Observations on service
A recent support call proved to me a few things about service. I called to start the transfer process of my domains from register.com to another registrar. The operator convinced me to stay:
Everything is negotiable. My reason for switching registrars was price: Register.com charges $35/y/domain; the competition charges $10). Talking with the operator, it turns out that there’s some flexibility in pricing. Now I’m renewing at $8/y/domain.
Small talk goes a long way. The operator didn’t put me on hold while she was working—she asked about the weather. We chatted about grey winters & snowstorms between trading information for the domain renewals. The net result: I felt like I was being treated as a real human by a real human instead of being a participant in a machine-like, protocol-driven transaction. It made a huge difference and all it took was the age-old conversation tactic of talking about the weather.
Comments
Would that there were more businesses with which to deal that actually had a real person at the end of the phone line. Mom
Posted by: Jo Anne | January 18, 2009 07:08 PM
I once was a customer of Network Solutions, but they were far too expensive. While their site allowed for nearly complete control of my domain configuration, there were a few things I simply had to call support to get updated.
So I switched to AllDomains.com. Somewhat cheaper, easier to edit most stuff, but they still had the niggling misfeature of requiring a call to support to get a couple of things edited.
So I switched to Godaddy.com. Vastly cheaper (I bought long-term and so paid only $7/yr/domain), and I could actually control everything. I've never had to call support for anything.
So while a company does well to connect personally with their clients, a company also does well to provide the product (feature set) their clients actually need. Nobody at the other registrars could give me a clear answer as to why I had to spend their money on the 800 phone line to edit some config that really ought to be doable via the web site.
Posted by: Dave Whitney | February 3, 2009 11:29 AM