Skip to main content

An issue with GoDaddy Email Support

While my web site uptime has been fairly good, I have had a variety of issues with GoDaddy's service in the year or so I have been with them. This isn't necesarily odd, though. Look up an ISP or web host on the net, and you will find someone who has has a bad experience with them.

That said, there is one issue that always rubs me the wrong way when dealing with GoDaddy email tech support. The responses I receive are often unhelpful, or just plain wrong, as in the case with the response below. Even worse, although they always claim there is "no problem", the issue I am experiences usually clears up soon after my email support request.

Here was my initial email to them this morning...

ftp access to site welchwrite.com appears slow. Transfers are slow to begin and complete. Ftp updates from Blogger.com also appear to be having issues as my (b)logs are not updating when posting a new entry.


...and here is their response...

Thank you for contacting online support. It sounds like you may have a connection issue as we are not having any of these issue occur on our end. I suggest to check your fire wall settings and run a trace route. Unfortunately the Mac based computers do not come with a built in Traceroute tool so you will need to download one to perform a Traceroute. You can go to http://www.whatroute.net to download a small software application known as WhatRoute which will allow you to perform this action.


Now, I admit, I could and should have told them that I had done some testing and could access other FTP servers correctly, but in my own defense, I didn't mention it because I would assume that someone has tried other servers before sending in the trouble ticket. I guess this is the curse of being a troubleshooting tech somtimes.

Once again, though, this is the typical response. "Problem, what problem? We don't see a problem?" There always seems to be an assumption that the user knows nothing and must obviously be mistaken, despite the fact that they have experienced some sort of problem, or they wouldn't have taken the time to send the trouble ticket.

It is the second part of the message that bother me most, though. I know Macs are not the dominant computer in the marketplace, but I do expect GoDaddy support techs to know that there is a built-in traceroute command on every Mac sold today. In fact, there are at least 2 ways to do a traceroute, that I know of.

First, the geek method is to run the Terminal application and type traceroute domain.com. Second, there is the GUI-based Network Utility available in the Applications/Utilities folder that also includes the ability to do a traceroute.

I think support issues like this bother me more than the average person since I spend my day supporting my computer consulting clients and I have worked in help desk environments in the past. I have been on the other end of the phone and I know it is difficult work, but that doesn't mean you can simply brush off people to clear the ticket, nor assume that everyone writing you is a technology-impaired idiot. We wouldn't be writing if we didn't, at least, think we had a problem. One that we had tried to solve...and couldn't.

** Previous mentions of GoDaddy


Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Anonymous said…
Basically godaddy's ftp service is just plain slow.
I also sent them trouble tickets and received similar and even other responses.
I have my own dedicated servers at other providers and they work just fine.
They have a problem and they just don't care.

That's the problem when you either hire inexperienced tech support or you outsource it to India and give them template responses to answer our questions.

Popular posts from this blog

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW]  Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Tiny Wow - Tools That Solve Your Files Problem - Convert to/from many file formats [Shared]

A nice collection of quick, online tools, to convert to and from a variety of file types. Just the site to keep in mind when you need to shuffle one type data into a new system. — Douglas TinyWow & Your Privacy Don't you love finding a great online tool-set that claims to be free, let's you build and interact the way you want, only to be denied access if you don't pay for an account(or sign up for an account). Our site is free. We don't limit. We don't even take sign-ups. Might we take sign-ups one day? Sure, we probably will(but not any time soon). When we do go down that route, what we will NOT do is trick you into spending your time using our tools, only to be denied access before you can download what you have just spent your precious time creating. TinyWow is free. We don't have ads, we don't sell data. We currently have no plans to monetize. Why offer these tools for free? We operate two tech websites: Alphr & TechJunkie. We thought our use

TechIQ Gift Guide #15: Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes

#15 Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes Chuck Tomasi , fellow Friends in Tech member and co-author of Podcasting for Dummies , along with another Friends in Tech member and podcasting partner, Kreg Steppe , have a new book out that would be a great gift for anyone interested in blogging and New Media. Wordpress is my first recommendation when someone wants to get started with blogging, but it can be a little intimidating. It is very powerful and with power comes complexity. That said, this book can help to jumpstart your Wordpress knowledge and help you be productive. There is also a companion podcast to the book, Wordpress in 10, available from the author's web site. From Amazon.com... "Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you’ll learn everything you need to build great blogs with WordPress and WordPress.org, and reach any audience by web brows