One thing that drives me up the wall is waiting for the live chat. The purpose of live chat is supposed to be to save you time. Is it convenient, right? I use it all the time with another host. True, you could always pick up the phone to chat with an agent, but if live chat works the way it’s supposed to it is a nice feature. However, in this article, I am going to be talking about HostGator and my recent experience with their live chat.
Honestly, what has to happen to HostGator and their customer support? Years and years ago it used to be their bread and butter. I can remember a day when it only took 1-2 minutes tops to get your questions resolved. They were super speedy at answering your questions and live chat did not take ages to connect. However, as a lot of you might already know I made a post on HostGator lying about their uptime back in 2014. These were due to the brownouts that they had been dealing with sporadically in 2013 and 2014.
Recently, I jumped on live chat with HostGator so I could ask them some technical questions about an infographic I will be creating in the near future about “unlimited hosting”. I have already polled a number of host on live chat to gather the data I need to complete my infographic. However, as many of you already know I left HostGator about 3 years ago mostly due to the EIG take over and the crummy service I had been receiving for months.
So, at 10:30 PM (January 15, 2015) I decided to jump on live chat so I could talk with an agent to clarify some questions I had about inodes, disk space, and MySQL databases. I logged onto their live chat and found that there was a long waiting time. The waiting time was 30 minutes. Oh great, this should be fun. See the screenshot down below:
It’s now 11:00 PM (January 15, 2015) and the chat ticker still says 30 minutes and waiting. WTF! The counter hasn’t moved at all. So what I did was leave the browser on and continue to wait. I continued to chat with other web hosting companies about inodes, disk space, and MySQL databases ( I know what you think that must be fun; it is for me!). I did feed my leopard geckos at 11:10 P.M. because they were waking up and I figured they were probably pretty hungry. Just to give you some visual stimulation for reading this article here is the new Hostgator commercial I found on YouTube. Oh, the irony! Wanna hear about my problems?
Well, it’s now 11:30 PM (January 15, 2015) and I haven’t got in touch with an agent yet. The ticker has still not moved one bit. I am beginning to think it’s completely down at this point. Am I ever going to be able to talk with an agent at HostGator? It’s now been an hour and a half, and I am getting sick and tired of waiting on them. I guess I will have to try again tomorrow and see if I can ask them my three big questions.
Ok, so it’s a new day, and I am feeling reenergized. It’s amazing what a good nights rest does to the body. Maybe it was a temporary glitch or something that they were dealing with last night. Who knows? Who cares? I will give them the benefit of the doubt, though. So at 12:30 PM (January 16, 2015) I am giving it another shot. I started up a live chat with sales again in hopes to get my answer so I can complete my infographic.
Damn! No luck again! It’s now 1:00 PM (January 16, 2015). Guess I will have to wait it out for another 30 minutes. I will continue chatting with another web host in the meantime. Makes me wonder if they even want my business or not? Has got to be some record for waiting times with live chat. So far I have waited 2 hours and haven’t even got to ask my questions yet.
Again, I tried both on January 15 & 16 for an hour and half the first day and an hour the next day. Each time I logged onto live chat I got the same screen as before. The estimated wait time is 30 minutes. I waited and never did get in contact with an agent. Wondering how I should handle this situation. Should I just email them and hope that I get a response? Guess I will have to do that. I got nearly all my research done, and I am just waiting on HostGator.
On January 16, 2015, I went to their site and found out I could email them at support [at] hostgator.com. Oh wait, I knew that email address; I then punched myself in the face because I didn’t have to look that up; I already knew it! I found some contact email addresses. I figured this would be a good question for sales, but if that doesn’t work, I could always contact support. So I sent them an email at about 1:00 PM. Surely, they will get back with me so I can complete my research.
They emailed me back on January 16th (12 hours later). I can finally complete my infographic. The response was very good, though! So it isn’t all bad. But, the lesson I have learned with HostGator is live chat has some serious problems. The 30-minute wait seems to be a graphic that is just thrown up on their site. It doesn’t count down or anything. In fact, the three days I waited on it, it didn’t move at all.
I tweeted at them about my long waiting time on January 17th. I figured they might want to let us know of any problems or something. Really, couldn’t hurt their PR or anything. Just my personal feedback on their PR, but I see it sliding downhill quickly. The only thing they would gain from this was making it public if they were experiencing some problems or something.
I got a reply from HostGator on Twitter. Look at this way, at least they did respond to my tweet. Some host won’t even to that. Here is a screenshot of the tweet:
This tweet makes no since to me. If you have software that doesn’t count down until it under 30 minutes why do estimate that you will be with them in 30 minutes. Seriously, make the graphic say it will be more than 30 minutes. Don’t waste my time and leave me hanging for 2 hours and tell me it’s only going to be 30 freakin minutes.
I have reached out to HostGator so many times. Each time I get excuses on pretty much everything I complain about with them. Why don’t you start listening to your customers rather than making up lame excuses? The moral of this post is to show you that their support has decreased even more since I left them three years ago. I thought it was bad when I left them, but now it’s gone from bad to worse! Has anyone else experienced this long waiting time with HostGator? If so I would like to read about your experience down below.
Even the email support is taking at least 3-4 or even 7 days to get a crappy reply! What happened to HG!!
Wow, 3-4 days with email support. That is a new all-time low for HostGator. Let me guess they are really sorry about the delay. I really think their customers are really getting tired of their excuses. Might be time to look into a new web hosting company. It could really save you some hassles.
You would think after this many months of declining support they would have turned things around by now… It’s really unbelievable…
I agree I have tweeted to them a lot over 2 years. They simply just don’t care anymore.
Wow, I had the same problem with Host Gator. I waited forever and the 30 minute count down never started counting. This is kind of misleading way to keep your customers at bay. However, I did finally get tired of the endless 30 minute wait and filled out a support ticket. It took 18 hours to get a response. Customer support is really getting worse and worse.
Hey John,
Yeah, I got a tip from a webmaster that showed me this has been going on for quite some time with HostGator. I figured I would test it out for myself to see what was going on. I think it’s very poor business practices to have your live chat say 30 minutes and waiting even when you know it might be 2-3 hours. A simple, realistic time frame would work much better. 18 hours to get a response seems to be about normal with HostGator (with support ticket). What a lot of people will realize is when there is a big problem, and you have to contact HostGator it’s really going to drive you up the wall when you spend hours waiting on live chat, get frustrated and fill out a customer support ticket, and have to wait another 18 hours. Being transparent with your customers is great, but when you leave them in the dark, you put a lot of doubts in their head.
It’s one of the many reasons why I don’t and will not host with them.
Hey John,
Yeah, I got a tip from a webmaster that showed me this has been going on for quite some time with HostGator. I figured I would test it out for myself to see what was going on. I think it’s very poor business practices to have your live chat say 30 minutes and waiting even when you know it might be 2-3 hours. A simple, realistic time frame would work much better. 18 hours to get a response seems to be about normal with HostGator (with support ticket). What a lot of people will realize is when there is a big problem, and you have to contact HostGator it’s really going to drive you up the wall when you spend hours waiting on live chat, get frustrated and fill out a customer support ticket, and have to wait another 18 hours. Being transparent with your customers is great, but when you leave them in the dark, you put a lot of doubts in their head.
It’s one of the many reasons why I don’t and will not host with them.
I’m not with HostGator. I’m with HostMonster. I’ve always had great experiences with live chat and customer service. It’s unacceptable to experience what you did and this point is key: “Why don’t you actually start listening to your customers rather than making up lame excuses.”
Thanks for stopping by Leanne. Glad you’re happy with Hostmonster 🙂
I’m surprised to read this!
How do you rate the hosting over at WA? Do you have a review of it?
Claire
Hey Claire,
Actually, I haven’t had the chance to rate the hosting at Wealthy Affiliate yet. I wouldn’t mind testing out their servers, though. Might do it soon, though.
Wow! I’m quite surprised at how crappy Hostgator have got with their customer service… I was using them a few years back and like you say, they prided themselves on their customer service and were known for it… I wonder what caused them to drop the ball?
Hey Steve,
It has to do with the EIG buyout. Ever since that company bought the company support just hasn’t been the same. I have talked to them many times and all I can do is shake my head. Actually getting terrible!
I have a host gator account and have not had any problems yet, I probably shouldn’t speak too soon lol
Anyways I haven’t contacted support yet, hope I don’t have to wait as long as you did… but thanks for the heads up …
Wow. I am just starting to build up my websites at WP/Optimizepress and signed with HG. And the first time the chat kept me waiting for an hour so I closed the window. And now I can’t get beyong the “Continue” button. I will have to fill out a ticket and wait 18 hours. Frustrating.
Yeah, I know. Not a huge fan of Hostgator. Hence, why I don’t host with them 🙂
I tried to get a hosting account with HostGator. After accepting my credit card I received an email saying they need to get more personal information from me before allowing me to host. What? They wanted gov’t photo ID, etc.
I just decided this company is not for me. I’ve been using GoDaddy for decades and they never asked me for anything in all those years. So now I buy domains at GoDaddy and host elsewhere.
PJ
Hostgator takes too long to respond. I want a refund my payment.
Yep, I have made the mistake of using them years ago. The sad part is Hostgator only gives you a credit to your account with them. I have a $50 credit with them that I haven’t used for 4 years because they are such a hassle to work with!
I hate their support system, it now forces you to go to live chat. I have a billing issue and I want to OPEN A TICKET, NOT waste my time with live chat. I am leaving HG.
before i made payment, i clicked live chat, it worked well, and they answered well.
after i made my payment, i got the same situation as you guys said, now live chat is loading for hours!!!