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Hostgator Review : By a former Employee
Originally Posted at WHT
Source : http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1637132
I have seen many complaints and questions about Hostgator, so as a former employee, I wanted to share my experiences so that potential employees and customers alike will know what to expect. Even though this review is based on my personal experience, keep in mind that many of my co-workers, former and present, share the same sentiments about this place as I do.
As an employee:
Training:
Hostgator starts you off on a training program for the first 3 weeks. They try to teach you the basics of web hosting along with customer service skills. The training basically covers topics such as DNS, Doman names, customer service relation skills and how to handle calls. However, the training itself is very poorly managed, if you do not have any prior experience working in the tech field, more than likely you will be lost. I had a new trainer that was teaching my class and she more often than not just read off a sheet of paper instead of actually teaching the class the skills that are necessary to do the job. At some points during the training, the trainer would just skip whatever questions we had in order to finish the lesson. People would literally have their hands up and the trainer would just move onto the next lesson. Many people end up just dropping out because they do not understand the material. The training course is graded, so in order to stay hired, you will need to pass the training class with an average of at least an 80. One thing to note is that if you are borderline, than it is up to the instructor if you stay or leave. I had several co-workers that were borderline and some were let go, while others were kept on.
The training is actually split into 2 parts. The first 2 weeks are spent in the classroom, learning about web hosting and customer service protocols and the final week is actually spent on the floor taking phone calls from customers.
Working on the floor:
There are actually two types of agents on the floor: phone and chat. All employees start out as a phone agent and can eventually move into a chat position if they qualify. However, if you happen to move to a chat position, be warned. In the chat position, you will handle 4 customer at a time, minimum. Also, the metrics which are listed below still apply to you, so if you cannot keep up with the work flow, then you will written up. Also, the chat queue is always backed up and from my experience, customer abuse it more rampant in the chat position.
If you do pass the training class, you are assigned to a Supervisor and placed on the floor to begin the real work. Working on the floor has many complicated issues what I will try to explain in full detail.
First, I will discuss how your performance is measured. Your performance is measured by a metric system that is split into 3 categories:
1.) Conformance
2.) Average Handle Time
3.) Survey Score
Conformance is simply a measure of how much time you spend at your desk, the less you spend at your desk, the lower the score. Normally, this would not be an issue, however at Hostgator it can become a problem. Conformance is impacted anytime you step away from your desk, ANYTIME. That means if you have to use the restroom or maybe take an important phone call, it will impact your score. In my experience, there was never any leeway in this, if you step away, your score was impacted. If your average score falls below 93%, then Hostgator will write you up. For the most part, I felt I was basically chained to my desk. One of my supervisors literally told me to “hold it” instead of going to the restroom. As you could imagine, the conformance part can cause employees to find “work arounds” so their score is not impacted. I will explain this further in the customer section.
Average Handle Time is the average amount of time you spend on the phone with each customer. Hostgator wants you to spend, at max, 15 minutes on the phone with a customer. If you cannot solve their problem, you are supposed to escalate the call to the next level of support. If your average handle time is too high, Hostgator will discipline you.
Survey Score is simply your average score from the survey that the customer takes after a service call/chat. The problem is that the survey question is not directly about you the agent, but about the company itself. This means that even if you provided great service to the customer, the customer can give a bad rating to Hostgator itself, but it will end up impacting you directly.
If an employee manages to hit all 3 metrics marks, they will receive a bonus every pay period. If they do not, then no bonus. As you could imagine, an employee will always try to hit these metrics, but in trying to do so, the actually customer service experience may drop.
When you first start out on the floor, you are considered a Level 1 agent. All calls are filtered through the Level 1 agents. That means whether a customer has a billing, tech, legal or some other question, they will be directed to a Level 1 agent no matter what. This becomes a problem because this ends up backing up the call flow and causing heavy delays, thus leading to more angry customers. What is strange is that none of the other departments take phone calls, they only respond through email. Even if you try to transfer a call, you will get in trouble for doing so. This means that if a customer has a question about their bill, migration process, legal issues etc, you are expected to answer their questions, instead of being able to transfer the call to the correct department.
What usually ends up happening is the following:
1.) Customer will call in with an issue that is related to another department.
2.) Agent will try to assist the customer. Agent will place the customer on hold and contact the appropriate department to seek help with the issue.
3.) Depending upon when that department answers the agent, the customer will continue to be on hold.
As you can see, a simply question can end up taking a lot longer because the agent of the phone has to jump through several more hoops in order to get the right answer. This is the first time I have ever heard of a system like this, usually companies have different departments you can contact directly about a specific issue.
Because you are the only “voice” the customer actually hears and because other departments do not take phone calls, you are basically a sponge for the abuse that most customers dish out.
Sales is slowly becoming a performance metric:
When I first started, we were told that sales was not being forced on us. However, this has changed, as sales was being forced slowly. There was also a rumor that sales figures was going to become a performance metric. That means if you do not sell, you will be written up and eventually fired. Also, if you did make a sale, the commission rate is extremely low. I once made a $4000 sale and my commission was around $150.
Internal Customer Support:
Yes, there is actually a Customer Support department for the support agents. Whenever a customer is irate and the agent does not know what to do, they will reach out to this department for assistance. Internal CS handles ticket escalation requests, ticket reviews, and review of certain customer complaints among other things. Recently, however, the Internal CS department was eliminated. Why this happened, I do now know, but one day the department decided to “step away for a bit” to address a huge backlog of open tickets. Ever since then, they have not returned. This really came without warning to the agents on the floor and really threw a wrench into the service slow. Now, the agents have to reach out to their supervisors in order to have any issues reviewed or escalated, but since supervisors are “busy” doing other things, requests can take a bit of time to be reviewed, sometimes it may not happen at all.
Supervisors are not helpful:
Your Supervisor is not going to be that much help to you. Whenever a customer requests to speak with a supervisor, you are going to be told to direct the customer to [email protected]. The Supervisor does not want to speak with the customer and other than giving the previous statement, they will not really go out of their way to help you with any difficult issues. They expect you to handle everything efficiently, even if you are brand new. The only time a Supervisor will actually take time to speak with you is if you are being disciplined or having your performance evaluated. I will elaborate more in the customer section down below.
Things change constantly and without warning:
Hostgator makes changes on the fly and with little warning to the staff. One of the recent major changes was to the phone system. The company decided to push the phone system out to the floor without ever testing them. First day of the new phone system, as you would expect, there were many problems and this directly led to more angry customers. On top of that, the new phone hardware was not compatible with most of the headsets that phone agents were using. Hostgator higher ups stated they were looking for adaptors to compensate for this, but 4 months in, nothing happened. Also, Hostgator will make changes to their performance metrics without notice as well. Recently, hold times and live call monitoring were implemented. This means that people will actively listen in on your calls without notice and openly critique/warn you if you are doing something wrong. Micro managing is slowly becoming the norm.
Benefits:
Hostgator does offer standard benefits for full-time employees. You do get health/dental insurance as well as a 401k plan. They do offer insurance discounts if you take part in health programs and reach your intended goals.
Hostgator also hosts various parties and movie nights were they will rent out a theater for employees to watch the newest release of a movie. If you cannot make it, the company will give a voucher for a movie ticket. However if you are part of a specific shift and cannot make the movie due to having to wake up early for work, then Hostgator will not give you any sort of compensation. For example, if your shift starts at 3AM, but the movie starts at 7:30PM, you will not be compensated.
Hostgator hosts beer/wine days every week. Although employees are allowed a limited amount, the methods to regulate this is very loose. I will explain further in the customer section.
PTO time is accrued and you can accrue up to 1 month of PTO time from the start. However, you’re PTO and sick days are all the same. In order for you to actually use your PTO time, you have to request it at least 72 hours in advance (it used to be 2 weeks in advance) and the time slot has to be available. For the most part, your PTO time will be approved, but certain times of the year, your PTO request will more than likely be denied. This actually happened to me as I requested a certain day off, but a supervisor actually denied it. I was told that time period was actually on the busiest days of the year and that they needed every employee available. When I came in on a “busy” day, I took around 3-4 calls the entire day. Keep in mind that only customer support agents have to come in, all other departments are off.
There is also an “attendance bank” that is used for calling in sick or other emergencies that prevent you from coming into work, i.e. weather. There is a max of 40 hours in your attendance bank. The attendance bank shares hours from your PTO bank, for example: if you call in sick for a whole work day, you will have 8 hours deducted from your PTO bank as well as your attendance bank. You can only use the attendance bank hours if you have PTO hours to spare. Once you go over the 40 hour attendance bank limit, you will be written up. Hostgator used to reset the attendance bank twice every year, but recently they changed the policy to reset it only once every year. Needless to say, this did not please many employees.
Yes, Hostgator does serve free lunch, however it is horrible food. It really says something when employees are willing to bring their own lunch or eat out even when the company caters. There have been instances of raw chicken and undercooked food. Complaints about the food are common every day. Also, the food is not exactly free, as the cost of the food is actually reflected on your taxes.
There are various game rooms and a snack bar, but the snacks are overpriced and the game room is limited at best. You are not allowed to sleep anywhere on the premise, even if you are on your break time and all game/break rooms are video monitored. There are various vape lounges throughout the building, so if you vape then you can do so within these lounges.
Comments
Continued....
As a customer:
I would warn customers about getting service with Hostgator. I have heard numerous reports that Hostgator used to be great, but ever since it was bought by EIG, the level of service really went down. Here are some things you can expect as a customer.
Long wait times are the norm with Hostgator and if you get disconnected while on the phone with an agent, the next agent cannot transfer a call directly:
Please note that the primary call centers are located in the Central Time Zone. If you happen to call in very early in the morning, you will get an agent right away. The story changes however around late morning to early afternoon. On average, a customer can expect to wait anywhere from 20-45 minutes before they receive support. But if the Level 1 agent cannot solve your issue, more than likely they will transfer you to the next level of support where you will be put back in line to wait for the next available agent. It is very common for customers to get their phone call disconnected due to them being on hold for so long. Even if the customer manages to reach a next level support agent, they often get their phone call disconnected for various reasons. If the customer calls in stating what happened, the agent cannot transfer the call back to the previous agent without approval and approval to transfer is not a very common thing.
If you are trying to get support by using the chat feature, it is actually worse than phones. The chat queue is always backed up and there are times when the chat function simply does not work. Like phones, if you try chat, it is not uncommon for you to wait a while before someone gets to you.
Being put on hold is not always done because the employee is working on your issue:
As mentioned before in the employee section, every support employee’s performance is measured by a metric system. One of those metrics is conformance, which measures how much time you are at your desk. Because employees do not want their conformance score to be effected, they find different ways to work the system. If you are put on hold, there is a good chance that the employee is taking a break, going to the restroom or grabbing lunch when it is being served, among other reasons. Keep in mind that when lunch is being served, the wait can be around 15 minutes before the employee actually gets their lunch. So the next time you are put on hold, keep in mind that the agent may not actually be working on your issue.
You will not be able to submit a ticket:
Hostgator/EIG decided it was a wise decision to get rid of this option for the customers. The floor agents were never given an explanation as to why they did this, but this is not surprising considering floor agents are never really told anything. Speculation is that the ticket queue got so over packed, that Hostgator/EIG decided they did not want any more tickets being submitted.
Do not try asking for a supervisor:
More than likely you will not get one. Here is what you will most ikely be told if you request a supervisor:
1.) The supervisor is busy assisting other customers
2.) The supervisor is currently in a meeting
3.) If you have any complaints, please e-mail [email protected] and a supervisor will get back to you.
In my personal experience, I have had supervisors literally stand next to me and tell the customer that they were not available to speak to them, even though they were clearly not busy with anything. The supervisors do not want to speak with the customer directly period, not any more than the agent that you are on the phone with. I have had multiple customers ask for a supervisor and be on hold for longer periods, only to be denied the request. If you do end up e-mailing [email protected], do not expect a response quickly.
You may end up getting a trainee on the phone:
You may on occasion end up getting an employee that is still in the training class. As mentioned in the employee section, the final week of training takes place on the floor were employees field live calls from customers. You can pretty much imagine how this will go, but just know that this may happen to you.
Replies to open tickets can take a long time, but this is a common issue. Also, escalating a ticket has to be approved:
If you happen to have an open ticket and are waiting for a reply to the ticket, you can almost expect a delayed response. As explained previously in the employee section, the phone agent cannot handle certain issues. For example, if you have a migration ticket, only the migration department can handle those issues. But since the migration department does not take phone calls, they will only reply via e-mail. In my experience, the migration queue can be in the hundreds and keep in mind that there are not that many migration people in the department. This all adds up to delayed responses to tickets and sometimes having non replies for weeks is not that uncommon. If you happen to request for your ticket to be escalated, that has to be approved and not all escalation requests are approved. If you, the customer, do not have “a good reason” then your request will be denied.
Agents will do whatever they can to get you off the phone/chat as quickly as possible:
In the employee section, I mentioned that employees performances are measured using a metric system. If the employee does not meet the minimal standards, they will be disciplined or fired. Also, if the metrics standards are not met, the employee will not receive their bonuses. Because of this pressure, the agent will do whatever they can to get you in and out the door as quickly as possible. It is not uncommon for agents to give false information. If you feel like you are being rushed, just know that it is not just you.
You will only get a refund if you request it, even then it is not guaranteed:
You will only get a refund if the agent makes a request for the refund. Example, if you call in to cancel your account and do not specifically request a refund, the cancellation ticket will not list a refund request and you will not be refunded. You would then have to call in again and request the refund. The agent that you speak with are not allowed to issue refunds. This can only be handled by the billing department. As stated previously before, the billing department will only communicate through e-mail and before they can issue a refund, they have to review the case to make sure that you are eligible for a refund. If any issues arise, you will have to wait for a response from billing department, which could take a while to happen.
If you are a Windows/Dedicated server customer, your call will be automatically escalated:
If you signed up for a Windows server or a Dedicated server of any kind, your call is going to be escalated automatically. This is because Level 1 agents are not supposed to handle these issues, due to the lack of training. So, if you wait on the phone to have your issue handled, you will be escalated anyways and be put back on hold.
Migrations/transfer can take a while:
I have seen some migrations take months to finish, with several mistakes being made along the way. Once again, since the migration department only communicates through e-mail, this may further complicate the issue and causes more headaches because of delayed responses. If you do request a migration, be prepared as the process will more than likely be a bumpy one.
You will not receive an ETA time:
Even if you demand an ETA time, you will not be given one. Agents are told not to give ETA times, because it sets “unreasonable standards”.
Drunk/buzzed employees:
So this section you may have to take with a grain of salt. As mentioned before, Hostgator does provide alcohol to its employees every week. The limit is 2 cups per employee, however the system used to track this is very…….basic. The method used is paper and pen. The employee simply signs next to their name to keep track of how many cups they have had. I have never personally witnessed an abuse of this system, however I have heard reports of drunk/buzzes employees continuing to work. Given all that goes on at this company, this claim would not surprise me.
Hopefully this has provided some level of insight into Hostgator. If you have any questions, please post them and I will try to answer them.
Sounds like its from the perspective of someone who expected the world delivered on a plate when they finished school/college to me and if they think that is bad, they should try working hard for a living.
TL;DR?
This isn't something new, thats how call centers work and train their people. And as Anthony said, this sounds like someone who couldn't improve their metrics and got mad at the company. I wonder if hostgator outsources their level 1 customer service?
TL;DR Hostgator going to be deadpooled
Someone with zero knowledge or training in the industry at all was given a job on a plate with training offered and no experience necessary.
Having to actually stay at their desk all day to actually do said job on a plate then got pissed off they he was only allowed 33 minutes for bathroom breaks in a day before getting spoken too about it.
The rest is expecting more from what is essentially a first line call center and the issues with having to deal with more than 1 thing at a time and how business actually works vs. how people think it should work.
Load of first time job bollocks, I think they expected to enter the matrix and entered a call center from 1997.
Its pretty typical I have seen a lot of this sort of thing over my time, you can spot them a million miles away, one thing that is common though.. they usually have to be fired or 'pushed' out, they would never put as much effort in to their job as it took to write this 'review' and their principals are never strong enough for them to remove that lovely warm monthly or weekly salary and just leave.
not read it all, but appreciated.
but i think for me, personally i'll never use EIG and prefer use small provider that have honest and not fast (1-6 hours is acceptable, dont need support everyday), but good technical support.
To quote the great Dennis Leary, 'Life sucks, get a helmet'.
Would like to see Godaddy, 1&1, DigitalOcean, Vultr and other giants on a review like this. Interesting experience.
customer is just a number for big companies.
this is what LET is for.
For most LET companies you are their the most valuable asset and you will be treated as a king when you request support.
so choose LET not Big Corp.
Spread Love, friends, find love in return
Because I didn't follow Dennis Leary's advice, doctor said I have to contact every friend I spread love with. :-/
Am I only one who read it full? btw, Intersted in knowing workflow at other providers like siteground, Digital Ocean, etc. It was really helpful
When reading on mobile, I read this and assumed this was your post OP
Might want to make that clear at the beginning before quoting whole post.
$150 commission on a $4000 sale? Transfer to the sales department and work for sales! I've done countless upsales while working for companies in the past and just got a thank you from the sales team/owner. A few places, the pay was good enough that I didn't care.
Seems like that millennial mentality where you feel obligated to part of the sale like those $15/hour clowns
It's interesting to note that what this person speaks of is called Jr Admin, which is a very generous sounding title. It's a job that is considered at entry level to be on par with taking fast food orders in terms of qualifications. If you can breathe, you're potentially qualified. Few rise through those ranks.
There is an entire other side of HG that they apppear to know nothing about. Which is understandable. With their workload they really don't get time to see outside of that bubble. I never did that job, despite their claim that "every" employee starts out doing it.
My experience of teaching CompSci at a reputable university is comparable.
I worked at a small-ish local hosting company, that charged outrageous prices, and they did a similar thing. One group of people have almost zero knowledge and they take the calls, another group have some knowledge and don't take calls. It's not that unusual, though of course it's compounded by being understaffed and under pressure.
As much as the original post sounds like any disgruntled rant, I'm surprised by the reactions on here - especially the animus toward millennials.
L1 generally sucks. Everybody feels like they are just thrown in + customers are rude, colleagues are rude, management is disrespectful, etc. If you have ever seen an outsourced call center in action, you'd know it's no way to treat a human being, for people on both sides of the phone.
I hate millenials, and I make no bones about that fact.
Their mentality about being owed money because of how much a company makes in sales is hilarious. He could had made a $4000 sale if he owned his own company but I figure $150 is a nice gesture. It beats an insulting gesture of a pizza party if his crew at McDonalds met their drive-thru average time goal.
It would probably sound like I was lying or glossing over the details if I reviewed working at DO. It really is that amazing. Coming from HostGator, no less.
At DO we don't have that front line chat or phone support, and all support agents are sysadmins. Relaxed environment, above average pay, amazing benefits, family-like relationships. I feel like my life can only go downhill from here, there's no better job I'll ever have or do. Triple my pay in a new job, I won't be as happy as I am here. Good luck to them in getting rid of me, I ain't going nowhere
Damnit, don't sell it like that. Almost makes me want to the US and start working for DO myself (which I've actually considered applying for several times). Still, wouldn't leave the mothership for anything ;-)
I was a Hostgator customer for years. Then after the EIG buyout, you could just see the knowledge levels drop as time went on. I thought that what was posted was the reason but never saw anything to collaborate this belief.
My last reseller account there was brought to its knees by a small SMF forum being crawled by an MSN bot.
Was it the knowledge level or was it trying to nest 5 shared hosting servers on one physical box with SATA in RAID1?
@jarland Doesn't the lack of the first generally lead to the second?
I dunno, you gotta be pretty smart just to make some of these mistakes
Definitely. RAID0 OR BUST.
I'm going with the lack of internal knowledge and/or communications. Since it took them three days to realize the abuse dept had suspended the account. Just as a side note this was Hostgators second highest reseller account that only had the little forum left on it.
Going through the logs the only real traffic was MSN bot visiting 10 times in one hour and crawling around 10 pages each time.
By little the forum at the time was lucky to get ten visitors a day. Very specialized niche forum.
Some places get no bonus on sales, none of these movie nights etc (We don't even have a christmas party at my dayjob) and and I certainly don't get free lunch.
You actually sold Hostgator as a good employer, for me at least. I know it's different in America, I've seen how amazon etc operate here in the UK and their staff get a lot of benefits I have never seen a UK company offer.
I used to work there as a SysAd (sounds like OP was a Jr. Admin), and this is all dead on. There's a lot more that wasn't mentioned, but I don't want to try to stir anything. Not a fun environment, but I'm thankful they gave me my start in the industry and I was able to move on.
He's been like this ever since the new employee orientation off-site.