Godaddy QUIETLY Ends Email Support – Replaces with flawed chat system

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How To Fix This Godaddy:

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

Update 5/15/14: It appears Godaddy hasn’t fixed any of the issues here even though I’m getting quite a bit of traffic from this blog post, and a decent amount of the traffic is coming from Godaddy offices according to my logs.

Update 7/29/15: It appears Godaddy has still not implemented any of the suggestions I have posted here.

If you are looking for some Godaddy alternatives, you can find other cheap websites and providers at websiteservers.com

Summary & Review of New Godaddy Support Options

I documented how the new chat works in a video I posted below and it took over an hour and 20 minutes to finally get someone to help via chat.

to finally get someone to help via chat. There is no more email support for questions you have. Godaddy has removed the option to submit a ticket in your account and if you email [email protected] you will get a response like this, telling you to choose a different support option.

for questions you have. Godaddy has removed the option to submit a ticket in your account and if you email you will get a response like this, telling you to choose a different support option. The support options are now calling into support via phone , or using their online chat system .

, or using their . Chat is not always available . If there are more than 20 people (by my estimates) in line, the Chat Now button will be unavailable and grayed out and say “Chat Busy”

. If there are more than 20 people (by my estimates) in line, the Chat Now button will be unavailable and grayed out and say “Chat Busy” The chat system took well over an hour to get me connected to somebody and has very inaccurate time estimates.

to get me connected to somebody and has very inaccurate time estimates. There are no audio or visual indicators when it is your turn to chat . This means you could spend a lot of time waiting and then miss your opportunity to get help.

. This means you could spend a lot of time waiting and then miss your opportunity to get help. I recorded my screen with a stop watch and the Godaddy chat window as evidence on what you can expect if you try to use the new chat feature.

with a stop watch and the Godaddy chat window as evidence on if you try to use the new chat feature. Godaddy did not notify customers in general as far as I can tell. I searched my email account for any recent emails from Godaddy and did not find any. I checked their Twitter and Facebook pages and didn’t find any announcements either. They did however tell customers who inquired where the email support was that there were “better support options” available such as phone and chat. See embedded tweet below.

@motionVFX General email support is not available anymore in favor of better support options, such as Live Chat. https://t.co/gDbfvv7FE8 ^G — GoDaddy Help (@GoDaddyHelp) April 23, 2014



As a former employee of Godaddy.com for 8 years, I know quite a bit about their core strengths and weaknesses. One of their biggest strengths has always been the level of support they provided. That appears to be taking a major hit as they have apparently done away with email support for customers.

Godaddy typically would receive thousands and thousands of email requests a day and they had quite a few people answering these emails, maybe a 100 or so I would guesstimate. I use email support every once in a while and recently received this notice that accompanied an answer to one of my issues.

I figured they would eventually make some official announcement letting everyone know about this change and a time frame of when this would happen. As far as I can tell, that never happened. On Saturday I logged in and found out I could no longer submit a ticket.

Chat Attempt – Saturday Evening

Here is my chat attempt documented via video. It is very boring as it is just a stop watch counting the time and the Godaddy chat window updating my current place in queue and their very inaccurate “time estimate” but as you can see, it takes almost 1.5 hours for me to get help. I had to rush into the other room as my son was getting sick right around the time my turn in line came up and I ended up missing my opportunity to chat after this long wait.



Detailed Account Of My Situation

Early Saturday afternoon I was doing some work and needed to put an email address on a site I was working on. I had been having some troubles with DNS and I have had to contact Godaddy’s email support multiple times to have them refresh the zone file (something customers can’t do on our end). I would send them a list of email addresses that were displaying the MX warning error, even though they had the correct MX records. I would usually get a response back saying they were fixed and they would be fine. Since I can no longer do this I figured I would try the new chat feature.

What happened was interesting. For a while it said “Chat Busy” and “Click to see the Chat Wait Time” but there was nowhere that I could actually click to see this. I waited for a while and snapped some screenshots of chat being unavailable and I noticed the phone wait time climb and climb from 7 minutes, 46 minutes, 54 minutes, and finally to 71 minutes!!!! So I definitely was not going to be calling on the phone this afternoon.

I eventually noticed the chat button had been enabled so I clicked it. A pop up window came up and said I was in position 20 and I should expect about a 21 minute wait. I thought it was strange that only 20 people were in front of me for Godaddy being such a large company and I thought the estimated time of 21 minutes was even stranger. Was there only 1 person on the other end answering these things? Typically employees working on chats can take on multiple customer chat sessions at a time.

What happened next was strange. As time went on, I did move up in line, but the wait time increased. So after I had been waiting about 20 minutes, the time remaining had actually gone up from the original estimate, even though I have moved up in the queue. After a while of this happening, I realized it was going to take well over an hour to get help so I closed out and forgot about it.

I wanted to test out the process a little bit later tonight and decided I would use a stopwatch to see how long it would actually take and I did a video capture of my screen to document their new chat system in action.

To add insult to injury, after waiting all of this time, there is no indication that there is now somebody live and ready to help you. There is no beep or sound that comes through your speakers. There also isn’t a flashing that appears in the window icon as a visual indicator. It’s as if they expect you to sit and stare at the screen until they get around to serving you, otherwise you will miss your chance. I have used chat systems with many other companies and these features are pretty standard.

Thoughts

How many people weren’t at their computers staring at the chat window the entire time and missed their few minute window? I bet at least half of the 20 people that were in front of me didn’t wait around or missed out. I’m sure that’s why I moved up a few positions so quickly. How long would it have taken me to get help if Godaddy actually helped all of the people in front of me? If they had a system that made any audio or visual indication to the person seeking help? I am a customer of Infusionsoft.com and they have an awesome chat system in place. I have never once waited more than 10 or 15 minutes and they truly do want to help you. They also play a nice audio tone when it is your turn to chat so you don’t waste all of that time and miss your turn in line.

Godaddy is essentially just abandoning hundreds of thousands of requests for help per year as they know a majority of these people will not call in or sit around staring at their screen waiting a ridiculous amount of time for the chat to answer. At the very least, this chat system replacement was an extremely poor implementation and it will never provide customers the level of service email did. In my experiences when I have connected with chat, they have been very helpful, but these chats take a while (aprox. 20 mins) and you have to sit around waiting while they research your issue on their end.