HostGator ranks 21st on Inc. 5000

I work with many companies of many sizes through my consulting business. When HostGator offered me the opportunity to conduct a customer satisfaction survey for them, I jumped at the chance. Even though customer satisfaction as a topic profoundly interests me, I have generally held the view that numbers themselves are painfully boring. I’ve never liked math and I have always felt that numbers are things that are best left to the experts who actually like numbers.

Over the last two weeks, though, I’ve been immersing myself in numbers – especially numbers relating to customer satisfaction. HostGator has sent out nearly ten thousand surveys to random customers and people who have completed live chats. The result? A lot of data (and a lot of numbers) on what HostGator’s customers think of the company and how its doing.

HostGator was willing to conduct headline h1

Fortunately, the results we gathered from all that data were neither shocking nor surprising. While there were no astonishing revelations, there was data that confirmed what HostGator thought based on gut feeling and there was data that showed everyone some interesting trends and correlations.

HostGator was willing to conduct headline h2

* That data showed that just about 90% of HostGator customers gave a positive response when asked how likely they were to recommend HostGator to a friend or colleague. The average “would you recommend” rating was 8.36.

Even though the ratings HostGator received were pretty good by essentially any standard, HostGator wants 90% or more of ratings at an exemplary, not a “pretty good” level. To HostGator’s management team and to me, exemplary means means that just about 100% of a company’s ratings would be 9’s and 10’s. Averages would then be in the mid 9’s instead of the mid 8’s.

The fact that HostGator was willing to conduct the surveys and then share the results shows a lot about the company.

HostGator was willing to conduct headline h3

• HostGator was willing to conduct the surveys
• HostGator received were pretty good by essentially
• Averages would then be in the mid 9’s instead of the mid 8’s
• The result? A lot of data (and a lot of numbers) on what HostGator’s customers think of the company and how its doing.

1. HostGator was willing to conduct the surveys
2. HostGator received were pretty good by essentially
3. Averages would then be in the mid 9’s instead of the mid 8’s
4. The result? A lot of data (and a lot of numbers) on what HostGator’s customers think of the company and how its doing.

All You Can Eat Hosting

We change an unlimited plan to say “unlimited” and bam — sales increase 30%, if not more. Many people will argue that “overselling” is evil and that it’s the cause of poor hosting service. This is not the case when it’s managed correctly and the proper staffing is in place. When a hosting company hops on the overselling bandwagon, their sales usually increase exponentially. Since very few companies actually have the capacity to handle a major surge in growth, their quality of service is almost guaranteed to deteriorate.

The support problems HostGator has had in the past weren’t from “overselling.” The problems were actually a result of growing faster than we could hire and train employees.

In the last year, we have been spending more money on recruiting employees than we have on advertising! It has taken us years of hiring and training to get us to the point where we are now. We’ve gone from begging employees to work overtime to asking who wants to go home. HostGator will always have the occasional scheduling gap, but for now, we’re sending over a dozen employees home a day.

I’m very confident that we’ll be able to handle the surge in growth that we will see as a result of going “unlimited.” Greed is what kills most overselling hosting companies, not their plans.

In other news, we have changed the name of our Swamp Web Hosting Plan to the slightly more professional hosting plan called “Business Web Hosting Plan“. The Business plan now includes both a free dedicated IP address and a free Private SSL. We will be updating these plans very soon with some additional and very cool e-commerce features.

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