Hosting companies are aggressive in getting you to sign up with them. It is hard to leave.

This is because the barriers to exit are so high! Who wants to go through all the pain and problems of switching hosting companies? I did.

I had been a somewhat happy customer for over 10 years. HostGator was cheap and when there were problems, they were fixed easily…until 2 weeks ago.

My website went down with no warning from HostGator. I called and chatted them to find out what was going on. Each time it was a 30-minute wait. Each time the support person was of no help. They told me why it was brought down by HostGator but could not really explain what was wrong (something about inodes) or where I could go for a fix. They would not let me talk to a manager. The only solution they offered was to pay then 20 times what I was paying them now for a dedicated host.

Each time my webmaster tried a solution, I went through the same frustrating path with the support person who could offer little help or tell us what exactly we needed to do get the site up. Each interaction was painfully long especially on chat. This went on for three days.

My webmaster finally hit on the solution and they told me the website would be up soon! We waited and waited hours and I called until it happened.

During this entire process, HostGator’s support was less than helpful. They did not understand the gravity of the situation of having my website down for three days. They just said in a sense- it is my problem and I need to figure it out even though they brought my system down because it no longer met their requirements after 10 years.

What can you learn from this:

  1. Take no long-term customer for granted. They will leave if they are not satisfied with you now. Forget how long they have been with you or how happy they have been.
  2. Care when a customer has a problem. It is big to them and never tell them it’s only their problem. You are partners in any problem. Don’t make it necessary for a customer to re-explain the problem each time they contact you.
  3. Be easy to reach. If your support queue is 30 minutes, don’t have them wait- contact them back!

I moved my hosting to WPEngine; one of the most expensive single domain hosting companies but I hope their service is worth it!