Jeber’s

Now that I’ve dumped all over GoDaddy, let me add that I will give them a thumbs-up in one regard. Only once before have I received a personal phone call from the president of a company to follow up on a complaint. He was gracious, didn’t attempt to excuse GoDaddy’s actions and promised to look into the matter further.

This tells me that while the management of GoDaddy may have good intentions and want their company to perform as advertised, they haven’t realized that at the customer experience level.

I’ve worked in the customer service field in one way or another for over 21 years, most of that time in management. It’s great to have noble plans and ambitions, but if they aren’t implemented in the real world, down at the customer experience level, they’re worthless. I also understand the concept of sell-up. I should have been encouraged to renew my domain even if it weren’t in need of renewing yet. The whole point of sales is to sell as much as possible. Every time a sales rep calls a customer to sell or renew a previous sale, they need to offer every reasonable item they can.

GoDaddy may have the right idea at the top, now it needs to filter that philosophy and those best practices down to the sales teams.

At first I wasn’t sure if GoDaddy was incompetent or purposely negligent. I’m still not sure. I am sure of one thing, though; a domain I’ve owned since 2005 has been sold out from under me.

To recap: I was contacted by GoDaddy sales a couple of months ago to renew my hosting plan. My hosting plan included one domain. I agreed to a one year renewal for $107, received no conformation but found the receipt in my control panel.

What the sales rep never mentioned was that the renewal did not include domain reregistration, nor was I reminded by phone or email to renew my domain. I thought the whole package had been renewed. Not so. My hosting plan was renewed while my domain was quickly sold to another person. Why he’d want a domain with marginal traffic and an obscure Swedish word as the URL I can’t imagine. No matter, I was now in possession of a $107 hosting plan that hosted no domain.

Was I pissed off? You bet. Am I justified in my disappointment with GoDaddy sales for not also encouraging me to renew my domain at the same time I renewed the hosting plan. I think so. What good is a hosting plan without a domain? Would any reasonable sales rep think I wanted to host nothing for a hundred bucks? Are they that stupid? It seems so. I can only surmise their greed, getting me to renew the more expensive package while not caring about the less profitable domain renewal, overrode their common sense.

At least they are refunding the hosting payment. And to give him his due, the rep I spoke with on the phone couldn’t have been nicer or more efficient. His customer service skills are being wasted there.

As a final insult, they sent me a survey after I canceled the hosting plan. I answered honestly. Was I pleased with their service? Not at all. Would I consider using GoDaddy to host my sites in the future? No. Would I recommend GoDaddy to my friends and associates? Never.

I do however recommend 1and1.com. I’ve never had an issue with them in the 3 years they’ve hosted my other domains. As for that other company, I think I may start referring to them as Go(tohell)Daddy. That seems to be their attitude toward their customers.