Nearly a week ago, I mentioned the act of HostGator pulled the plug on the popular forum Mobility.mobi.

The reason given was because one individual made one complaint claiming that the site was responsible for his email spam.

I am not sure how much this has hurt HostGator financially in regards to members moving to a new host. Reputation wise, the cost can add up immeasurably in terms of any future business. Blogging about it is one thing. But with the viral microblogging services like Twitter any such news can spread like wild fire.

The posts on mobility.mobi added up to a total disdain for HostGator in fears that one complaint can shut down any site, or worst yet, take an entire server housing hundreds of sites off line. Someone(s) from host gator came onto the forum in attempts to quell the noise and offer an explanation. Ultimately it did not work and there seemed to be conflicting messages being sent. What seemed to further distance HostGator from the forum members is this person did not reveal their name or their position with HostGator. There was nothing to indicate that they were even in a position or qualified to handle an issue.

Credibility was rapidly being lost as well as customers.

When this happens, it is time to for someone to step in for damage control.

In this particular case that someone was CEO/Founder of HostGator, Brent Oxley.

In an effort to restore faith in his product and services, Brent came to introduce himself and offer his sincere apologies. I will post the letter in its entirety. I just want to say that for me, a HostGator user, it meant a great deal to see an admission of an error (“huge mistake”) and a effort to repair the damage done and to avert any other damage to HostGator’s name and reputation. It also showed that within the organization itself there appears to be levels of intervention and a chain of command in place with the matter ultimately ending up on Brent’s desk.

You don’t have to be a user or a fan of HostGator and its services offered to admit that this is a touch of class. And, it shows how powerful forums, blogging, and microblogging can be to a company’s bottom line. Not only did he come onto the forum to address its members but stuck around and stayed to answer specific concerns and questions by individual members.

We have just witness customer service at it’s finest.

Dear Mobility Members,

I am the owner of hostgator and this is my first post on your forum. (Doug our customer service manager has been posting)When I heard about this issue I was just as upset. If a site is spamming they must be shut down immediately. If a site receives a dmca complaint they should be given reasonable time to respond without being shut down. (48 hours is reasonable to me)

The employee who shut down .mobi on our side made a huge mistake!

For that mistake, I sincerely apologize on the behalf of HostGator to Mobility.mobi and its valued members. I have given this forum two years of free service on a dedicated server for the mistakes we have made. HostGator cannot make up for lost time or harm that was done to this forums reputation for downtime, but I do believe this act has more than made up for any financial loss that may have been caused.

I’ve made it very clear to our abuse department that I will not tolerate anything less then reasonable notification on a site before suspending on a dmca.

We host about 2million websites and with that were going to make a lot of mistakes. What makes us different is that I believe in honesty and what is fair. When we make a mistake I’m going to do my best to make things right on behalf of hostgator.

Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions on how keep your trust.

Thanks for understanding.

Sincerely,
Brent Oxley