123-reg called to explain themselves
I received a rather unexpected call this morning from a nice guy from 123-reg/WebFusion; which took me a little by surprise and it seems they came across my blog and my previous post – Hi guys! – where I ranted discussed how they were less than helpful with regards to my .eu domains and refused to update the .eu technical contact details as requested.
It seems they wanted to explain themselves, so for sake of fairness I naturally felt should share the explanation, and my thoughts on it.
The reason: Apparently they couldn’t update the details was because -wait for it – they didn’t know they could. They claim the .eu tld was fairly new to them and they didn’t know that it was possible to update the technical contact company, hence why I was fobbed off and told it couldn’t be done.
Well, not really. While yes I can appreciate with any new product you do take a little while to fully understand what can and can’t be done and there may be a couple of small misunderstanding which should quickly be learnt and overcome to ensure you can offer the best service to clients.
But – and this is a big but – we also have to consider that 123-reg (child company of WebFusion Ltd) is a multi-million pound company with no doubt hundreds of staff and plenty of experience in this industry and should be competent at launching new tlds, how they work, what can and can’t be done and if you can update the technical contact details. I also have to question how new .eu was to them when I brought my .eu domains, as I don’t remember it being a brand spanking new tld for them and I’d think this is something they should have resolved within a few days, not months.
I also think it is something which should have been looked into promptly once I (and presumably others) began to question it. It took me merely a few days and a handful of emails to get confirmation that its possible and even after requesting direct access to OpenSRS via 123-reg I was ignored or given canned responses.
So if it took me a few days, it should have taken them minutes – being as they are in a lucrative reselling position with Tucows could not confirm this simple fact before launching the domain?… or even during the numerous tickets, some of which I stated that I knew it was possible didn’t prompt someone to look into it further, make the changes and issue an apology back in April/May.
While I really appreciate the phone call and apology – all be it 6 months late – but being syndical I have to be dubious of the intentions as its probably because they have seen how well my previous post is ranking for the terms “123 reg eu” (3rd – 5th result) and how many potential customers are probably reading it.
A phone call and a nice apology and promise that should any more problems arise I can contact them directly via email is great, it is mostly too little too late. Sorry guys.
123-reg was the first company I dealt with with domains, and is where I started with “dansgalaxy.co.uk” – ah memories! Back when I had to use my mums credit card – and no doubt will end up buying a few more cheap domains from them in future, and hey who knows I might even apply to blog for them if the opportunity arises (assuming they don’t hold these posts against me of course!) I just hope they have resolved this and all staff are now aware how to process the change requests quickly and efficiently (as they still don’t seem to allow it via the interface) and in future they learn from this mistake and will improve the support (as in, actually reply to tickets and not use canned responses) and next time I do business with them my view of their support department can be proved wrong and I will be a happy satisfied customer of 123-reg / WebFusion.
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