Posts in: Industry News

.XXX Failed Sunrise Domains Will Be Made Available Feb. 14

logo for the .XXX domain extension The ICM Registry, operator of the .XXX domain extension, has let us know that on February 14th, 2012, all failed Sunrise A and B applications will start to become available for registration starting at 16:00 UTC.

If you have customers who applied for domains during either Sunrise A or B that failed validation, you might wish to let them know in case they are still interested in obtaining any of those domain(s) for registration.

These domains would simple show as available after 16:00 UTC, and will be available for registration on a first-come, first-serve basis like any other unregistered .XXX domain is now.

ICM Registry says they will not provide a list of the names that are being made available.

Join the CIRA Nomination Committee

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is seeking interested individuals from across Canada to apply to fill six open positions on its Nomination Committee. CIRA is the body that operates the .CA registry on behalf of Canadians.

Professional Canadians with committee experience and/or an interest in technology or the Internet are encouraged to apply.

According to CIRA, “the CIRA Nomination Committee plays a critical role in soliciting and selecting qualified candidates for the Nomination Committee Slate of CIRA’s Board of Directors Election. Its focus is to help build a Board of Directors that represents a wide range of views and interests, and ultimately contributing to the strategic direction of .CA and Canadian Internet policy.”

Applications will be accepted from January 3 to January 20, 2012. Visit http://www.ciraelections.ca for more information.

Exciting updates from your reseller friendly support team!

If you’ve called into support in the past two weeks, you may have noticed something. For starters, the average time it took a support rep to answer the phone was less than 30 seconds. We also recorded zero abandoned calls.

Call volume was the same as always, so how did this happen?

About a month ago, we asked Claire Lam, our head of professional services department, to take on some additional responsibility to help us understand some of the key challenges within the Technical Support group and implement some changes.

For the past several weeks, Claire and her team have been pretty busy.

As our new head of Reseller Technical Support, Claire is applying what she’s learned working with large hosting providers, combined with her background in customer service, software development and business process to identify to implement changes that will help us deliver on our promise of Reseller Friendly customer service.

Measuring for Service

As a data-driven individual, her first order of business was to implement the right measurements. “We need to know how we’re doing today, so we can figure out how we can do better tomorrow.” Claire told me.

Part of this data collection project involved the introduction of Top 5 issues affecting resellers that Claire shares with the entire company on a weekly basis, and the implementation of a short reseller satisfaction survey sent after the closure of every ticket “Resellers aren’t required to complete the short survey, but those who do will be providing us with actionable data we can use to improve” Claire says.

Trying New Things!

In addition to the more traditional methods of support management, Claire and her team are trying new things.

Last week, with the help of Jonathan Clarke, one of our senior support analysts, worked with Claire to implement LiveChat support service right on key areas of the OpenSRS website. It’s on a trial basis with a goal of serving the needs of resellers who are unable to call us, but are looking for something a little more realtime than email. So far, testing has been positive and it’s a perfect example of the kind of thing we think our reseller customers will appreciate.

What’s next in Support?

There’s a number other things Claire’s been working on, but rather than list them here, I’ve asked her to think about some topics she’d like to share and we’ll share them with you here shortly.

So this won’t be the last you’ve heard from Claire and the support team and we hope that in the coming weeks, you’ll notice and appreciate some of the efforts they’ve been working on.

Have you interacted with our support team lately? How did we do? What could we do better?

Help Shape Canada’s Internet in the Upcoming CIRA Elections

Are you a professional Canadian with Board experience and an interest in technology and the Internet? The Canadian Internet Registry Association is looking for interested candidates with expertise in accounting, law, marketing and communications or technology to apply to become a member of the CIRA Board of Directors in the upcoming election.

What is the role of CIRA’s Board?

CIRA’s Board of Directors has a unique role to play in setting policy and strategy to help CIRA continue to be a leading-edge organization that strives for excellence as a registry and supports Canadians in building their presence in the global digital economy.
Why should this interest me or someone I nominate?

Becoming a CIRA Board Member is a unique opportunity to work with Canada’s Internet leaders as they develop strategy and policy that positions .CA for operational excellence. You will gain valuable insight and experience around technical innovation, Canadian and international Internet policy, and organizational governance.

How do I apply?

.CA Members can nominate themselves or another individual by completing the online Nomination Form from August 2 – 15.

Once nominated, Nominees will receive an email with a link to complete an online Nominee Application Form. The Nominee must complete and submit the form before 8 p.m. ET on August 15, 2011.

To be included on the Final Members’ Slate, Member Nominees must then receive the endorsement of at least 20 CIRA Members during the Show of Support stage.

About CIRA

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority is the member-driven organization that manages Canada’s .CA domain name registry, develops and implements policies that support Canada’s Internet community, and represents the .CA registry internationally.

To learn more, visit www.cira.ca.

.CO Renewal Season is Here

It’s been almost a year since the launch of the .CO domain extension. That means registrants who bought their .CO domains in those first few weeks and months are starting to see renewal notices and the earliest .CO registrants are already renewing their domains.

As with other domain extensions, getting over that first year renewal hump is hugely important in keeping that domain for the long term. Renewal rates on domains more than one year old (in other words, domains that have been renewed once already) are considerably higher than the renewal rate for first year domains.

Boost your Renewal Rates

There are some simple steps you can take to boost your renewal rates for .CO domains as we move into this period of high activity:

Make sure your renewal messages are setup: OpenSRS sends out renewal messages to registrants automatically. Double check to make sure that you are sending renewal emails out at 90, 60 and 30 days in addition to the notices that go out closer to expiry. And take the time to customize those templates with contact information so your customer knows where and how to renew their domain. Those templates and settings can be found in the “Renewal Management” section of the Reseller Web Interface.
Consider adding renewal reminders to your homepage or interface: A simple banner ad or notice inside your control panel might be all it takes to convince or remind a customer to renew their domain. Don’t overlook any opportunity to remind your customers to renew for another year, or more.
Send out a renewal email campaign: We have some great .CO marketing materials you can use to create a quick email reminding customers to renew their names. Point out the increasing value of .CO domains and make sure you build the case for them to hold on to their domain for another year. And don’t forget to encourage customers without a .CO domain to visit your website and search for a .CO domain that might be an even better fit for their business.

.CO Facts and Figures

CO Internet, the .CO registry operator, passed along some interesting stats about the first year of offering .CO domains worldwide.

.CO sites are being used: .CO domain growth is very similar to the growth seen in active sites under .CO domains. This is a very good trend and shows that registrants are getting .CO domains to use them. A key factor in renewal rates is whether the domain resolves to an active site, so seeing a high rate of usage for .CO domains indicates that renewal rates and customer retention amongst .CO registrants will be good.
.CO registrants are spread around the world: While about 48% of the .CO domains were registered in the US, countries like the UK, Canada, Australia and Germany are all in the top ten for countries where .CO domains are registered. .CO resonates with domain buyers around the world, in many langauges.
.CO is one million domains strong: As of last month, there were more than one million .CO domains registered and that number continues to grow. The launch of .CO domains has been one of the most successful domain extension launches in recent memory.