What's New at Hover HQ

Yesterday many of you got an email from us encouraging you to get your firstnamelastname.something at a 15% discount (check out myname.hover.com). A lot of folks seemed to appreciate the suggestions and the price. A few folks complained. We are always grateful for either type of feedback. I wanted to quickly address the complaints.

Actually, first an admission and a promise. I admit that we need to sell some more stuff to succeed. And it’s tricky because we don’t sell that many services. As you know, we focus on doing a few things really well (managing domain names and email) and we hope that folks will register a few services, renew at a high rate and tell their friends. It’s also tricky because we have vowed to spare you the sort of barrage of cross-sell that many of you have experienced at our more well known competitors. So that leads me to the promise. I promise that when we market, we always make sure it is something that we really think our customers may not have thought of or something that could add real value to their lives. (We do not tell individuals and very small businesses to “protect their brand” across every TLD or to buy a domain name simply because it’s Columbus Day.)

For most of our customers, I think the suggestion to secure your own name and make it some sort of personal front door was indeed a helpful one.

I think this is even true for a lot of our customers that own personal name email addresses (firstname@lastname.com). You folks have great email addresses but very few of you are using the subdomain (firstname.lastname.com). So we genuinely believe that you should still consider firstnamelastname.com as a domain name. If you prefer, you could even get your email address at that domain (first@firstnamelastname.com) and save yourselves money when your personal name email is up for renewal.

There was one group we messed up with. That group is best represented by my new friend, Alex Budak. Alex owns alexbudak.com. (Check it out. Great use of a personal domain name.) He got an email from us suggesting that he register alexbudak.net. That was a complete mistake. We searched our customer list for available firstnamelastname domains but we failed to suppress anyone who already owned their own name. (So, good news, we’re stupid but not sleazy.) It appeared that we were encouraging people to buy more TLDs for no good reason. That’s a lame pitch. We weren’t doing that at all. We will keep working to avoid that sort of mistake.

So, an admission, a promise, a clarification and an apology.

We do sincerely want to build a business here that is successful, helpful and respectful all at the same time. Please keep communicating with us to help us do that.

(UDPATE: If you want to never receive these types of messages from us again, we understand – just visit this page and follow the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the form. You can also use this same form to update your profile if we got any of your information wrong in our database.)

We’ve made a small change to our domain management tools today that should help customers transferring their domain names to other registrars. I can already hear you saying “Wait, did he just say that Hover is making it easier for people to leave?”. Well, yes, that’s what we’re doing.

Previously, we had a two step “take your domain process”. First, you had to go through the transfer out process, and then you had to go through the “cancel services” process. Effective today, we’ve made that last step automatic. If you transfer your domain name to another registrar, we will automatically cancel the services associated with the domain at the end of the current billing cycle. Previously, if you forgot to cancel, billing would continue on forever – you can imagine how this might make you unhappy.

For those customers that want to continue to use Hover to manage their DNS and email, but want to use another registrar to manage their domain (we have thousands of customers that do this), we will send out a final cancellation reminder closer to the expiry date that includes instructions for renewing your account *but*, if you don’t explicitly renew the services, they will simply expire and the email and DNS associated with the transferred domain will stop working as a result.

We really strive to make all aspects of managing your domains and email as simple and straightforward as possible. This includes those last few steps that lead up to the point where you are no longer a customer.

As always, if you have questions or have feedback, let us know in the comments!

Maybe I’m just paranoid. I hate spam. I really do. But a company that I trust is doing a great campaign to donate food to a local food bank. You can “send a person a hug” via email – and then Kraft will match your email with a food donation. The only catch is that you must give your address and the intended recipient’s mailbox. I checked their terms and conditions, and they were very clear that they were not going to sell my address, but I worry that my email address will suddenly have tons of spam.

I decided to ask an expert. I asked a senior Abuse Administrator (anti-spam expert) from Tucows. He said “Hmmm. That’s a tough one: I like corporations giving to food banks, but I understand that the cost is your name on their list. I think that if you want to have a jar of peanut butter donated, it’s “cheaper” to donate it yourself.”

Maybe he is the paranoid one. We all have trusted relationships online. You give your email address to a friend, you sign up for services online, and we all must trust that the relationships that we build online are never abused. We search terms of service agreements and the legal comments on websites to protect ourselves. We commit to tweet, post on our blogs, and publish to our facebook walls if anyone breaks the relationship. I’m sending the hug right now….

Today is a good day for cell phone users. Effective Tuesday, modifications to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) make it legal for you to unlock your cell phone so that you can use it with any carrier that you wish. Coupled with number portability, you will soon be able to choose what phone you use with which cellphone provider. Want to use your iPhone on T-Mobile? No problem. Your Droid on AT&T? Coming right up.

This may also bode well for domain name owners. In theory, ICANN rules make it possible for domain owners to pick which registrar they want to do business with. If you made a mistake and picked the wrong registrar to start with, the rules are designed to allow you to move your domain to a new provider with very little hassle.

In practice, it doesn’t always work out that way. Using many of the same arguments that the cell phone companies have made to keep cell phones locked, some domain registrars make it really difficult for you to move your domain to a new registrar of your choosing.

To the extent that these new consumer friendly rules signal a shift in US policy, it may quickly become harder for registrars to play games with their departing customers, and easier for domain registrants to transfer their domains between registrars.

Do you have any domain name transfer horror stories? Sound off in the comments, we love to get your feedback.

I recently had a terrible customer service experience with my mobile phone company. It prompted me to write a note to our customer service team, imploring them never to treat a Hover customer in this manner. The short version is that I’d love it if we never said “Sorry, that’s our policy” in response to any questions or concerns you have. We’re here to help, so we should help. The line about policy is a weak crutch and is almost never an appropriate response. So, I’ve asked our team never to use those words ever again.

The reason I’m sharing this email is because you each can help me make sure we don’t serve our customers in this same terrible way. If anyone on the Hover team ever says “Sorry, but that’s our policy” then please drop me a note so that I can try to make the situation right.

The full text of the email I sent out to the team is reproduced below. I changed the names of the mobile phone company, but the rest is unedited. If you have comments or questions, please sound off in the comments section, I love hearing from our customers.

From: Ross Rader <ross@hover.com>

Subject: Phone Company Horror Story – Please Read

Date: July 23, 2010 2:43:16 PM EDT

To: Hover All Hands

Hey everyone –

I want to share a quick story with you all before we head out for our respective weekends.

I recently signed Amanda up for a cellphone plan with PhoneCo. For years OIdPhoneCo has been charging us too much for way too little service. Typical cellphone provider I suppose. Anyway, we went with PhoneCo because our home phone, television and Internet service are all with them which qualifies us for some modest discounts and makes billing much easier. When we signed her up, the clerk at Costco told us we’d have to call PhoneCo to sign up for the consolidated billing.

A few days ago I called PhoneCo to take care of the consolidation. After navigating their phone tree and sitting on hold for a few minutes, a rep picked up the phone and after re-answering all of the questions that I had already answered for the automated attendant, I was informed that the bill consolidation had been taken care of and that I would start receiving my discount in two months.

Two months? That’s certainly not what I had expected when I signed up. Now keep in mind, we’re only talking about a $5 per month discount, but it felt wrong to me. They had told me that I would get a monthly discount when I consolidated my bill, but now I was being told that I wouldn’t get it right away.

I pushed back with the call center rep, and she told me that there was nothing she could do in any event because all discounting would have to be handled by PhoneCo Mobility, and she was part of another part of PhoneCo. To make a long story short, I eventually ended up talking to a PhoneCo Mobility representative who flatly informed me that I would have to wait the full two months, that no interim credit would be issued, that no I couldn’t talk to a supervisor and finally, that she didn’t know why I was complaining, as the policy she was abiding was very clear.

Which brings me to the point of this note – there’s something really simple we can do to avoid sucking as much as the phone company.

To avoid that terrible fate, all we need to do is avoid using the phrase “because its our policy”. When a customer asks us for something that might not make immediate business sense, avoid the easy way out and instead, try to figure out how to make something positive happen for them, even if it means breaking the rules. Sometimes this might be hard – we work with a lot of ICANN and registry rules that are created by someone else, and we’re supposed to enforce them. Try to be creative and look for the most positive way that the conversation can end. Promise me that you’ll never end the conversation with a “Unfortunately, that’s our policy.”

We’re all working very hard to make sure that our customer’s get a better experience than they will with any other registrar or mail provider. This can be yet another unique way to prove that we are the best place to buy and manage domain names and email. Its also an easy way to put a smile on your own face – its way more satisfying for you to put a smile on a customers face, than to quote policy back to them. And amazingly, it makes for great business to treat people like people, instead of treating them like opponent’s or numbers.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you’d like to talk more about this, please drop by my office. I’d love to share some of the juicier parts of my PhoneCo story with you

Have a great weekend,

/r

 

What’s worse than trying to move email messages between incompatible email programs? Maybe an appointment with the dentist, or sky diving without a parachute. Sometimes the only way to move your messages between two email programs is to use a third email program as a middle man. Mozilla Thunderbird is the perfect go between.

I’ve posted a step by step tutorial which will show you how you can move your messages from Microsoft Outlook to Apple Mail. All you need, aside from your computers, is an Internet connection and a removable disk drive such as a USB key. Click on the following link to read our tutorial: http://about.hover.com/outlooktoapple

Warning – This post contains topless photos.

Its funny. Some registrars are well known for their prices, some are known for their service and some are known for other reasons altogether.

We decided a long time ago that its more important for us to be remembered for making it really easy to own a domain name. Much more so than it would be to be remembered for say… having a titillating commercial. But from time to time, our marketing folks get a little wistful and say things like “We could have titillating commercials *and* have awesome service. We can be great at two things!” At which point we all break out laughing, realizing how silly our marketing team can be sometimes.

Other times they try to sneak one by us. This is one of those times. Instead of announcing our cool new “No Hassle Renewal” feature through a regular blog post like this one, they thought they’d get fancy and put up something on Youtube. I warn you now, this little stunt is definitely “Not Safe For Work” and in no way should be viewed as being an official Hover video or anything like that. I just thought you’d like to see how bad things get around here when we lose focus and try to be all things to all people. Plus, I thought it would be funny to pull something off the cutting room floor and post it up for all the interwebs to see.

(As an aside, if you thought their take on the Old Spice ad was bad, you should have seen what the Sham Wow remix they did. Eesh. Be glad we keep a tight leash on them most of the time.)

But anyways, the real reason you’re reading this is to learn more about the cool new feature we released today.

As part of our never -ending quest to make it easier to own a domain name, we’re really happy today to be releasing a small improvement to our service that we call “No Hassle Renewals”.

No Hassle Renewals addresses a common problem that many domain holders have – when it comes time to renew your domain name, you might not always have access to the username and password used to manage your domain. If you don’t have access to your domain account, then its quite likely that your domain will go dark, interrupting your email access and cutting off your website.

I don’t know how many times a week we get calls from frantic web administrators, personal assistants, husbands, cousins and neighbors trying to renew a domain name on someone else’s behalf. Usually this other person is on vacation, sick, no longer with the company, divorced, well – you get the idea. The point is – they aren’t able to renew the domain because they don’t have the password for the account used to register the domain name.

To address this, we thought about a whole bunch of ways to make it easier for our customers to retrieve their passwords and other account details necessary to renew the domain. None of the improvements really addressed the issue to our satisfaction, until one day, one of the Hover staffers put up their hand and said “Why do we need a username and password to renew a domain name?”.

Great question. Why do we need a username and password to renew a domain name?

99.999% of the time, requiring a username and password isn’t necessary, and for the remaining .001% of the time, any problems resulting from an anonymous renewal can easily be reversed by a quick call to Hover HQ (which picks up the phone on the first ring I might remind you In fact, there really aren’t that many situations where making it easy for someone else to pay for your domain renewal is a bad thing!

So that’s what No Hassle Renewal is – a streamlined renewal process that validates the domain name and credit card information without requiring you to remember the username and password for your account. Of course, if you want to make any serious changes to the DNS, email configuration, domain forwarding and so on, you will need your account information – but you can retrieve those through our website after you get back from vacation. In the meantime, your personal assistant can renew your domain name without interrupting your fishing trip.

No Hassle Renewal isn’t revolutionary, its just common sense and its another great example of how we’re working hard to make your life easier.

To try out the No Hassle Renewal service, just visit Hover and click on the “Renew” link at the top of the page.

(As an aside, if you thought their take on the Old Spice ad was bad, you should have seen what the Sham Wow remix they did. Eesh. Be glad we keep a tight leash on them most of the time.)

You heard about Hover from a friend and you like your friend, and you like what you heard about Hover, so you decide to transfer your name over to us and try our services out.

A couple of days later, you get an email saying that your transfer request has been denied by the losing registrar.

What the heck is up with that?

We get this question a lot.

In theory, the number of reasons why transferring a domain to Hover might fail is a pretty short list. ICANN’s rules lay out 9 pretty clear reasons why the losing registrar (the folks you are trying to leave) can prevent a domain transfer from happening. In practice, it works out that ICANN pretty much let’s them make up whatever rules they want.

Here’s the official list of reasons why a domain transfer can be denied by the losing registrar:

1. Evidence of fraud
2. UDRP action
3. Court order by a court of competent jurisdiction
4. Reasonable dispute over the identity of the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact
5. No payment for previous registration period (including credit card charge-backs) if the domain name is past its expiration date or for previous or current registration periods if the domain name has not yet expired. In all such cases, however, the domain name must be put into “Registrar Hold” status by the Registrar of Record prior to the denial of transfer.
6. Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. – email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means)
7. A domain name was already in “lock status” provided that the Registrar provides a readily accessible and reasonable means for the Registered Name Holder to remove the lock status.
8. The transfer was requested within 60 days of the creation date as shown in the registry Whois record for the domain name.
9. A domain name is within 60 days (or a lesser period to be determined) after being transferred (apart from being transferred back to the original Registrar in cases where both Registrars so agree and/or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs). “Transferred” shall only mean that an inter-registrar transfer has occurred in accordance with the procedures of this policy.

The policy further goes on to specify a list of reasons why a losing registrar may *not* deny a domain name transfer.

• Nonpayment for a pending or future registration period
• No response from the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact.
• Domain name in Registrar Lock Status, unless the Registered Name Holder is provided with the reasonable opportunity and ability to unlock the domain name prior to the Transfer Request.
• Domain name registration period time constraints, other than during the first 60 days of initial registration or during the first 60 days after a registrar transfer.
• General payment defaults between Registrar and business partners / affiliates in cases where the Registered Name Holder for the domain in question has paid for the registration.

This also seems pretty straightforward.

No one likes losing a customer. The best possible way to deal with a breakup with a customer is to simply take it as a learning experience, bid the customer a gracious goodbye and then improve whatever they needed to improve to make sure that no other customers left for the same reason.

It often doesn’t work like this in the real world. There are quite a few registrars, *big* registrars, that have opted to make it as hard as possible for customers to leave them. Some require you to call them to get a special authorization code only available 9 to 5, Monday to Friday – if you are lucky enough to stumble on the magic phone number that connects you to the right department. Others just make up silly rules. For example, you can’t leave if you’ve updated your domain in the last 60 days. Every time you update your domain, the clock starts ticking again. So for instance, if you update the email address associated with your domain record, you’ll have to wait a full 60 days before that registrar will let you leave.

All of these special case rules are completely made up. The problem is, ICANN is generally toothless when it comes to doing the right thing for domain holders. These big registrars hide tiny clauses in their contracts with their customers that they argue makes them immune from having to follow ICANN’s rules. And ICANN, not wanting to disturb the peace apparently, just nods and looks in the other direction.

And in the meantime, nice folks like you get the run-around when you try to transfer your business elsewhere.

Last week my friends over at Sysomos had a great post on The Rise of the Vertical Social Network.

Facebook, for example, is the “Starbucks” of social networking but there are lots of consumers happily patronizing smaller chains or independents because they meet their needs differently or better.

That’s one reason I personally love the niche social networks I use. They allow me to meet more people who share a stronger interest with me about video games.

You may not get the quantity of advertising & people on these niche social networks like you do on Facebook. However, the quality is higher and having a relevant offering for the people is going to make your brand stand out more.

Plus with word being released this past week that Facebook usage numbers are starting to decline, this could be a sign that more people are spending that time on niche social networks and enjoying the outdoors.

Over the last year reports have found that finding deals is the main reason consumers follow brands on microblogging sites. However, the exception to this norm is moms. They prefer content over coupons. The top three reasons are:

1. They provide useful information (68.3%)
2. Just edging out that they were already customers (67.3%)
3. The desire to find out about products and services (66.9%)

With all that being said. The big reason moms decide to unfollow someone on Twitter was:

1. Companies were tweeting about things uninteresting to them (67.5%)
2. Tweets with no personality (60.6%)
   
3. Too-frequent posting (55.4%).

If moms are a major part of your business. It’s a good idea to keep in mind these points when developing your online strategy.

Flickr Photo