The good thing to come out of last night's meeting was a newfound respect for Go Daddy, my employer. Now don't get me wrong, I love my job and think Go Daddy's a great place to work. But the blogosphere has not been kind to Go Daddy.
Since that's where I spend my life, I've acquired a certain tint to how I think the world perceives us. Google is revered, but Go Daddy is often mocked and derided. It always felt like we were regarded as Web 2.0 for beginners. So I had it in my head that we were one of those great but misunderstood companies.
But last night I got to interact with some real people. They couldn't sing the praises of Go Daddy enough. Incredible customer service, excellent product offerings, great value. It was an eye opener.
I never really thought that our 24/7 phone-based customer service was anything special. Or helpful, from some of the escalations I've seen. But thinking about it more, I realized that I, as a developer, only get to respond to incidents where things have gone far wrong or for too long. My time listening in on customer service and sitting with them was very different and I had attributed it to lucking upon the good reps. But I think now that the bad ones that I had encounterd via escalations were the exception.
There's a reason why we're the number one domain registrar and shared hosting provider. There's cheaper companies out there, but they're cheaper in other ways as well. And the barriers to leaving hosts and registrars is quite low. There's got to be some compelling about our offering to grow as spectacularly as we have.
I'm glad that I found it.
[The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]