Hostgator Wows Me
While the future of Hostgator and me is uncertain thanks to a block in place on a Wifi network I frequently use, which has been causing me trouble, I must say that their customer support is (mostly) fantastic, and that’s the only thing that has kept me with them in these first few days and weeks.
Support is a key factor when I buy hosting, because issues happen (to the tune of 1-2 a month on this site). Unless you’re a maniac-smart tech genius, you’re going to want good support too for your site. A lot of smaller companies don’t offer phone support, and some don’t even offer chat support. This means that you’ll have to resolve all your problems over email, which witha 1 hour response time can take days, instead of minutes. Other companies only offer customer support by phone during regular business hours. Some (I’m looking at you Dreamhost) even charge for support.
Needless to say, I feel like many hosting companies overlook this important asset- customer service that is. That’s where Hostgator differentiates itself.
Hostgator has the best support system I’ve seen out of the five hosts I’ve tried, and the many I’ve looked at. First of all, they have 24/7 free American phone support, with a decent wait time (usually around 6 minutes) and NO robotic menus (Godaddy has about 3 minutes worth of them). They also have email support, and live chats (which had a slower-than-expected response time and didn’t really thrill me.
They don’t stop their either. I was pretty ticked off about my long chat wait time, and I was about to cancel my account on day two, when I received this email:
Hello Michael,
My name is Sheila, I have been assigned to your account as your designated account manager. I called today, but was unable to reach you. I wanted to introduce myself and touch base with you regarding your plan, theres a few things I wanted to discuss.
Additionally I’m here for your convenience, to help anyway I can to make your website plans run smooth and complete. ‘Your Success Is Our Business’
You can reach me at [redacted]. I’m really looking forward to your call.
Thanks for choosing HostGator and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Sheila D.
Account Manager
I also received a phone call from Sheila. When I called in, and entered my extension, I was talking to Sheila within a minute. It’s really nice that Hostgator allows customers to build a rapport with their agents, and gives them a direct line of access. Where on a busy day at Godaddy I could wait 20 minutes to talk to a human, Sheila was right there talking to me. Personal touches really do make a difference
I don’t know much about the quality of Hostgator Hosting, nor did I then, but this customer service has convinced me to stay on long enough to give them a shot. Kudos to Sheila and everyone at Hostgator for bringing a personable touch to the automated regular support of hosting.
