Cross-sell Machine: GoDaddy’s Support
Calling GoDaddy support? Expect a cross sell.
I used to work for a Fortune 500 firm that serviced millions of clients. Whenever a client called in for support, our tech support representatives were required to attempt to sell them a product at the end of the call. That can be tough:
“I’m sorry regarding your service being unavailable for 24 hours and that your bill is inaccurate, and that this has caused you hours of inconvenience. I’m also sorry you were on hold for 20 minutes. Now, I’d like to tell you regarding our latest offer…”
I came across an article from Emory Rowland, who publishes ClickFire.com. He discusses the inevitable sales pitch at the end of a support call to GoDaddy:
Ahead of engaging GoDaddy client support with Alexander Graham Bell’s 19th century technology, I often feel a twinge of adrenalin flowing in my veins since I know that their ultimate goal is to get me to renew my domains. It doesn’t matter if I have autorenew turned on. It doesn’t matter if I don’t care and my house is on fire, the question always comes. And it always begins with:
“I see you have some domains here that are coming up for renewal”
The article discusses how a GoDaddy rep talked him into buying express appraisals for his domains (and the results).
It’s nice that GoDaddy offers 24×7 support, even though the answers you get may not be spot on every time. A colleague recently contacted GoDaddy prior to switching his webhosting to them. He stated the support rep was very helpful and knowledgeable, which he stated was a far cry from the service he was used to getting from Time Warner’s Road Runner.
But when you think regarding it, GoDaddy’s phone support is an ingenious marketing tool. GoDaddy doesn’t offer a toll free number, so GoDaddy clients are paying the firm to be marketed to. Let’s assume the typical GoDaddy support rep gets paid $20/hour, fully loaded. That’s 33 cents per minute. If an average support call lasts regarding 5 minutes, then GoDaddy is paying only $1.65 for the chance to sell a product to its clients. Even if the true cost is a number of dollars, that’s not much. And it doesn’t even pick up the long distance.
Whether or not you think Bob Parson’s marketing antics (girls, Super Bowl) are brilliant or not, you have to give him a pat on the back for this one.
