Why I resist offering my usual levels of support for issues related to domain purchases and management.
I make my profits on web hosting. The domain names are essentially a loss leader for me; it costs me about as much as you pay when you buy a domain from me, when you take into account credit card processing fees and the like. I don't mind when customers buy domains; they often turn into web hosting customers. It's a fully automated process, and rarely requires any kind of work for me aside from refilling my account from time to time, or upgrading the software.
However, sometimes customers decide that they want me to do normal domain management tasks for them. This in spite of the fact that the domain management tools I provide are easily accessible and not hard to use. They reason that they don't know the system and want to get it right, or that it'll only take me a few minutes, or that I owe them something for being a customer, or that somehow my personal, manual intervention in something they should be able to do themselves is part of the service.
In fact, I often end up doing that kind of routine work for customers. However, over the years I've noticed that since my domain prices are so low, many customers buy domains without buying a web site, so I have literally thousands of domains in my system for which I do not earn a profit. I found that more and more often I was spending time working with these domains, which is literally a money losing proposition for me, because my time is my main commodity. I am therefore quite resistant to offering much in the way of support for domains, because the customer is supposed to be able to handle most tasks themselves, and a few minutes multiplied by thousands of domains means I lose my shirt.
I have no problem whatsoever in helping customers with non-routine tasks related to domains. With web hosting, I even provide help with routine tasks, of course. But I am simply unable, for the reasons mentioned above, to give routine help with domains. I would go broke. And this is why I resist and encourage customers to use the system I have provided for them. Because my only other options are to either raise my prices and offer higher service levels or to go out of business.
I ran this past a friend who is in the business, and he gently suggested that I "ease up on the snark", because it's my choice to charge the prices I charge. He's absolutely right. I could charge more, have fewer customers, and make fewer conversions from domain sales to web hosting sales, have less business, and be less stressed over this issue. It's just that when I've spent a lot of time on this stuff with people who aren't hosting sites with me, it's hard to make the connection; and I don't want to raise prices on that basis because that essentially punishes customers who I'd like to keep. Which takes me back to the original point; the reason it can be so cheap is because I should have to do very very little to help with these domains. I am not complaining about customers who genuinely can't cope with managing their domains; I am complaining about customer who should be able to do so but would rather I do it.
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