DarkSorrow]

Well said.

Mr. Shashank has helped me many times and I've also spoke to him a few times on the phone 1:1 with some issues back in my new days

[GvilleRick]

I worked for a few years with another company and agree 100% that one of the main issues that slows down support is incomplete information.

Last weekend I had to submit a ticket and notice a couple of things that were different about the new ticket system compared to the old Kayako system. The new system does not have a specific input field for the domain, username, and password as was the case in the old system. I know some users always complain about having to enter their password but as Shashank mentioned, it is sometimes necessary to have the login to really test the issue.

I would suggest adding those fields to help folks who are entering a ticket (and often pretty stressed over the problems so that they are not thinking of all the details) to get the necessary information into the ticket up front and avoid delays that result when the info is not there.

Even just having something like the following in the instructions would help.

We are always ready and available to answer your questions and provide quick solutions to your problems. Just call us. Please be sure to include your domain and login information in the Message below.

[Goddess Dix]

Thank you for the guidelines-good reminders!

I would also add the reminder NOT to routinely respond to tickets with requests for updates, as it bumps your ticket down to the bottom of the list just like an entirely new request. If you need to check on a ticket status, chat is a better option that won't impact your place in line.

I personally also try to take a few minutes to gather my thoughts before submitting tickets, trying to be as clear and succinct as possible; and I always say "Thank you." Support techs are people, too, y'kno.

[Evil]

Hello, who can help me to set an A Record to one subdomain ?

[striddy]

Originally Posted by Evil

Hello, who can help me to set an A Record to one subdomain ?

How long did you spend reading the first post in this thread, which by the way is in the "General Announcements Forum?" Not long I expect.

[Evil]

Yep. i didn't spend much time reading the post ! :S
Sorry, my prob is fixed, thnx anyway

[DannyD]

Thats why you should have fields that are required like domain, password, server IP etc.

[GatorDavid]

Originally Posted by prilep

Thats why you should have fields that are required like domain, password, server IP etc.

People who don't necessarily have accounts with us send in tickets (spam reports, sales inquiries, DMCA complaints, etc.)

[Speeddymon]

You could always make those fields optional. Then people who don't have accounts with us can still submit tickets. The question is this though. Don't the people who don't have accounts just send an email anyways rather than using the ticket system?

If so, then the additions wouldn't affect them or anyone that just emails their ticket in. Of course personally I think all departments but abuse should give an autoresponse for emails that come in without an associated ticket number saying to submit a ticket. Then they can be reminded of what to put into their ticket, and can reply to responses from your side via email, because there is an open ticket.

[sray]

which password should i write it down in var $password=' ';

[striddy]

Originally Posted by sray

which password should i write it down in var $password=' ';

Did you read any of this thread where it clearly explained that you need to give clear information? Your post is as clear as mud.

What password, what domain.... etc, etc.

You can only expect to get help if you ask questions that someone can understand.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by striddy

Did you read any of this thread where it clearly explained that you need to give clear information? Your post is as clear as mud.

What password, what domain.... etc, etc.

You can only expect to get help if you ask questions that someone can understand.

Plus, digging up a several month-old thread, in the announcements category, isn't the best way to get your questions answered. Since you're not fully activated yet, the "Pre-sales questions" category would be more suitable.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by aralg

I can not take Full Backup
...
pls help me ???

Fastest way to get support is to send an email to support at hostgator dot com.

[Makserver]

Can I ask support where my glasses are?
But serious very well said!

[pacific]

I have a suggestion that would make replies coming back to ME much better.
At present, in the email that I get sent back as a response to my ticket inquiry, there is NO reference to the original question (as in URL, or a quote).

There are only two links showing after the Support signature:

================
Tips for an effective ticket submission:
http://forums.hostgator.com/quick-te...es-t34487.html

Your feedback is extremely important to us. Please rate this response at the URL below...
==============

I can't remember which website I was referring to in my ticket (sorry!), so if there was a link to the ticket request page in the response email, that would eliminate this process:
1.open browser
2.find favorites - Gator Support URL
3.enter login and password
4.find my ticket query and refresh my mind!

Thanks.

[virtvir5]

I'll second that motion. A direct link to the original ticket location would certainly be convenient if the HG response sytem can automate that additional item.

[pacific]

My suggestion is to include the info that occurs (sent to my email) when I do a ticket update. The wording is thus:
Your ticket submission was received. If you want to make a new update to this ticket, please reply to 4232727@tickets.hostgator.com

[virtvir5]

Yup. I definitely did not intend to contradict you and nor to propose a mutually exclusive alternative. It's just that there are various ways to intitiate a support ticket (email, cPanel, etc.) and it would be nice, in any case, to have some kind of "quick return" link in HG's initial ack response.

I suppose a lot depends on how flexible HG's automated system options are.

[systemix]

Hi,

I want to use the eShop function, but one of your stuff said "Some of the modules from sitebuilder have specific server side requirements which our servers do not support yet. So we have these disabled on our installation of sitebuilder. This is the reason why these modules are not available on our sitebuilder installation."

So, how can I create an e-commercial site quickly?

[bfuller]

You will need a shopping cart. Biggest Problem with Sitebuilder is a lot of the shopping carts don't work that well with Sitebuilder.

Bob

[GatorFord]

Systemix,

The eShop module should work for our servers, and if it does not you can open a ticket and let us know and we should be able to resolve whatever's preventing it from working. That being said, I wouldn't personally use eShop from an administrator standpoint if I was planning on building a serious eCommerce site; instead I would go with something like OSCommerce, CRELoaded, Magento, or one of the other more popular and well established shopping carts that are in use and are MySQL and PHP driven. That being said; if you're still wanting to use eShop we do have some information and a tutorial on it at the following location :

http://support.hostgator.com/article...ebuilder-eshop

[gloria46]

Hello to anyone willing to help me get my site up and running ! I am in over my head and do not have a clue how to get things started HELP please

[striddy]

Originally Posted by gloria46

Hello to anyone willing to help me get my site up and running ! I am in over my head and do not have a clue how to get things started. HELP please

Start a new thread noting what you need help with.

[whoeveryouare]

Originally Posted by GatorFord

Systemix,

The eShop module should work for our servers, and if it does not you can open a ticket and let us know and we should be able to resolve whatever's preventing it from working. That being said, I wouldn't personally use eShop from an administrator standpoint if I was planning on building a serious eCommerce site; instead I would go with something like OSCommerce, CRELoaded, Magento, or one of the other more popular and well established shopping carts that are in use and are MySQL and PHP driven. That being said; if you're still wanting to use eShop we do have some information and a tutorial on it at the following location :

http://support.hostgator.com/article...ebuilder-eshop

your video tutorials are very cool to understand how it works. Thanks