It seems like word’s spreading about this via Twitter and a few other means, so you may have already heard about this, but yesterday DreamHost posted an audio clip on its blog of what was apparently a customer calling to beg them for help recovering a domain that appeared to have been taken from him.
DreamHost is pretty well known for being “irreverent” in its blog. The approach that has earned it a loyal following and praise for its transparency (and I think the blog is sort of emblematic of an admirable sense of approachability at the company, something a lot of other hosts try to emulate). And it has also been the cause of the occasional bad PR move, as in the case of the blog post that “irreverently” took a “whoops!” approach to apologizing for an accident that saw the company mistakenly bill customer for millions of dollars.
In this case, DreamHost uses the voicemail as a jumping off point for a discussion about security:
“This customer of ours had their domain registration transferred away from DreamHost to another registrar (in this case, GoDaddy.com) without their consent. This can only happen if an unauthorized party gains access to our customer’s account control panel to authorize the transfer, and we’ve indeed logged the actions and IP address of this individual.”
But it would be tough to argue that the purpose of the post is really anything other than to laugh at the expense of the customer leaving the message. In case you don’t feel like downloading it and listening, it’s a two-minute clip of a man who sounds very timid and very upset begging for their help. It seems like the last minute is just the man gently sobbing. That’s just my guess, because after 15 seconds I couldn’t take any more.
Now, it’s not DreamHost’s fault that somebody got hold of the guy’s password and stole his domain. And by the sounds of the post, they’ve done everything they can to help him get his domain back (even, apparently, sending him “a huge bouquet of flowers”). But this seems like a pretty humiliating way to treat a guy who is already clearly having a very bad day, customer or otherwise.
To be fair, the post does point out that the company doesn’t have telephone support, so the message in question was left on the company’s general office voicemail line. And, certainly, the message itself seems to be a bit of an overreaction to the situation. And, yes, if you call a company’s phone line and leave a message on their voicemail when nobody picks up, you definitely have no grounds to assume confidentiality, or even courtesy.
But, I mean, come on. Give the poor guy a break.
I hesitate to take to strong a stance one way or the other, since the comments on the blog post itself seem to be split pretty evenly between “hilarious” and “completely unprofessional.”
Let’s say my personal reaction is a little closer to the “unprofessional” end of that spectrum. Were I a customer, it wouldn’t worry too much. It’s not a situation I expect to find myself in (the sobbing voicemail, not the stolen domain). But I suppose it would be nice to know my host would avoid mean-spirited humor at my expense across the board.
I have to imagine most hosting companies would avoid doing something like this. I don’t get the sense that this is a calculated move by DreamHost to appear “irreverent.” So it does add to the genuine feel of that approachability that characterizes the company. However, it might also make them seem a little less like the kind of company you’d want to approach.
Anyhow, the whole point of this post is that I was pretty curious how people felt about this. Anyone care to comment?
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Comment by Anonymous on Friday, May 01, 2009
DreamHost is a joke. In my opinion, they are most unprofessional company and tend to laugh when a more serious approach would be called for (a homer simpson cartoon when they overbilled customers millions of dollars). Just makes me sad because idiots like Dreamhost can make the whole industry look bad.