Company says customer satisfaction is higher with phone and chat support.
GoDaddy has stopped offering support by email for U.S. customers, instead pushing them to phone and chat support options.
Nick Fuller, Communications Manager at GoDaddy.com, told Domain Name Wire that the company made the switch after reviewing customer behavior and satisfaction scores:
We’ve seen a shift in the way our customers engage and while talking to a ‘real person’ on the phone is still the overwhelming preference for the vast majority of our customers, there’s been a shift in the way people engage electronically. Customers are interested in having their issue fixed quickly and email isn’t conducive to speed.
Having recently used email support at GoDaddy, I understand the challenges of troubleshooting domain and website questions on a slow medium. Given the back and forth, chat or phone support would have been a better option.
A GoDaddy customer and former employee reported a very long wait time for chat over the weekend, though.
Fuller said the result of the change has been “stunning”:
Our email support team consistently had the lowest customer satisfaction scores. Now, our live chat team has some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the company. And that’s significant when you consider our Net Promoter Score for customers who call and talk to a customer rep rank us ahead of companies like Nordstrom and Zappos.
The main reason I wrote my blog post was to get the new chat system fixed.
A. The chat should be available all the time. You shouldn’t have to keep checking back for the button to appear when the queue gets to a low enough level.
B. It needs to give you an audio tone or visual notification when it’s your turn in line so you don’t miss out and waste all that time you just spent waiting.
C. The wait shouldn’t be so long
Hello, can anyone help? I am in the UK, godaddy have deleted a whole year’s worth of our company emails despite paying for the service, 4 calls over over 2 hours on the phone later (there is no email or chat support in the UK only phone!!!), still no emails despite 4 promises. I have written a recorded letter to the CEO Blake Irving in an attempt to get something done but no response as yet. Any ideas please? How can someone run a company if all their emails just get deleted with no notice and even worse don’t get reinstated?
Does this also mean they won’t take my faxed in questions anymore?
Dammit.
Certain information and details about a particular issue are best delivered via the medium that has been part of the Internet for decades: email.
A secure ticketing system, as implemented by small or large companies in every industry, is mandatory. To remove this as an option, GoDaddy is shooting themselves in the leg. Bob Parsons would never do such a dis-service to the customers of the company he founded, but he’s not a part of that company anymore.
I never use chat for customer support, only for pre-sales questions. Looks like GoDaddy’s phones will be much busier from now on.
I think that this is all about up selling the customer actually. Customers can be big time wasters over the phone. There has to be an upside to godaddy by taking on the extra cost of having people do support by phone. Also there is no easy way to communicate certain things verbally you do need to do them in writing.
Yeah, because they noticed they are able to sell you stuff while they assist you over the phone. Had a phone support call and I was pitched over a dozen items that I could buy, renew, how about this… how about that… gimme a break….
My sentiments exactly. I do not think this is a smart move at all. I hardly use chat because I need a better trail of my contact and for what. I usually use chat when I about to make a purchase and need instant response. If one has to queue up in the line in order to get a response from chat, doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
They need to seriously rethink that strategy especially in dealing with their large portfolio customers.
Henry,
Large portfolio holders still have access to email support through their account rep.
I agree, though, that email is sometimes a better option. Sometimes I don’t have time to wait for support, but I’d like to check off my to-do list be submitting an email request.
ebay has a large problem without an email address.
All about upsells. I bet this is a win/win for them. They get happier customers (as their survey says), but at the same time they can now take a simple 30 second reply and turn it into a 10 minute call where they upsell you on $40 more in stuff you don’t need. I think it is an interesting approach. I for one love email support and don’t like their going completely away from it.
Anyone who has tried chat support: did the chat rep sell you on something at the end of the call?
It’s no secret that GoDaddy uses its support call center to sell. Curious if chat does the same.
Not just US customers. I live in Asia, and there’s no local phone number in my country. I have no email support options any longer. Given the current LiveChat opening hours it means I have to make an International call in order to get support during my business day. I tried LiveChat over weekend late in my night and the wait time was 27 mins. That’s an epic #fail IMO.
Basically they need to offer alternative support methods for customers who cant use the current options. Very poorly thought out move, and zero communication with customers to alert them of change.
I just went to chat support and it’s telling me there’s a 39 minute hold time. That’s too long.
Andrew,
That’s assuming the time they quote of 39 minutes is accurate in the first place. (It’s not). In the video I embedded in my post, it initially quoted me 37 minutes. It ended up taking 1 hour 20 minutes.
The time estimate is extremely inaccurate. If you forward to the point in my video where my stopwatch reaches 30 minutes, it tells me I have a 7 minute wait left, yet it takes me another 50 minutes to get help. The estimate never accurately re-adjusted. It just slowly went from 7 minutes, to 6 minutes and so on.
Nick Fuller- Everything is not just about quantitative data. Use a qualitative analysis (common sense) to look at issues as well. Remember, Godaddy’s primary focus now is to make money for it’s investors. They want a quick payday, just like they did with Skype, Dunkin Donuts, etc.
Changes they make may hurt the company in the long term, but if they boost short term profitability, that increases how much they can sell the company for and after they sell, what do they care? It’s going to take a majority of customers a while to figure out changes like this. Most customers don’t need support very often.
They are doing everything they can to boost the sales price for the day they sell, not to make the company the best it can be 10 years from now.
Bye bye godaddy
Indeed, awful ‘live’ chat support. Waited just over 90 minutes for someone to be available then was given an automatic response that live chat wasn’t available because of high traffic volumes (4.42 am UK time by the way!)
I swapped to GoDaddy because of the on line chat support, average wait was 10/ 20 minutes. Now there is no more free chat a no more free e mail, only a phone number which is not free. I found this not very honest.
I MUCH prefer the ticket system. Email works well for me and my provider and Email gives you time to think.
It’s Unfortunate Go?Daddy Has Chosen This Route.
I’ve searched Godaddy.com site but could not find any Live Chat. Is it hidden somewhere?
Phone??…it costs a fortune from australia especially if there is a long delay, godaddy…you’ll have to go
by that u know that they dont want u call…
A product expert will be with you soon. Estimated wait time is 56 minutes. Thank you for your patience…
ps : 56 min… No comment!…
Horrylble for so bg Company to turn off the email ticket System!!!
I cant follow this step for this Special Manager who have this stupid idea. so godaddy i will cancel all Services with you…
There is no chat service here in Australia and you only offer phone support.
Why do you assume that everyone has a phone or even the ability to use a phone? That is discrimination and we will be taking legal action.
Did anything come of your idea? I am Hard-of-Hearing and believe it’s a law they must provide non-verbal access. The law is there to help level barriers to earnest participation. I can see I’m fortunate in that I’d get help from a hearing person [over not getting any voice-support at all].
I’m in same boat. I’m fuming with support calls no emails. I’m hearing impaired. I try to deal with whois issues with godaddy and wix website that connect to that with whois but fuming no help.
Unable to reach anyone in GoDaddy even through phone support. Not happy
I have just had a wait time of 18 MINUTES. 18 MINUTES. You would think GoDaddy would incorporate a call back system like some forward thinking companies. This is ridiculous.
Totally unacceptable – how can you communicate with them if you are deaf? And if you just talk to them there is no record of what problem you reported or what action they will take – not a system you can trust. Big fail.
And phone support costs way more than text – they would only do this believing they can either upsell on the phone, or fob you off with BS when there is a prob, or charge you for services they claim you signed up to over the phone.
I guess they only want US-based customers, who are not disabled, and preferably gullible ones with time on their hands.
I’m in same boat. I’m fuming with support calls no emails. I’m hearing impaired and from Australia. I try to deal with whois issues with godaddy and wix website that connect to that with whois but fuming no help.
how to call from skype to godaddy support
I have tried calling them they kept my call in waiting and after 20 min they disconnected.. Worst support.
This is utter, total crap. I cannot find the live chat ANYWHERE and I’m just left with phoning up? But there’s a 7 minute wait time. Why the heck can’t I send a ****ing email?
Oh no wait, there’s a 9 minute wait time. This is the 21st century! This is unacceptable! Oh but hang on, I need to contact them so I can transfer my domain name to someone else. WHAT A SURPRISE.
Helen,
You don’t need to call them to transfer your domain out. Just log into your account and unlock the domain and request the authorization code.
Here are step by step instructions.
https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/3560/transferring-domain-names-to-another-registrar?locale=da
480-505-8866 is the phone for the transfer concierge dept. This may have a shorter wait time as well. You most likely don’t need to call though, only if the transfer needs to be rebooted on their end, which is pretty rare.
Hope Godaddy lose all their customers, just as they lost me. My site has been offline for 3 days now thanks to the inability to contact them in a NORMAL way, chat staff is ALWAYS offline, phone is ALWAYS busy, and NO EMAIL support. This ship is sinking.
I think that is the biggest fault ever in the history of the company. I used email support ever and i was satisfied with the speed of answers. I dont want to call and i think thats the stupidest explanation, for canceling email support! Now all things are not easier, they are more complicated! I am so not happy about that change and think about changin my hosting provider.
Go daddy is the worst. I highly recommend Blue Host and Just Host.
it sucks . now they don’t even have chat support and i am calling them since last 40 minutes on their so called award winning customer support number. my website db is down and i am just helpless.
I am feeling like big time cheated.
No e-mail customer support. Can’t connect live chat support. Godaddy really sucks.
godaddy is a SCAM company, for that they removed all kinds of support
Godaddy are idiots. I’m going leave them!
I want email support!
There does not seem to be any chat support here in Japan.
There is no way of selecting language separate to region so if I am to stipulate that I am in Japan I am required to read the site in Japanese. In the USA one is given the choice of English or Spanish but there must be speakers of many other languages.
Apparently it is okay to set my region to UK/US.
I told the US support guy – Rene’ who was extremely professional — that the option of email support would be appreciated.
cannot know the address lack of information
Hi all,
I have godaddy account, I created one site in godaddy and my site based on the service so i created the one virtual directory and I pushed my MVC web api code.My code is running good but, I try to hit web api its not working. how to solve that ?
I want to ask by email because I am not good in English to talk to someone there
I want help to online chat
i see the online chat is closed
i want to ask about is the my hosting support adobe muse template if i upload it on my host in godday
…. Please i want help from Customer Service Support ! by chat or by email
please if you not have support me here give me some ways to support me on it
thanks!
They charge 7p per min for support that is why they offer this service
No email, chat support will let us hard to explain the problem to technician with call.
Never seen such a fraud site like godaddy. Without informing your account will be blocked. Reason they don’t inform. when try on customer support again the fixed tone reply, your account has been blocked. For what? Horrible site experience. No
This is not new to the email and it is not possible to contact Godaddy in some countries. I from Spain (EU) use the phone with a prefix from Madrid, although I believe that the email is the most common since for there to be no speech errors, the chat for support is sent to you by email after finishing, not understanding the automatic email of promotions, discounts and alerts or warnings from Godaddy to its customers account exists for Godaddy.