Regarding support for resellers

[britbob]

Just an offer of suggestion. This is mainly for the resellers. Whenever there is an issue, be it server outage, spam, ddos attack or whatever. Could support at least give us an explanation of what is going on. I don`t mean a fully detailed breakdown to bore the pants of folks. We would at least appreciate something. It gives us a base on which to reply to our clients. There`s nothing worse than being left in the dark, with emails and phone calls from client wanting to know what is happening.

Can you at least help us in this department? instead of giving us the old `everything should be fine now`.

[MichaelA]

I agree Bob. Since we are given everything we need to private label our plan, we do not want to let our clients know we sub from anyone else. If HG doesn't let us know what is up, when there is a problem, we look stupid when our clients ask what is wrong and all we can reply with is "I don't know." If HG posted the trouble in here, we will know what the best way is to reply to our clients. This way if they ask what is wrong, we could say, "Well, we had [ENTER TROUBLE HERE] and we are working on it and should be fixed shortly." Sounds much better than "I don't know."

What do you think HG. Can you start letting us know what is wrong and what is being done so we can deal with our clients? I haven't had any trouble yet, but if I do, I am sure I will get calls and need to know what I can tell them. If I can't give them a reasonable answer, they would certainly drop me (or any other reseller) for one that does know what is going on when they have a problem. And without us having our clients, we wouldn't need you. So we both make money in the long run.

[TeeJa]

I would like to make a comment on the issue most resellers are having with HG support.
I am semi-retired from the Electronics service industry with 35 years in it, and the last 10 years in web developing/hosting out of my home.

In my role as owner/manager/tech I have seen about everything when it comes to customer relations.
If we told a client his unit was fixed, everything working, have a good day, we would never see that client again.
We had to break it down to what we repaired, how did it happen, parts used, and what we did to prevent the problem again.

If I ever had one of my full time tech's talk to the client, I usually ended up with damage control with the client because of the "It's fixed" & why do you need to know the technical terms, was the usual comments from the tech. Yes, I had some "not consumer orientated" tech's, so always made sure they made the bucks on the work bench, not the front desk.

Customer relations with good word of mouth did more for my business than anything. Even if we gave fast, reliable and honest prices for our service, it would not help if the client was treated to "It's fixed, have a good day" attitude.

This is something that HG support should be thinking about, and the one that writes there paycheck should be concerned with if he wants a bigger paycheck for himself??

[Dante]

good idea's here.

[David]

I think some relevant ideas are being brought forward here. I have no idea if HG has something like this in place, but perhaps defining some threshold criteria for how and when resellers are updated on outages would be a good starting point. After all, HG's primary business is providing services to resellers, so it stands to reason that the needs of resellers are paramount to HG's success, and those needs tend to be different than those of shared hosting customers. If HG is interested in doing something like this I would be glad to assist in actually getting it done.

David

[britbob]

Well, to be honest I can`t understand why this would be so difficult for HG ?

All I was asking, that when a support ticket/email is raised, that we can get a little more detail, rather than the old favourite `everything is fine now`.

It really gets on my nerves, because what the heck do I explain to a client! When HG do not tell me what is going on. We`re not all stupid, but that`s the impression I get from HG whenever a support email is answered.

No, IMO this is a very simple solution. Just tell us what is going on, so we can relay that to clients, instead of making us look stupid.

[sonic]

Originally Posted by britbob

Just tell us what is going on, so we can relay that to clients, instead of making us look stupid.

DITTO!

Cheers,
sonic

[britbob]

Would be great to hear HG`s thoughts on this?

[Red Dragon]

Originally Posted by britbob

Just tell us what is going on, so we can relay that to clients, instead of making us look stupid.

Agreed

-Red

[britbob]

Unfortunately, it looks as though this thread may have fallen on deaf ears. I understand HG maybe be busy, but they could at least acknowledge this thread`s existence, and the ideas within. I don`t think they understand, this is a major issue for many resellers. Not something that can be forgotten about in a few weeks.

[Kevin Moreland]

Coming up on one month and not forgotten. I'm a Supra refugee...and it appears that lessons were not learned. Support is still lip service.

It's not that hard to keep in touch! One of the new companies I am using notifies all re-sellers by e-mail in advance when they have a repair scheduled, are rebooting the system to put in a security patch, email when equipment is being swapped etc, if upstream line is being repaired, and if somebody's loading down the system..."we've kicked them off and are rebooting"...so refreshing!

The end result may not be any faster uptime than HG, but I have the "why" information in-hand BEFORE the client calls start coming in. That goes a long way.

Although HG has offered me three months free hosting, no DNS is being pointed back here right now. Show us you care, by your actions.

[britbob]

Well I thought it was a good idea Maybe HG need to hire folks to be on the forums more often.

[britbob]

Any chance of some feedback from Hostgator on this. I think this is a very valid suggestion, judging by the responses, and other comments throughout the forums.

[SavageSinister]

Originally Posted by britbob

Just an offer of suggestion. This is mainly for the resellers. Whenever there is an issue, be it server outage, spam, ddos attack or whatever. Could support at least give us an explanation of what is going on. I don`t mean a fully detailed breakdown to bore the pants of folks. We would at least appreciate something. It gives us a base on which to reply to our clients. There`s nothing worse than being left in the dark, with emails and phone calls from client wanting to know what is happening.

Can you at least help us in this department? instead of giving us the old `everything should be fine now`.

I'd like to add my voice to the throng, here, and agree with this suggestion, especially considering how often we're told "Everything should be working now" when, in fact, it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, I've been through a LOOOOT of hosting providers in the 9 years I've been designing and hosting sites, and HG is one of the better ones I've dealt with, but there is a serious lack of communication when it comes to explaining exactly WHAT the problem is and WHEN it will be resolved.

I've also noticed a tendency to treat symptoms rather than finding a cure...

[C-Level]

I would like to STRONGLY agree with these suggestions. The only problem I've had with HostGator is that the do not keep their customers informed. When this happens with resellers, the resellers lose customers.

In general, the attitude of support is also very condescending. Maybe this could be justified for a majority of people with web pages, but people with reseller accounts should be given a little more credit, no?

I don't want to be coddled. But my credibility is on the line when anything goes wrong with HG, so I want to be treated with respect and kept informed.

For starters someone from HostGator could respond to this thread....

[bagel50]

yup, I agree with the request. still no word? seems like there are lots of voices behind this one...

Olly

[britbob]

Looks as though it has fallen on deaf ears. This thread is over a week old! Oh well, seems as though the suggestions forum is a waste of time, if suggestions get no response at all.

[britbob]

Is there any chance of anyone from HG even ackowledging this thread. Most on here agree the above idea is a viable one, even a must have.

Seems to me the suggestions forums are just a waste of time if no one is listening The thread is like two weeks old.

[TeeJa]

As an old dog in customer relations, I probably would not respond at this point either. Best to see if conditions change and I can see some change already, so asking any of the staff to respond at this point is not going to serve any purpose for them. I assure you they are aware of this thread. This is getting to be more of "complaint thread", and should be locked, and or moved to the Resellers chat forum.

[britbob]

Originally Posted by TeeJa

As an old dog in customer relations, I probably would not respond at this point either. Best to see if conditions change and I can see some change already, so asking any of the staff to respond at this point is not going to serve any purpose for them. I assure you they are aware of this thread. This is getting to be more of "complaint thread", and should be locked, and or moved to the Resellers chat forum.

Maybe so, but this thread will be close on a month old soon. Not one reply from HG, not even an acknowledgement it exists. How are we to know they are being read?

Well, this is the last suggestion I`ll make. Obvious to me, they are not interested in suggestions or they would have at least replied. Even just a few words would be better than none.

[Hbug70]

I totally agree with this topic.

We need to be able to tell our clients what went wrong and how it was fixed.

[Surf-Hut]

Just tell us what is going on, so we can relay that to clients, instead of making us look stupid.

Absolutely agree! 100%!! They give us the tools to private label everything, yet set us up for failure when it comes to customer service, which is by far the most important factor in distinguishing ourselves against our competition. Resellers seem to me to be treated like shared hosting clients, and should be a bit more informed when problems arise, we have clients of our own we need to answer to. Our success our failure directly affects their bottom line, why do they not seem to get this point.

similar topic as another I posted on here: http://forums.hostgator.com/showpost...89&postcount=4

It all goes back to the same thing....wish I could hear from HG on these issues.

[bonzihostin]

I have a lot of good things to say about Hostgator but to be fair they have not been posting here hardly ever!

Where is Justin? I do agree it seems posting here falls on deaf ears mostly I am sad to say.

[sgt0121]

I love the servers, but not the service.

When I send an email in for support I ask them not to tell me "It is fixed", but they still do it anyway.

[britbob]

This thread, and the suggestions forum are a complete waste of time. 6 weeks on and no one from HG has bothered to comment on this I think all the folks above who have posted in here at least deserve a response?