diff --git a/cmd/plugin/kubectl/kubectl.go b/cmd/plugin/kubectl/kubectl.go
index 1171e9218..7a702f318 100644
--- a/cmd/plugin/kubectl/kubectl.go
+++ b/cmd/plugin/kubectl/kubectl.go
@@ -32,7 +32,11 @@ import (
 // PodExecString takes a pod and a command, uses kubectl exec to run the command in the pod
 // and returns stdout as a string
 func PodExecString(flags *genericclioptions.ConfigFlags, pod *apiv1.Pod, container string, args []string) (string, error) {
-	args = append([]string{"exec", "-n", pod.Namespace, "-c", container, pod.Name}, args...)
+	params := []string{"exec", "-n", pod.Namespace, pod.Name}
+	if len(container) > 0 {
+		params = append(params, "-c", container)
+	}
+	args = append(params, args...)
 	return ExecToString(flags, args)
 }
 
diff --git a/cmd/plugin/util/util.go b/cmd/plugin/util/util.go
index e1910140d..4fd21c4e5 100644
--- a/cmd/plugin/util/util.go
+++ b/cmd/plugin/util/util.go
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ import (
 const (
 	DefaultIngressDeploymentName = "ingress-nginx-controller"
 	DefaultIngressServiceName    = "ingress-nginx-controller"
-	DefaultIngressContainerName  = "controller"
+	DefaultIngressContainerName  = ""
 )
 
 // IssuePrefix is the github url that we can append an issue number to to link to it
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ func AddSelectorFlag(cmd *cobra.Command) *string {
 // AddContainerFlag adds a --container flag to a cobra command
 func AddContainerFlag(cmd *cobra.Command) *string {
 	v := ""
-	cmd.Flags().StringVar(&v, "container", DefaultIngressContainerName, "The name of the ingress-nginx controller container")
+	cmd.Flags().StringVarP(&v, "container", "c", DefaultIngressContainerName, "The name of the ingress-nginx controller container")
 	return &v
 }