World’s Web Leader Distinguished as Arizona’s “Most Innovative” Company

GoDaddy.com is being recognized with several 2007 Arizona Corporate Excellence (ACE) Awards, including the prestigious distinction as the state's “Most Innovative Company." Go Daddy, the world's leading domain name registrar, also ranked number 2 on the ACE “25 Fastest-Growing” companies list and number 20 on the ACE “Top 50” companies list, announced last night.

ACE seeks to recognize the significant impact Arizona’s largest privately held companies have on the community, the state’s economy and employee families. ACE judges are all top-ranking business leaders.

Go Daddy was rewarded for its innovation in product development, customer care ingenuity and originality in employee incentive practices. Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons was asked to reveal the secret of his success.

“We know something other companies don’t. That is, when it comes to doing business, people like to use the Internet, but when it comes to learning how to use Web products, people much prefer to talk to real people,” Parsons answered.

Parsons’ products are some of the lowest priced in the industry, but his emphasis from the start has been on customer service. Parsons refuses to offshore or out source a single job. Of the Scottsdale-based company’s nearly 1,800 employees, 60 percent of them work in customer service.

“Our customers know they can dial one number and talk to someone who will help them solve problems right then and there,” Parsons said.

Go Daddy services more than 4.2 million people and has exploded to become more than twice the size of its closest rival in the intensely competitive tech industry.

“What really impressed us was how Go Daddy developers actually listen-in on customer calls to learn more about what the customers want in a product or service,” said Chip Fisher of ACE. “It’s pretty rare these days not only to get such good customer support on the telephone, but also to have developers who will adapt a product to the customers’ needs and wants – now that’s innovative!”

Some 225 in-house developers are responsible for almost all of the 37 Go Daddy product offerings. One of Go Daddy’s most widely used is Domains By Proxy, a patented service used throughout the industry to protect the personal information of those who register domain names.

Parsons, who was named Arizona’s Business Leader of the Year in 2007, is also known for his generosity with employees. Go Daddy ranked on a CNN.com list of “Best Employee Perks” for creative incentives, such as paying top performers’ mortgages for a year. He routinely gives away cash, cars, motorcycles and exotic trips, and insists on footing the tax bill. Why? He believes happy employees are excited to come to work, which then translates to the customer and becomes contagious, leading to word-of-mouth evangelism.

About The Go Daddy Group, Inc.
Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration and Web site hosting services, as well as a broad array of on-demand and other services. The Go Daddy Group, Inc. has more than 23 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every 1.3 seconds. GoDaddy.com is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world's largest hostname provider according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2006, The Go Daddy Group registered approximately one-third of all domain names registered in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info.