Why Register.com will eventually fail

After my experience with register.com I am sure it will eventually fade into the Internet dustbin.  So it was time to renew a domain and they wanted to charge me  $35.00/year to register the domain with them again.  This included a free page, one email and "technical support"... I told the first tele-agent I spoke to that I wasn't interested in any of the services, I simply wanted a domain renewal and that I expected the cost to be competitive with what I could get from godaddy.com.    She said "ok, we're happy to oblige, the cost will then be 35 dollars."  How is that different?  "I'm sorry sir but at register.com we don't unbundle our services."  Can I please speak to someone else? "Sure"...on hold for ten minutes, I hang up and call again.  Speak to another rep... I get the same story. I explain that I only want to pay for the services that I want and will use and NOT for features and functions that don't interest me.  Give me a competitive price for just the domain registration. "Ok... that will be 35 dollars."  Clearly, their tele agents have been informed that there is to be no unbundling, no price negotiation, and the company is banking on the fact customer won't go thru the pain or process to transfer domains.  Perhaps they are also compensated on the number of "standard" packages they sell. Can I please speak to a supervisor?  A very pleasant woman gets on the phone and proceeds to tell me that the only price they can offer me no matter what is $35.

I get on the phone with godaddy and in 5 minutes the domain is set to be transferred.

Then I call back register.com to get the domain unlocked and I speak to a customer support rep.  She is sorry I am leaving register.com and asks if the only reason I am leaving is price. Pretty much was my reply.  "Oh, well you know, we have a special low cost domain registration program for customers who only want to register their domains!"  Flabbergasted that no less than three customer renewal reps didn't bother to try to retain me by making that offer, I declined.  I got a great deal from godaddy - 6.99 to transfer the domain for as many years as I wanted.. so I took multi-year option.

This is how customer experience or lack thereof kills companies.  Register.com had me as customer since 2000. I wanted to pay less for less services - a fair and equitable request. The company either intentionally or unintentionally was unwilling to be flexible in trying to keep me as a customer.  But rather than simply lose a customer they have gained a detractor.  Which is  worse because my negative comments about the company will draw off more customers and create more detractors.  Promotion, detraction and user generated commentary in general are powerful tools in todays conversational economy.  You MUST manage your customer experience appropriately to drive promotion not detraction or your customers won't just get upset, they'll leave! Stop doing business in short term mode and think about the consequences to not preparing for the user revolution.

Comments

[Philippe Collin]

I'm with you 100%.

Register.com has this arrogance in their DNA that sets them apart.

I remember that the last time I had to deal with them, it was about transferring a domain from one register.com account to another one.

They transformed a pretty straightforward equal-revenue transaction into a painful customer experience due to extravagant process requirements.

They just did not want to serve a client who only wanted to use their services.

Needless to say, I transferred all my personal and company domains to jumpline.com, a company that, amazingly enough, has competent reps answer phone calls in less than 2 minutes.

Since then, I have had several friends use their services and enjoy the same level of service.

[Roland Hesz]

Pretty similar story with my internet provider, UPC.
As soon as I said I want to cancel my contract with them they had an "old customer price" which was about half what I was paying up until then.

Funny, if you actually leave, they always have a much lower priced package for you.
But not until then.

[Steve Mann]

@Roland, @phillipe- thanx for your comments. In many high tech markets commoditization is common place. The ONLY thing which is a strong unique competitive differentiator is the Customer Experience. Godaddy, punchline et al get it. Register doesn't.

[Steve Mann]

WOW, you should really learn to speak your mind :). Seriously, those are strong comments. You must have had quite an experience there for you to say what yo said.

[ED]

Steve

Goto to BiteDomains.Com. Service is top notch, 24x7 US based call center support, and if you contact me I'll even give you a special discount code.

ED

[anonymous]

This is interesting Verisign indicates com/net registrations are up 31% from last year. The article is here http://www.domainnamenews.com/news/verisign-releases-december-industry-brief/1347

I wonder if register.com's business is up 31%? Haha.

[Shane]

Yeah, I paid for a 5 year domain, no questions asked. At the time; thought was fair pricing $88 for 5 years, but then once set-up there is this big blue register.com banner on the bottom of my website(which is designed and maintaned by someone else, all I paid register for was domain) My website co. tells me to contact register about removing the big blue ugly advertisment banner... Register tells me that to remove the banner I have to upgrade to their premium package and that will only cost another $236, whattttt.. Or they tell me I can pay $49/year Guess what, this advertisment gimmick or the cost to get rid of it costs you more than the original service requested, which was just a domain name...