I seem to encounter the dreaded DNS lookup errors at least once a year as my multiple personal, business and partner emails change ISPs, upgrade etc. Few hours where your email seems lost in ether. But never a week as with Register.com's recent upgrade. But one which could have been softened by better customer communications. Something the DDoS attack earlier in year should have prepared them for, but apparently not.
Last Sunday I was alerted by a "welcome to your new upgraded email" message. A test message to that email address bounced. And the on-line access showed a weird reply address for me. The bounce I thought was temporary - common DNS issue. The latter I wanted to make my account had been hijacked.
So I called Register, opened a ticket - and provided them a back-up email and cell phone number to communicate with me. I followed up again Monday morning because someone from Register had sent me a test message but the weird email address persisted. Also the bouncing continued. The call center had no clue who had worked on it or what he had done. I called Monday afternoon and begged the lady at the call center to give me her email and asked if I could stay in touch as I was leaving for Europe and could not afford to keep calling in for updates. She did give me her email address and I thanked her.
Tuesday, the CEO Larry Kutscher, sends to my alternate email address a broadcast message "Unfortunately this past weekend as we attempted to complete the final batch of customer migrations, our systems became overloaded – causing many of you to experience email login and availability issues." He goes on ""Every available resource in the company has been deployed to address the problem.".
Apparently, his memo did not reach the lady I had asked if I could ping for updates. I sent her 3 emails with the ticket number over the next few days - and never heard back from her.
Wednesday, I posted a comment on their site with my ticket ID hoping that would get noticed, and I get an email back "In an effort to maintain the security of information, we cannot update the incident using this email address." You morons, if your email does not work, how else can we communicate if I do not provide an alternate email? And if your CEO can communicate with me there, why not you?
Thursday, I Twittered them asking for help, and I did a response but it just pointed to a status update website.
Friday, finally some action - get an email at my alternate address "please provide details of the bounceback message you are getting". Guys, I provided all those details when I called previous Sunday and Monday.
So, in terms of my open ticket, I would say at least 5 Register.com employees saw/worked on my ticket but did not appear to do much. In the meantime, I was getting calls from business associates and friends informing me my emails were bouncing. They took the time to personally communicate to me - something after so many attempts to reach Register via phone, email, website and Twitter would have been appreciated.
Email is limping back, but yesterday the CEO sent another email. "Stabilizing email service is our number one priority."
8 days later, not there yet. For an application where 15 minutes of downtime is too long.
Vinnie, glad that your vacation is going well but sorry to hear about the email problems. We've used Mindspring, now Earthlink since I got my 1st email address, and there's never been much down time. Their customer service has also been very responsive. Perhaps you should vote with your feet.
Posted by: Naomi Bloom | July 07, 2009 at 07:51 AM
Hello,
A wholehearted agreement from myself re this upgrade. To summarise, a complete disaster. Like you I also raised a number of tickets and only now, 9 days later, are responses being received from Register.Com. Not fixes for the issues raised mind you, just responses in the form of stock replies or apologies.
I work in IT and have done so for some 25 years. I am well versed in making major changes to systems and understand the due diligence that must ensue as part of any change. e.g. Having a back out plan, (having a plan even!), respecting the constraints of the change window, clear ownership of the change and having somebody on the ground who is empowered and competent to make decisions. I suspect that all of the above were lacking in this case.
For me, this particular change however poses a number of questions that probably wouldn't be asked if the 'upgrade' went well. The first question is "Why have you undertaken this upgrade?". I certainly didn't ask for it and apart from the increased storage, and let's be honest the limitations of the previous incarnation were archaic, there is nothing else in it for me. If you scratch the surface you begin to see that this "Upgrade" is all about pulling in more cash. New user.."Click here"..and have your credit card ready.
Tonight I see that Register.com have posted the following statement on the front page of their website.
"Email Update: We have completed the upgrade of out email services. All accounts are now operating on the new email platform."
They missed a line obviously....
"But none of them are working now."
Tom T. London.
Posted by: Tom Tierney | July 07, 2009 at 04:10 PM
tom, thanks
i would not have bothered to waste my time to catalog the issues, but stuff like this gives saas a bad name...and they added stress to a week of trying to take time off...
re the upgrade same as you i did not ask for it, and the new online load process seems awfully slow but then again i have mostly accessed through wifi this week from europe
Posted by: vinnie mirchandani | July 07, 2009 at 04:41 PM
Vinnie - Welcome to the real world of customer service... no one knows where goes what!!!!
Posted by: Anil Kurnool | July 07, 2009 at 05:53 PM