Need to renew domain but not WP Premium
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This site has been moved to another host, so we no longer need Premium services – but the domain name is up for renewal (expiring Dec. 4th!) so I need this to be unlinked from the Premium services ASAP. I’ll take care of the renewal immediately once that’s done.
I see others are having the same issue. I really wish the customer had the option to unlink the domain name from the Premium services in the Dashboard, or that it was at least an option during periods when Support is unavailable.-Dora Badger (web designer) for Joe Ponepinto
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello,
Dora Badger for Joe P. again. Since we didn’t hear back from anyone at WP, the domain name was going to expire soon, and my schedule’s packed until next week I had to purchase the upgrade to prevent expiry. We do not need the premium upgrade, just the domain renewal. PLEASE refund everything but the cost of domain renewal ASAP and unlink the domain from the premium upgrade (or just unlink them and then let me know so I can renew the domain immediately). Thank you in advance for your swift resolution of this matter.
-Dora B. for Joe P.
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My web developer and I started this request two days ago and have yet to receive a response. What is taking so long? As Dora explained, it is impossible to unlink a domain registration from an upgrade package so we were forced to pay for services we do not need. We need WordPress to refund everything but the cost of domain renewal ASAP. This is hardly customer service. I am very, very dissatisfied.
JP
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This is a peer support forum where Staff and Volunteers work together cooperatively to provide WordPress.com support. There are millions of us bloggers and only 225 Staff. Emailing support means it takes longer to get an answer than posting to the support forums does, so please do only one or the other.
Staff work through all forum threads tagged for their attention and through all email support tickets in order of datestamps and timestamps – first posted first served, as would be expected.
How long it takes to clear the threads and support tickets depends on how many Happiness Engineers are working on them at any given point in time. It also depends on how complex the issues in each thread and ticket are are.
Please don’t bump your thread because it’s not in your best interest to post to it after it has been tagged for Staff help. And please don’t create a new thread or send an email for support either.
When bloggers keep bumping any thread thinking they are going to get service from Staff more quickly they aren’t thinking straight because that moves the timestamps forward and it takes longer to get a response. The same is true if they email more than once, the date moves forward and it takes longer to get help.
Bottom line: Patience is virtue.
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Thanks, Jeremy. I appreciate your attention to this. Perhaps there should be a way that users can unlink their domains from the premium package more easily than to have to go through support. This action took us about four days to complete, which put us dangerously close to expiration of the domain. That’s because we only received notification that the premium package was expiring, and since we had moved the host, we no longer needed that. (We will transfer the domain, but not until the new host is fully configured.) There was no message that the domain was expiring until 6 days before the event. I understand that WordPress is a business and that you need to sell stuff, but please don’t put the customer’s domain at risk to do so.
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And finally, a comment in response to Timethief’s lecture, above. I will keep in mind that these comments are supposed to be positive in nature.
First, if “bumping” requests for help is such a problem, perhaps a note on the Support request page advising users not to do so would help. Not all of us are so web savvy as to know all the protocols. Certainly a delay of several days in receiving a response seemed far too long, and I believe warranted my comment.
The larger issue here, however, is customer service, a concept that seems rather foreign in the tech world. I did some checking, and found that Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, in 2012 powered more than 70 million sites and pulled in $45 million in revenue. And yet apparently they are only willing to fund 225 staff. The burden for support, therefore, in the WordPress world (and most other online ventures), lies with the consumer. How many hours have users wasted clicking through forums to find possible answers, when it would be so much simpler to have adequate staff on hand to answer questions? In our case, the request for help was delayed even further because apparently WordPress techs were given an extended holiday for Thanksgiving, and there was no one available to help. While the recognition of employee time off is commendable, what does this say about WordPress’s commitment to customer service?
The message WordPress and others send to their users, as expressed by Timethief is clear: We’re really busy and understaffed, so don’t bother us. Try, for a moment, to imagine how that sounds to those of us who have paid hundreds of dollars for themes and upgrades.
I have always championed WordPress as a provider when I teach and present at conferences, but in the future I will have to temper my endorsement with warnings that users simply don’t matter much in the company’s big picture.
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I’d also like to thank Jeremy for handling this quickly. Timethief, I know that you actively mod these threads and I do appreciate your assistance – but I was aware of the bumping policy.
I would not have posted the second response to this thread if I had been informed that it was tagged for Staff review. I would have made the payment and waited for Staff to reach out instead. However, we never got any such response.
I went ahead and made the payment (and posted the second response) because when I went through the Support forum I noticed you’d mentioned tagging several posts before and after mine for Staff review, but not this one (and not others that addressed similar issues). Perhaps such tagging is something we’re just supposed to assume – ?? – but when mods directly responds to most posts on a forum and do not respond to others, it’s cause for concern. I hoped you (or one of the other mods) passed the info along but I had no way of knowing. As Joe mentioned, we were especially concerned because our expiration date was well before the bulk of the Support Staff are expected to return.
Bottom line, I’m happy the situation has been resolved and I’ll continue to work with and recommend WordPress – but I must also strongly recommend that WordPress make unlinking domain registration from Premium services possible for customers without having to turn to Support. I understand it would probably involve a couple of “Are you SURE?” windows to help avoid confusion – but in future I’d rather click a half-dozen “I’m gonna lose some features, yeah, I get that” buttons than have to front cash right before the holidays ;)
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And yet apparently they are only willing to fund 225 staff.
We’re actively hiring. :) If you know anyone that would be a great fit, they can apply here!
While the recognition of employee time off is commendable, what does this say about WordPress’s commitment to customer service?
We do prioritize customer service, which is why we’re actively trying to recruit Happiness Engineers all across the world so we can provide faster support and cover more timezones.
I must also strongly recommend that WordPress make unlinking domain registration from Premium services possible for customers without having to turn to Support.
I can certainly understand the frustration here. For future reference, within two days of expiration, you can cancel the Premium bundle from your Upgrades page (Store -> My Upgrades). You will be prompted with this message:
When you confirm the cancellation, the items are added to your account individually. So, when you refresh the My Upgrades page, you will be able to renew the select few you wish to keep (including the domain).
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