GoDaddyFor the last seven years or so I have had at least one website, the first was to feature my photography, others started with different interests I have. Over that period of time I’ve probably gone through 25+ different domain names. Some of them were bought because they were funny and available and I never did anything with them, some were sold when I got tired of running the site and others just expired because I couldn’t or didn’t want anything more to do with them. For nearly the entire time, I’ve used GoDaddy to register all my sites with the exception of one or two due to a promotional deal I couldn’t pass up.

They have had a great interface, good customer service and a phone number with a real live English-speaking person should I have questions about my account at 2 in the morning. Yes there are some cheaper options out there, but for my money, I’ll stick with one of the bigger companies who have always treated me well.

For the last few months I’ve been getting mail, as in the stuff that the post office delivers, reminding me that in 3 months a domain will expire, usually a coupon code is in there to save 10% or a dollar or something. At the 60-day mark another letter comes, followed by the 30-day and 1 week prior to expiration. In the case that I’ve actually let one expire, a fifth letter will come telling me a domain has expired and I can still renew it if I’d like. We won’t mention how many emails I receive from them as well.

Even after calculating in the bulk rate for postage, the cost to send each one of these letters has to be close to 40 cents with paper and envelope, maybe even closer to 50 cents. That is $3 invested into getting me to new a $9 domain name, plus the emails. Today GoDaddy has gone one step further, having a sales representative call me and inform me that my domains were going to expire.

A nice sounding woman left me a voice mail telling me she was from GoDaddy and wanted to discuss my account. When I had some time I returned the call, however it was a long distance number, not that I care, my cell phone plan has free long distance, but why not give me a toll free option? Amazingly I had no wait and while the woman had told me to ask for her by name, the gentleman who answered the phone said he could assist me, leaving me to belive that they are getting paid for each domain they register. I told him I wasn’t interested in renewing the domains, followed by the fact that while I appreciate the phone call, the four pieces of mail and more then a dozen emails covered the situation. He seemed puzzled that I actually knew about them expiring, then tried to read me some script about getting more services through GoDaddy.

I like the effort that is being put into each customer but wonder what the end cost to the consumer is, clearly some of this has to be passed onto us. I figure they invested close to $10 between mailing fees and time to pay telephone sales representatives to remind me that my domains are going to expire. All for a domain that only costs $9 to register anyway!

Feedback time: Whom do you register your domains with and are you happy with their customer service, price and availability of options?

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