7 Ways To Improve Go Daddy

In the land of today’s ICANN-accredited domain name registrars, one company leads them all. This company is of course Scottsdale, AZ based Go Daddy.
With discounted registration prices, budget-friendly hosting packages, free value added services and the always popular and edgy Super Bowl commercials, Go Daddy has undoubtedly positioned itself as the world’s most popular domain name registrar.

With all this exposure and publicity, it’s easy to believe Go Daddy has figured everything out when it comes to dominating the domain registrar industry. While this may true in some aspects, there are a few things that noticeably need to be improved in order for Go Daddy to not only stay on top, but to evolve into the next generation of domain registrar.

Today, we will be covering 7 Ways To Improve Go Daddy.

1.Chill with the upsells.
This issue seems to be a common agreement amongst most Go Daddy users. If you’ve ever registered a domain with Go Daddy, you know exactly what I mean. Extra available options seem to flood the screen as you begin to process your purchase and every user must be careful not to accidentally add special services or domains to their cart. The default interface assumes every customer wants to also purchase other tld extensions of their domain and relies on you to manually uncheck the option before continuing with your purchase. As you continue, other add-on services continue to complicate the buying procedure and the once simple task of registering your domain begins to turn into an overwhelming marketing attack of impulse buying and upselling. Offering options is certainly acceptable with any domain purchase, but this method needs to be toned down. Even the confirmation email sent from Go Daddy to your email after your domain purchase is riddled with more special offers and promotions.


2.Chat support would be nice
At the time of this writing, Go Daddy boasts an impressive 6 hour response time for email inquiry responses and a 9 minute wait time for telephone support. As good as this may seem, there is room for improvement. Today’s domainers expect a certain level of support from the companies they choose to do business with and Go Daddy has proved they take their customer service seriously. As the world’s largest domain registrar, it would seem the option of instant chat support would be implemented to assure their customers immediate and real-time solutions to possible problems or complicated situations. Just imagine typing out a problem you are experiencing and having a live agent respond back with a simple link you could click on and instantly be taken to the web page that would help you to solve your situation. No hold times, no delayed email responses and the added value of being able to figure out your problem when it’s convenient for you. Extra complicated situations may still need to be resolved with telephone support but most daily dilemmas or questions could benefit from this chat support option.


3.Be more visible at domain industry conferences and events
Now here’s a question: Why is it that the company that sells the most domains in the world is nowhere to be seen when it comes to important domain industry conferences and premier events? Does Go Daddy feel these professional engagements have nothing to offer to them? If so, shame on them. Events such as DomainFest and the GeoDomain Expo have noticeably lacked the presence of Go Daddy even though these prominent events continue to factor the overall pulse of our industry. If I were them, I’d be front and center showing my dedication to the people who drive the marketplace commerce. Oh, and don’t forget to bring the Go Daddy girls.

4.Accept MoneyBookers as a payment method
Go Daddy currently accepts payments by credit card, check, gift card and PayPal. The option to choose MoneyBookers as a payment preference would greatly widen the customer base for Go Daddy. Domain registrar Dynadot offers this choice and benefits from tons of domainers who choose not to deal with PayPal and instead opt to use MoneyBookers. Limiting this popular payment method certainly is not helping Go Daddy reach out to new customers.


5.Better forums, please
Have you taken the time to visit Go Daddy’s latest attempt at a customer forum? If not, don’t feel bad. You’re not missing much. Go Daddy has taken the liberty to launch Go Daddy Connections, a forum-style business community that let’s users post comment threads and such. At the time of this writing, there are only 35 discussions created and 20 of them were started by Go Daddy staff. A lively and interactive forum environment is what I assume was expected but instead, a graveyard of old posts and unanswered user questions is what was produced. Forums rely on a few key characteristics to allow it to succeed and Go Daddy Connections fails to meet the expectations. First of all, a better forum layout, such as at NamePros or DNForum is what domainers seem to migrate to. Ditch the fancy business-theme atmosphere and make it a straight forward user forum that people will actually utilize.
And don’t forget to have a few customer support experts constantly roaming the forum to help and assist members. Go Daddy has the customer-base to create a thriving and huge domainer forum if they want. Maybe enticing people to use the forum by accruing points towards Go Daddy discounts with a certain amount of posts would build the buzz? Just a thought.

6.Uncomplicate the interface
Do me a favor and and check out the Go Daddy homepage and compare it to the homepage of Register.com. Notice a difference? Register.com’s user interface is clean, minimal and a lot less distracting. Registering a domain is the focal point on Register.com unlike Go Daddy’s perplexing multiple click options. With 6 different text fields on Go Daddy’s homepage, a potential customer immediately has to go into “search mode” just to find out where to search for a possible domain. Too many initial buttons and links (there are easily over 50) on the homepage create a sense of unneeded clutter. Do us all a favor and uncomplicated the interface.

7.If at first you don’t succeed, try again
So Go Daddy’s first attempt at a signature auction didn’t exactly do as well as expected. Only 2 domains were sold and domain insiders questioned the quality of premier domains being offered. Chalk it up to learning but I feel Go Daddy has learned a great deal from their first auction fiasco and should be eager to redeem itself as a major contender of aftermarket auctions. The hiring of Adam Dicker of DNForum to head up their Domain Name Aftermaket division definitely gives hope to a possibly upcoming and hugely successful signature domain auction. I personally look forward to this.

As a long time fan and user, I am genuinely pleased with the service, support and pricing I have come to expected from Go Daddy.  As the domain industry grows and the popularity of registering domains become more and more mainstream, companies such as  Go Daddy must continue to stay one step ahead of the pack and pioneer new and exciting endeavors to accommodate the always evolving domain industry.  But hey, that's just one domainer's opinion. 

Cheers,

Rudy