Very Poor Service [resolved]

[GreenVal]

I am very disappointed with HostGator and have found the service to be simply dreadful - I would not recommend using HostGator.

Recently the server went down, they did not let clients know or post any signs on the websites that there was a problem, we had to be told by our clients that there was an error message at our site.

We have contacted HostGator roughly 6 times asking for an explanation on why this happened and why there was no protocol in place to notify their customers what was going on - we have encountered rude, indifferent service and even though we have repeatedly asked for an explanation - none has been forthcoming. We have asked for a manger to contact us 3-4 times and have had ZERO response.

The staff we contacted just kept repeating that this was scheduled maintenance - which does happen - but why were clients not informed and why did our web users have to encounter an error message for about 60 minutes before an 'under maintenance' sign was put up.

[GatorDHanna]

Hi Valerie,

I apologize about the inconveniences. Your server was affected by two issues it looks like.

The first was MySQL upgrades, which we did post about in our forums and also in your cPanel. I just logged into your cPanel an saw the notification was posted there.

The second problem was due to network issues. Our data center had some networking problems recently and this temporarily brought down quite a few websites. We can't put up any other notifications (like a down for maintenance page) for network outages because the sites are down and usually unavailable.

That doesn't excuse the problems by any means, though. You should have gotten an explanation the first time you contacted us. You should have also heard from a manager the first time you asked. I didn't see your ticket until this morning (I was traveling yesterday) and apologize about the delay.

With that in mind, we're working on improving the communications process around upgrades and outages. It is a tough thing to manage and something we definitely want to improve.

Thanks for your understanding and once again, my apologies about the inconveniences.

[GreenVal]

Douglas,

Thank you for your reply.

I think it is bad form that we have to check our c-panel constantly to look for notifications that our clients are going to encounter an error page when the server was down. If this was scheduled maintenance, why did you not send an e-mail to all your customers and tell them the server would be offline for the planned duration of time?

After our clients started to complain we tried to contact Hostgator for an explanation. The customer service was dreadful. At no time when we were dealing with your staff did we receive an explanation of what was happening, how long it was going to continue and even why it was happening. We asked for an explanation SIX times.

Several of our staff contacted Hostgator (by telephone, live chat and four times via e-mail) and we all encountered indifferent and condescending service. Clearly this is a larger departmental problem as we dealt with six different people and the level of service was consistently bad.

As for the “under maintenance” page, I don’t understand why when you are doing maintenance or the server is offline, clients need to encounter an error page. I disagree with your explanation that this is not possible. After we repeatedly complained to Hostgator, an “under maintenance page was put up.

So based on your explanation, I understand the following:

It is my responsibility to check the server panel constantly to see if any maintenance will take place. Hostgator will not afford their customers the courtesy of notifying them of scheduled (or unscheduled) maintenance.

We will never have an under maintenance sign put on our website when the server is encountering problems. Instead our customers will encounter an error page with no explanation or indication that maintenance is being conducted.

I think the customer service at Hostgator is appalling. We came to Hostgator as we had been told the service was excellent.

I want to be very clear in explaining that none of our staff have EVER encountered a polite, helpful or even interested customer service representative on the telephone in the time we have been with Hostgator.

Valerie

[GatorDHanna]

Hi Valerie,

Could you provide some of the ticket or chat IDs of the contacts you had with us? I'd like to pull them up and see what happened. If your site is down, you should not have any trouble getting an answer from us as to why it is down or what's going on.

In the future, we will be notifying customers of upgrades and maintenance via email as well as their cPanels and the forums. We want to notify our customers via as many mediums as possible and our new billing system will make it very easy for us to email customers before their sites are affected. Many of our customers access their cPanels on a regular basis, so we figured the cPanel would be better than just a forum post.

Our standard policy is to put up an “under maintenance” page when we do scheduled Apache or MySQL upgrades. Without this page, many of your visitors would encounter a different error page that says "Internal server error" or a similar error message. We figured our custom page was better than the default error message. Did you not encounter this page? If you didn't, let me know the ticket / chat IDs and I'll check into why.

We aren't perfect, but we are also always working on improving and getting better. If I can do anything whatsoever to help you or address any concerns, please let me know. I'm more than happy to help and make things right.

Thanks for your understanding.

[GreenVal]

Hello Douglas,

As we have corresponded directly and not via the forum, I wanted to say in the forum that I think we have resolved this item to the best of our abilities for the present time. I wanted to thank you for responding to my concerns.

In future when we contact Host Gator we trust that there will be some indication of an improvement in customer service and that when we ask to speak to a manager we will be contacted with one in a timely fashion and not simply ignored.

We also trust that the notification system of server trouble will work better via e-mail (which we very much hope will not happen again).

Sincerely,

Valerie

[GatorDHanna]

Hi Valerie,

Thank you for the update.

I assure you that we're constantly working on improving the level of customer service we provide and I encourage you to contact me personally if you ever see us providing a level of customer service that is below your expectations.

Thanks again for the update and your understanding.