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Interview with Douglas Hanna – HostGator Customer Service Manager

Douglas Hannna of HostGator Web Hosting Interviewed

Q1. Hi. Why should I choose to host my site with HostGator?

Answer : HostGator offers competitive pricing and features and industry leading support and service. We offer what you would expect from a web host (inexpensive packages, lots of space and bandwidth, etc.) and then take it a step further by offering 24/7 support over the phone, live chat, and email and providing bonus features like free web templates, free SSL certificates for certain plans, and a wide variety of other useful addons.

Q2. What do you offer that is better than your competition?

Answer : Our Business Plan includes a free SSL certificate and a free 800 number. This is unique and is really helpful to a lot of our customers seeking to do business on the Internet. What we’re known for, though, is our support. Very few companies offer true 24/7 support over the phone, email, and live chat. Plus, we don’t outsource our support and senior management is available to help if a customer is ever unsatisfied.

Q3. Could you tell us about the top three aspects of customer service that you most value?

Answer : Great question. It is hard to pick just three things that I think are important. At HostGator, we think our customers seem to value these things the most.

First of all, the availability of our support team is extremely valuable to customers. We can help customers over three mediums at literally any time of the day or night. It doesn’t matter where you live or when you prefer to work, we have a support medium that will work for you.

Second, we invest a lot of time, money, and effort into ensuring the people we hire are not only qualified to help you, but happy to do so. We do our best (and almost always succeed at) to stay patient and put things in terms that any customer can understand.

And third, the availability of our senior management team really sets us apart. There are very few companies our size (almost 200 employees, tens of millions of dollars in revenue, etc.) with a CEO who personally helps customers on a daily basis.

In terms of an overall customer service experience and what we strive for at HostGator, I think being able to get your issue resolved (1), getting it resolved quickly (2), and working with someone who has a pleasant attitude throughout the entire process (3) are the most important aspects of a customer service experience.

Q4. Can I choose a Hatchling web plan for one of my present websites and a baby for another?

Answer : Yes. You can have as many accounts as you would like with HostGator. Some of our customers have 20 or 30 separate accounts with us and that is perfectly fine.

Q5. Which one of the hosting plans, hatchling, baby or business, is the most popular?

Answer : Our Baby plan is the most popular plan we offer.

Q6. Can you tell me about the technology that you employ to maintain server security?

Answer : We keep our software and other packages up-to-date, conduct regular server audits, use custom firewalls that are written in-house, and make use of a variety of technologies to ensure that our server security is maintained and protected at all times. Additionally, our servers are monitored 24/7 and are kept in highly secure datacenters.

Q7. Why do most of your web hosting packages feature Linux and not Windows?

Answer : We’ve traditionally between a Linux host and that is where we remain. We’ve been happy with Linux because it is inexpensive and relatively reliable and easy to work with. However, we do have significant plans to expand our Windows hosting offerings in the near future.

Q8. Are your scripts easy to install for beginners?

Answer : Definitely. We offer Fantastico, which makes it extremely simple to install a huge number of scripts in about three minutes.

Q9. I have noticed that you have gone green and that your shared and reseller servers are now wind powered. Do you plan to take further steps to preserve the environment?

Answer : Our step towards powering our servers with 130% wind energy was a major one that has literally reversed our environmental impact. We continue to upgrade our technology to technology that is more energy efficient and environmentally neutral and we’ve also tried to reduce the environmental impact of our office building in Houston. We recently installed a new chiller along with an Energy Management System that has significantly reduced the power used by our building.

Q10. Can you explain a free shared SSL to me?

Answer : The free, shared SSL certificate is a basic SSL certificate that secures your account without you having to purchase an SSL for your account. With shared SSL, you get the benefits of a Private SSL without the costs usually associated with a private certificate.

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Interview with / contact information:

Douglas Hanna
Customer Service Manager
Email:
http://www.hostgator.com

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19th May 2009
Posted by Web Hosting Consultant in Exclusive-Interviews
Tags: , , , ,

One Response to “Interview with Douglas Hanna – HostGator Customer Service Manager”

  1. Lue says:
    May 18, 2010 at 8:13 pm

    Thank you for showing me the different options that are available in the web hosting community. The free shared SSL information was quite to the point and is something that I’ll have to seriously look into. Thanks again everyone.

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