refugee has tons o questions

[freelancing]

I have been w/ the same reseller for 3 years and have lost almost all of my paying clients due to downtime, poor support, etc. I have been looking for a replacement vendor off and on for months, but the last hurrah was losing one of most faithful clients due to "this is the last straw" and now I've been looking like crazy for the past week to take my business and clients to safer ground. Because I have so few clients left, it shouldn't be that difficult to move them... but I never want to move again because of the pain-in-the-butt factor, so your detailed responses to these questions will be much appreciated.

I've been looking at your plans, what you offer, etc. and it looks pretty close to (and even exceeding in some places) what I have.

Here are my questions:

1.) When a help ticket is submitted, what is the estimated turn-around for a response?
2.) One of my biggest gripes w/ my current vendor is that when something goes wrong and it takes 3 days for them to fix it, their response is always something vague like "a config file was corrupted" so all I can do is act like a total clueless ass to my clients. There have been times when the same problem has cropped up months apart - if I had been told what the exact problem and fix was, I could have told the different support person how it was handled last time to move it along... so my question is -do you give detailed answers as appropriate regarding what has gone wrong?
3.) I see that you have a 99% uptime guarantee - what constitutes downtime? If some mysterious file on a client's site (or all my client sites) gets "corrupted" meaning I have to wait for someone at hostgator to fix it and it takes 3 hours - is that considered "downtime" if the sites are unavailable - would those types of instances be subject to a refund? Or, is it only when the server literally dies?
4.) The biggest exodus I experienced was when my current vendor tried to hide the fact that the server I was on literally died. I waited 2 weeks with "we hope to get your sites back running tomorrow" and for 2 weeks, none of my sites or e-mail worked. The only reason I didn't lose all of my customers was because a few of them probably wouldn't know if their site was down unless I told them. So, What are your backup contingencies in the event of a server failure?
5.) I can move most of my clients myself, as they are static pages - but a few are using databases for different reasons, including phpBB2, vBulletin, etc. Can you guys help me in the copying over from one locale to another in this regard?
6.) I want to have private seller hosting, but I want the transfer to be seemless. I have 2 domains (one currently not being used) that I can use for the private label DNS, but I don't believe my customers (not all of them, anyway) are going to understand about changing the DNS settings on their host registrar sites. If I get an account w/ you guys, can I have a way of getting into the account via your domain to set up accounts and FTP them in before I change the setup on my DNS so that the transition is seamless for my clients?
7.)I have a question regarding site studio. Let's say a client of mine wants it - sets up their site in one month. Can they then stop paying (and stop using) the site studio, but retain the look/design of the site they set up?
8.)Do you have any scripts/programs that you do not allow? My current vendor has a list that I must then tell my clients they cannot install.
9.)ChiliSoft - is the $5 per domain, or per reseller account, then allowing all my clients to use ASP, but me only paying the $5 per mo? If I go w/ ChiliSoft ASP, will all other programs that come w/ accounts still work?
10.)Will each of my clients get their own CPanel? It looks like it, but making sure.
11.) I see that I (and clients) can install programs like phpBB2 via CPanel - but can I (and clients) install this and other programs w/o the CPanel (via FTP, etc.) so as to customize features, etc.?

I probably have a buttload of more questions, but these 11 should be all I need to make a decision.

Thanks!

[GatorJustin]

Originally Posted by freelancing

1.) When a help ticket is submitted, what is the estimated turn-around for a response?

Our goal for ticket response is 12 hours. Typical response time is less than this, but we try to answer every ticket within 12 hours. Remember that you also have access to IM support, as well as Phone support, 24/7.

Originally Posted by freelancing

2.) One of my biggest gripes w/ my current vendor is that when something goes wrong and it takes 3 days for them to fix it, their response is always something vague like "a config file was corrupted" so all I can do is act like a total clueless ass to my clients. There have been times when the same problem has cropped up months apart - if I had been told what the exact problem and fix was, I could have told the different support person how it was handled last time to move it along... so my question is -do you give detailed answers as appropriate regarding what has gone wrong?

Usually we try to be as brief as possible, but if you require detailed explanations, just ask.

Originally Posted by freelancing

3.) I see that you have a 99% uptime guarantee - what constitutes downtime? If some mysterious file on a client's site (or all my client sites) gets "corrupted" meaning I have to wait for someone at hostgator to fix it and it takes 3 hours - is that considered "downtime" if the sites are unavailable - would those types of instances be subject to a refund? Or, is it only when the server literally dies?

We would be responsible for any unscheduled downtime relating to a hardware failure or data center issue, of course. Scheduled outages (which are reported on these forums) would be excluded, but these are a rare occurrance and usually result in only a few minutes downtime for upgrades. In your example, we would not be able to honor the uptime guarantee, as the downtime would have been a result of a problem stemming from a file loaded by one of your users.

Originally Posted by freelancing

4.) The biggest exodus I experienced was when my current vendor tried to hide the fact that the server I was on literally died. I waited 2 weeks with "we hope to get your sites back running tomorrow" and for 2 weeks, none of my sites or e-mail worked. The only reason I didn't lose all of my customers was because a few of them probably wouldn't know if their site was down unless I told them. So, What are your backup contingencies in the event of a server failure?

We offer 2 forms of data backup. RAID which mirrors in real time all data to an off-site server (this would be helpful in the event of a disk failure), and weekly site backups to the same server. This would be helpful in the event you accidentally delete a file, though you would have to revert to the most recently backed up copy.

Originally Posted by freelancing

5.) I can move most of my clients myself, as they are static pages - but a few are using databases for different reasons, including phpBB2, vBulletin, etc. Can you guys help me in the copying over from one locale to another in this regard?

If your current host offers Cpanel with the X skin, transferring your database sites is very simple. We have detailed the process for backing up and moving your sites here: www.hostgator.com/backup.html

Originally Posted by freelancing

6.) I want to have private seller hosting, but I want the transfer to be seemless. I have 2 domains (one currently not being used) that I can use for the private label DNS, but I don't believe my customers (not all of them, anyway) are going to understand about changing the DNS settings on their host registrar sites. If I get an account w/ you guys, can I have a way of getting into the account via your domain to set up accounts and FTP them in before I change the setup on my DNS so that the transition is seamless for my clients?

As soon as your account is setup (usually within 12 hours), you will be given access to Web Host Manager where you can set up all of your clients. You will also then be able to switch the DNS entries as required.

Originally Posted by freelancing

7.)I have a question regarding site studio. Let's say a client of mine wants it - sets up their site in one month. Can they then stop paying (and stop using) the site studio, but retain the look/design of the site they set up?

This would be fine, however, editing the pages would no longer be possible (at least not using SiteStudio.

Originally Posted by freelancing

8.)Do you have any scripts/programs that you do not allow? My current vendor has a list that I must then tell my clients they cannot install.

We do not maintain a list of "disallowed" scripts, but if something were to cause problems, we would have to ask you to remove it. The main thing we do not allow at this time is anything IRC related.

Originally Posted by freelancing

9.)ChiliSoft - is the $5 per domain, or per reseller account, then allowing all my clients to use ASP, but me only paying the $5 per mo? If I go w/ ChiliSoft ASP, will all other programs that come w/ accounts still work?

It is $5 per domain, so if you host 5 domains, that would be $25. And yes, everything would still function for you after it has been enabled.

Originally Posted by freelancing

10.)Will each of my clients get their own CPanel? It looks like it, but making sure.

Absolutely.

Originally Posted by freelancing

11.) I see that I (and clients) can install programs like phpBB2 via CPanel - but can I (and clients) install this and other programs w/o the CPanel (via FTP, etc.) so as to customize features, etc.?

You are free to do this on your own, sure.

I hope this helps!

-Justin