by Michael Goldstein
[Sometimes dead simple innovation can have big results. In this post, Michael Goldstein discusses Hover’s “No-Hassle Renewals”. By implementing this simple feature the company has been able to reduce support costs while improving customer satisfaction. Goldstein is the VP of Marketing at Tucows, the company behind Hover.]
Renewals should be the fun part of a domain name registration business for registrars. The phrase “make money while you sleep” comes to mind.
But nothing is ever that easy in Web services. In fact, we discovered recently at Hover (Tucows’ retail service) that renewals were our number one support issue, accounting for 36% of support tickets opened.
Some customers were confused about when their domains expire. Some got confused by all the fraudulent fake renewal notices out there. Some couldn’t find the Renew button. And tons didn’t have access to the username and password on the account.
This last problem was more common than you might think. We got dozens of calls a week from frantic web administrators, personal assistants, friends and relatives trying to renew a domain name on someone else’s behalf. Maybe this other person was on vacation, sick, no longer with the company, divorced; we got a lot of great stories. The point is, somebody wanted to pay us to renew a domain and couldn’t.
We brainstormed a bunch of ways to make it easier for our customers to retrieve their account details. None of the improvements had much impact on our support queue. Then one day, somebody raised his hand and said “Why does anyone even need a username and password to renew a domain name?.
What? That’s outrageous! Think about the security issues. The fraud!
Wait. There really isn’t any harm in letting total strangers renew someone else’s domain name for them (if that’s the worst case scenario here). It’s sort of the opposite of fraud. The bad guy puts down the valid credit card and the good guy gets a free renewal. None of this brings anyone any closer to actually accessing the domain name account.
And to the original point, it gets a whole lot easier for the good guys to renew their domain names.
So that’s what we did. We put a button in our top nav that lets you renew a domain name without ever logging in. We called it “no hassle renewals.” (We’re not clever.) We see about two-dozen visitors a day renewing their domain names that way. (Most of our customers still auto-renew.) We haven’t had any complaints of rogue or malicious renewals. Most importantly, we are getting fewer support calls and we are solving renewal-related problems much more quickly.
We’re not quite making money while we sleep. But our customers are sleeping a little better.
Even NetSol allowed this years ago.
The one problem I see is if the domain owner did not want to renew the domain because of TM threats.
Maybe, they made an agreement with a TM owner to let the domain expire.
If I wanted to let Bing .us expire
(I don’t own it). But, the owner of Bings .us accidently renewed Bing.
What about the people that renew the wrong domain and want a refund?
I realize ‘tough luck’ will be the response.
Another problem could be the price of the renewal. Many registrars offer different pricing.
For example, Netsol has a renewal price range between $ 9. and $ 35.
wow, that’s a smart idea. My guess is that all other registrars will fallow.
Smart moves . I think could become standard.
How about moving the idea forward with a “Extend My Domain Registration” widget?
Bloggers, for example, could put it in their sidebars in lieu of a “donate” button.
Useful for domainers – each third-party extension adds value to their domain(s).
Useful for Tucows – more money in the bank.
@meyer – we’ll definitely fix mistakes and malfeasance, we have a “no tough luck” policy for our team and would rather keep our customers happy than quibble over a renewal fee. When we thought about the TM extension scenario, we realized that its a definite possibility, but rather than throwing out the idea, we figured out how to make it work. The registrant is always notified when a transaction happens on one of their domains, and its easy and immediate to reverse anything unwanted, as in the example you gave.
@Kevin – I love that idea. We could definitely bring something together. Good idea.
@Ross
I want a cut 😉
Love the “Extend My Domain Registration” widget idea. We’ve been brainstorming all sorts of “pay it forward” ideas where people would be inspired to renew other people’s domains.
TM threats is probably the best example of a situation where a domain renewal is potentially a negative. But if you don’t intend to use the domain, I can’t imagine it will cause too much of a problem.
Well the solution for TM related name would be to allow a domain owner to simply allow them to log in to the control panel and set the status “disallow no hassle renewals”. If the domain owner opts to disallow it then the domain can not be renewed.
Very easy solution IMHO. Congratulations on coming up with this brilliant and very easy renewal strategy!
Whois.com.au have had this functionality for years. I’d argue there’s a lot more real innovation to be found at smaller companies.
I have to say that this is BRILLIANT and as a bonus it will screw the arbitrator crooks that see each renewal as a new registration.
just one thing that everybody has overlooked…
if someone renews your domain for even one year (but especially for several) then legally they might have a claim to the domain that they paid for its upkeep and want part ownership or part of the value/sale price.
this logic clearly applies to all material items such as property, paintings, loans, etc, so why not to domains as well?
personally i’d NEVER let anyone else pay a lousy $10 renewal for me.