How HostGator Lost My (Potential) Business the Second Time

Many (maybe 8-9) years ago I was with HostGator. Back then they weren't nearly as big as they are now. I left them then because the couple guys that staffed their forum were the most arrogant, rude, customer service people I've ever seen.

Anytime anyone had any problem it was ALWAYS the customer's fault. They NEVER even considered that something was wrong on their end. And that attitude came across with making people feel like they were stupid idiots for trying to build a website.

LESSON 1: Be good to your customers. Even if the customer is wrong, if you make them feel like an idiot, they will most likely leave. Don't be arrogant. Realize that you are wrong sometimes too.

I left and vowed to never set foot in their house again.

Then HG took off (despite not having my $5 or whatever a month ) and became a big boy with tons of raving fans.

I still wasn't convinced but decided I'd try the Godaddy promotion they put out this week. You can't beat quality hosting, even if it's a test, for .01 for 6 months. I was going to put a domain on I'm not currently using but plan to - so no big deal if the experience turned sour again.

When I heard about the GD promotion I immediately went and checked it out but didn't immediately buy.

First turn off: "Summer" (the default) was their most valuable savings code they said. I entered "Godaddyisdown" and the page refreshed to reflect that it was their most valuable savings code. They knew that Summer wasn't their most valuable coupon. You can say that it's just marketing - why give away the coupon if I didn't know about it. Where I come from it's called lying. It was NOT their most valuable coupon by any stretch.

LESSON 2: Don't make the truth situational. Always have integrity and morals in mind. Pretend you are selling to your grandmother who is on a fixed income when you do your marketing. Cheaters and liars may win temporarily but hardly ever long term.

Second turn off: I returned the next morning hoping the promotion code still worked. I entered the code and the next page showed the discounts. All is well. I entered my information but when I got to the payment page (Paypal), it only showed the summer discount not the GD discount (even though the previous page indicated 6 months for 1 cent).

I thought it may be a problem with Internet Explorer (not refreshing right or something) so loaded up the page in Firefox with the same result.

What's interesting is that I don't know if I had chosen to pay by CC if they would have charged .01 or the "summer" discount. I didn't know they weren't going to honor the GD coupon until I was ready to pay through Paypal.

No matter the reason (my computer, their server), I felt baited and switched. Add this experience with the coupon code mishap and that just sounds and looks bad.

LESSON 3: Once a bad impression is in someone's mind, it will be difficult to remove that so do everything you can to avoid them in the first place. Test your processes and forms in multiple browsers. Try various combinations such as payment amounts or coupon codes in your testing.

Then, even though I had tried to sign up 3 times, they never followed up with me. I kind of halfway expected them to send an email to me (they had the domain and email address) and say "hey we see you didn't check out - is there something we can do to help you?" Godaddy and other big companies do this.

LESSON 4: You may want to follow up ONCE in situations like this. Some companies offer a discount such as "we see you didn't complete the checkout process, if you come complete your purchase now you can take an additional 15% off)" or something similar. Do not put these people on your "list" but consider following up ONCE. I had my payment ready, had already given them all my information, and had clicked the buy button.

Why didn't I click on their instant chat representative button? Remember my previous experience with their support? So I'm a little gunshy.

I'm sure HG is a good host or they wouldn't be so popular. But for me, maybe it's just in the cards, I don't think I will ever be a HG customer. To them it doesn't matter - they apparently aren't missing my $6.36 a month.

For me it's been a learning experience, that interestingly enough spans 8-9 years and both times results in me leaving with the same disastified feeling.

Mark