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
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My Word with Douglas E. Welch
The Slim Gauge Guild Model Railroad Club in Pasadena is having its semi-annual Open House this Sunday, June 3, 2007 (10am-7pm) and Tuesday, June 5, 2007 (6pm-10pm). Admission is FREE!
