A Textbook Example of Deliberately Breaking Promises to Customers

The headlines

Go Daddy, the prominent Internet domain registry, is still supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act… sort of, kind of [source: ZDNet]

Due to the company's ambiguous stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), hosting and domain registrar company Go Daddy has lost more than 37,000 domains in the past two days. [source: VentureBeat]

An effort by GoDaddy customers to boycott the domain registrar over its support for Hollywood-backed copyright legislation has sparked allegations of foul play. [source: CBSNews]

The Webs registrars weave

It's actually not just GoDaddy that behaves this way. They just got caught with their pants down.

Deliberately breaking a promise made to customers increases the brand dissonance and decreases trust, which means they are going to need to trade more to get your business. Brand is more valuable than flow -- you can get more flow for your brand dollar.

Yet companies continue to increase risk by doing stupid things like letting a customer hang for a meager $4.99 charge.

I had a similar situation with another registrar a couple of weeks ago, which is what led me to reach out to the community to compile a useful guide to buying Web domains. You will note there are several registrars on the list, yet very few are companies people would actually recommend.

A sin of omission is still a sin

In my case the registrar omitted to follow through on a request clearly stated repeatedly (supposedly on a recorded line). Then customer service never admitted to the company's lack of action, and subsequently dragged its feet on correcting the error of their ways invoking security measures.

They must think customers are morons. I'm quite familiar with all kinds of managed services, collocation and hosting procedures. I wrote guides and tracked information on those topics for years.

Saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" is not an apology. Don't just stand there and babble. Do something to fix the problem. Who writes those scripts? There is such a thing as a sin of omission.

Let it go daddy

Newly appointed Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman has yanked his company’s support for SOPA.

And then the ambiguity began,

Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation–but we can clearly do better. It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.

Which statement does Adelman really mean? Do customers not read between the lines? How many decide not to bother moving? How many take a "wait and see" approach? The company picked a very visible fight.

Is there a fresh supply of new customers coming in forever? Eventually word gets around, people compare notes, and we're in the season of making promises... and renewing domains. It gets to a point where the pain to move is lower than that to stay.

Customers get to make a statement of their own with action. They can take control of their promises to their clients and customers in turn by doing something.

What happens next? Get an agency to develop a new blitz campaign? Run deep discounts to lure people in or back, lock the door and throw away the key? How long before you run out of marketing budgets with this kind of shopping spree?

Instituting an adversarial relationship with customers is the culmination of bad ideas. Forget "best practices" (or what others are getting away with), it's not your father's competitive environment anymore.

Companies need to develop the most practice in speaking clearly and acting appropriately in their relationship with customers though every decision they make. Deliberately breaking promises weakens a business and can prove costly.

 

If you enjoyed this post from Conversation Agent, subscribe, share and like it. Sign up for my Premium Newsletter.

Comments

[Brian Driggs]

I think I'd consider GoDaddy to be the AOL of hosting services. Because they do more marketing than any other registrar/host, they attract the uninformed, who end up thinking poor service and convoluted processes are the norm in the hosting business.

It's unfortunate, really.

[Serena]

This is so frustrating! Not your article, haha (that was very refreshing), but the issue! GoDaddy is not the only brand guilty of this type of attitude and it is such a shame to watch the trust between business and customer slowly becoming obsolete. What happened to taking pride in a job well done? What happened to work ethics?!?

[Valeria Maltoni]

I find their advertising distasteful, and their practices not trustworthy. It's unfortunate that some people would still be bragging about putting one on customers. And I do think people need to become better buyers.

[Valeria Maltoni]

no deal is too good to put up with a business uninterested in servicing the very thing they sell. That is bad trade.

[Lydia Sugarman]

When I emailed GoDaddy support to ask if I was going to have to move my 81 domains, they had just released the initial statement and then, the waffling statement came out. I wondered if I was reading correctly and that they were trying to BS its customers. I guess they are! So, looks like after more than a decade, I will cease being a GoDaddy customer.

The other thing is that "I'm sorry you feel that way" expression that has seemed to replace a simple "I'm sorry." There's a huge difference, to me anyway, between the two since the first one is not an actual apology and throws back all responsibility for feeling used, abused, and pissed off. It's a very passive-aggressive shitty cop-out actually.

The point? Don't let anyone get away with that kind of non-apology, not customer service people, not friends!

[Jim Ewel]

I don't care for GoDaddy or for SOPA in its present form, but I don't understand your characterization of the new CEO's words as ambiguous. Do you not think that fighting online piracy is permissible? Do you not think that with some set of revisions that the internet community got behind a law would be acceptable? You can be anti-SOPA in its present form and still for some kind of consequence for internet pirates, without being ambiguous.

@jimewel

[Valeria Maltoni]

I might have used the wrong term. What word would best express when someone says "no, but yes"? Shifty? Waffling? I just linked to the previous statement where he declared they had withdrawn support, to then say they actually did, maybe, sort of...

Thank you for stopping by. Enjoyed seeing your passion about marketing at your site.

[Valeria Maltoni]

it's going to be harder for organizations to hide where they place their loyalties, then to lie about them.

The passive-aggressiveness is something that somehow is becoming standard. It's worse than a non apology, it tries to put one on you at the same time. The opposite of clarity. It basically says, it's your own damn fault for even asking, etc.

[Brian Driggs]

Agreed. They do the smutty Super Bowl commercials and such, right? (Not sure, haven't had cable TV in close to five years.)

To me, this sort of thing is indicative of also-ran companies offering hyping the thin value of their mediocre products (marketing) rather than investing in actually delivering truly better offerings.

People DO need to become better buyers, but how many people fall victim to the subconscious promises made through advertising? Chicke and the egg, I guess.

[NWGuy]

Just curious how you feel about the other company in the news recently - Facebook. The FTC ruled against them for their deceptive privacy practices. It was pretty direct in calling out several examples, one could say a pattern of behavior.

A standard apology came out; but it is difficult to change a pattern of behavior.

Would you say this falls into the same category?

(disclosure - not a member of Facebook, or a GoDaddy customer)

[Valeria Maltoni]

If you search this blog, you will find many posts about Facebook and the company's business practices. I make no secret that my thumb is down. My use of that network is limited to the blog's page. Clearly, on Facebook, you are the product being sold.