[OT] GoDaddy feedback

[Randy Edwards]

   Forgive me for venting, but I know a lot of folks use GoDaddy to manage 
their domains.  I just renewed some domains today and was less than impressed 
(understatement=ON) at the customer experience.

   So I wrote the below e-mail to them.  I doubt it'll have any impact, but it 
felt good writing it.  Since the list is a bit slow, I'm curious to hear if 
others think I am way over the top or off base on this:

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Hi Folks,

   I've used GoDaddy for years.  Today, I renewed several of my domains.  I 
want to give you some feedback on my customer experience in renewing my 
domains.

   In short, I feel abused.  Let me describe my experience in detail.

   I selected the domains I wanted to renew and clicked renew.  I then was 
force-fed an option to register other TLDs for one of my domains.  I thought 
to myself, that's insulting, if I wanted to register other TLDs I would have 
done so.  But I clicked through to proceed to my shopping cart...

   I was then force-fed options to host my domains at GoDaddy or somewhere.  
Obviously if I'm renewing domains my domains are already hosted somewhere and 
if I was unhappy with that hosting I would be seeking out hosting options.  
Worse, this force-fed page was very long and caused me to take time to read 
the sales pitches to figure out how to get out of the page.  Down at the 
bottom -- past the "drive traffic" huckster and web-mail options I finally 
found the continue button -- great...

   But then I'm taken to a "checkout special" for SSL certs -- another 
huckster barking at me trying to sell me something I didn't ask to be sold.  
At least this page was a decent length so I could quickly find the button 
that LIED saying "No thanks.  Proceed to cart".

   I say "lied" because clicking on the "proceed to cart" button took me to 
yet another force-fed page, "Checkout special" for Website Complete, with a 
similar "no thanks proceed to cart" button.

   At least this final button told the truth.  I finally arrived at the 
shopping cart.

   At this point, I was appalled:

* I was treated not as a person or customer, but just as an object for GoDaddy 
to force-feed sales pitches to.

* I was outright lied to.  Buttons that say "proceed to cart" should proceed 
to cart or they should say something else!  Perhaps you consider this just 
marketing spin or puffery, but I consider it an out-and-out lie, and I do not 
like being lied to.

* I found that despite my checking 4 domains, the shopping cart only listed 3.  
Whoops, since there was multiple .NET domains being renewed, GoDaddy listed 
those in one line-item.  Gee, that's confusing and required a triple-take to 
notice.

   Here's my question: Should a customer -- CUSTOMER -- have to go through 
this abuse in order to pay GoDaddy money?  There are many other registrars 
out there, some of them considerably cheaper than GoDaddy.  Again, I've been 
a GoDaddy customer for years, so I'm not speaking about this lightly.

   Here's my last words on the subject.  I'm only one person, but computers 
are my line of work and I do influence others.  I do not take such abuse 
lightly, and I despise paying for such abuse.

   In six months or so I'll have to renew domains for some of my own 
customers, people who pay us to handle their Internet services.  At that time 
I'll be using GoDaddy again.  I will renew those domains a couple of months 
before they expire.  If I am subjected to the type of abuse I experienced 
this time with GoDaddy my decision will be easy: I will simply move those 
domains to another registrar who values customers and does not subject them 
to such lies and abuse.

   Please don't take this the wrong way -- this is not a threat.  It's a 
promise.

   But I do not feel I'm asking for too much.  I'm asking for a company to 
tell the truth and to offer me a streamlined, non-time-wasting process to 
register and manipulate my domains.  Again, that is not too much to ask for, 
but of course the decision is up to you.

 Sincerely, one of your customers,
 .
 Randy

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