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HostGator's Support Ticket System Problem

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 31, 2009; Category: Business; Tags: HostGator, Support, Webhosting; 2 Comments

This could be a rant, but it’s not: primarily because I’m writing this post more than 48 hours after the support incident that had 20 client websites down for several hours on Sunday. That it happened had to do with some miscommunication for which Evo shares and accepts part of the responsibility. It should also be pointed out that we’ve been happy with HostGator’s webhosting: pricing, reliability, features are all great.

What still bothers me two days later is that it took just 10 minutes short of 5 hours to resolve the problem.

Sunday morning just after 10 am, I got an unhappy email from a client who noticed her site was down. After checking the basics for a few minutes and seeing nothing out of order, I found that ALL of our client websites on that reseller account were down. At 10:12, I submitted a support ticket. I got a pretty quick response, by 10:15, asking for clarification. To make a long and tedious story short, the issue was finally resolved at 3:03 pm, after dealing with 5 different support techs, with gaps in communication from HostGator of more than an hour. Ultimately, I specified the solution, which took less than 5 minutes to implement. As far as I can tell, none of the 5 seemed to grasp that the most important thing to me was to get 20 websites back online as soon as possible.

If I were going to design a support system that was meant to be ineffective, I think I would do pretty much what HostGator has done: shuffle support requests among several different techs as they can get to them, so that no one is really engaged or responsible for fixing the problem. To be fair, I’ve experienced some pretty dismal support from other well-known webhosts in the past (I just wasn’t blogging then). I’m beginning to think the industry as a whole has a broken support framework that stems from trying to keep costs as low as possible.

I’d like to see a webhost differentiate themselves on superior service. And I mean walking the walk; I’ve seen webhosts that talk the talk but don’t deliver great service when it’s needed. I’d like to see HostGator decide they can be that webhost. They appear to have everything else in order, and I’d prefer to continue with them.

Online Search for Local Information is Growing Fast

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 27, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Local Search, SEO; No Comments

One of the biggest mistakes businesses with a local market make is to assume they have no need for an effective web presence. There is a tendency to think that, if they have a Yellow Pages ad, and advertise in the local paper, people know all about their business. The fact is, people search for local information on products and services all the time, and it’s the fastest growing search segment. According to a study conducted by web behavior research firm comScore, Inc., search for local businesses, products, and services grew 58% in 2008, outpacing overall search growth, which grew at 21%.

Think about that.

Think all your local customers already know about you and your products and services, so they don’t need to find you on the web? Think again. Apparently, they don’t find the Yellow Pages all that helpful. They’re online looking for you; or your local competitors. Makes no difference to them, as long as they find someone local on Google to sell them what they want. If you’re not there, you won’t see their shiny happy faces at your place of business.

Take advantage of the fact that your neighbors are using the web. Make sure your website and/or blog is updated frequently with information that is interesting and relevant to your local customers (hint: it may not be the history of your company). Make sure your website offers a variety of ways for customers to contact you: a submittable form, phone numbers, an email address (make sure it’s protected from spambots). Show your picture on your website (and a picture of each employee) so they recognize you when they come in.

Offer web-only specials: if they say the word of the day (only displayed on your website) at checkout, they get 10% off some item. Offer an online newsletter signup and send them a monthly email newsletter that lets them know what they should be paying attention to (that you can help them with). Offer online signup for a locals-only bargain club. There are a million ways to engage local audiences using your website, and if you can think of some ways that would be unique to your business, so much the better.

It’s time: scrap the old brochure website and replace it with something more engaging; something that attracts the local folks looking for what you have to offer.

Redesigning the Stop Sign: Unfortunately, Not Unusual

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 27, 2009; Category: Communication, Design/Development, Marketing, Video; Tags: Design/Development, Humor, Usability; No Comments

This short video is a wonderful parody about how the design process too often works; or doesn’t work. It demonstrates what happens when design is not valued or recognized as a means of clearly communicating the central or primary message.

If you’ve been a designer for any length of time, you’ve found yourself in a similar situation. If you work with or manage designers, you may have been part of this scenario, too.

Key in this video: note the role played by the ineffectual "designer," who does not participate in the discussion, but only takes notes about the design "requirements." Designers have a responsibility to "cut through the crap" and make communication of the primary message the focus of the process. Designers who don’t do that are production artists (they might even be very good production artists), but they’re not designers.

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 8: Creating Barriers to Downloading Free Information

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 26, 2009; Category: Accessibility, Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Marketing; Tags: Information Architecture, Marketing, Usability; No Comments

Giving away stuff on your website is a really smart thing to do. It’s an opportunity to spread your ideas or information about your products and services, sometimes in exchange for a little bit of information that could be helpful in your marketing. It’s a very simple process, but companies screw it up all the time, usually by one of the following two methods.

Screw-up Number One

Too often, companies undermine their attempts to offer free information (whitepapers, product info, sample book chapters, etc.) by requiring onerous amounts of personal or contact information in return. You’ve probably seen this, and maybe even been guilty yourself (I confess, I’ve done it). In exchange for a lousy whitepaper, I have seen people asked for ALL of their contact info (including their work phone, home phone, cell phone, and Twitter ID), their job title, their preferred salutation (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr., Professor) and their underwear size. OK, I made up the last one, but it does get intrusive after the third piece of info. By the time people finish and submit the form (IF they finish), that whitepaper had better be damned good.

Screw-up Number Two

Another way to blow it is with poor execution. I recently got an offer in an email newsletter I’m subscribed to for a free chapter download for a just-published book. I need another web design book like a hole in the head, but I was game to find out if there might be a reason to spend almost $30 on this one, so I clicked on the download button. That did not start a download. Instead, it took me to a page that asked for my email so they could email me the download info. While I didn’t consider their request for my email address to be too much to ask, the button had said "download," and I found it a little disturbing that it wasn’t what happened. I also wondered why, if they had my email address to send me the newsletter, they needed it again to send me the download info. Why didn’t they just send me the download info to begin with?

I dutifully typed in my email address and clicked "submit." That took me to a page where they offered me several newsletter subscriptions, all preselected as "yes," including the one I already had. I clicked on the link that said "No thanks, I’m just here for the free book chapter." That took me to a page that promised to send me a download link. Two days later, I’m still waiting for that download information. I don’t think I’ll go back and make the request again: I just saved nearly $30.

Giving stuff away is not rocket science, and unless you’re a government supplier, your customers are probably not rocket scientists. So don’t make it difficult. And keep the information you ask for to a bare minimum. Your visitors will never hold it against you if you ask for too little information.

Important Advice on Web Copy from David Meerman Scott

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 23, 2009; Category: Business, Communication, Marketing, Video; Tags: David Meerman Scott, Web Copy, Writing; No Comments

Most of us forget, when we’re writing copy for our website, that we’re writing for our market: people who don’t care about us or our products. What they care about is themselves and what they want. David Meerman Scott explains how to write copy they will read, with a neat little exercise.