It took two people to hold the birthday bowl. Helen Ho, our CEO, had both hands underneath it. A colleague steadied the rim. In the middle sat a perfectly ordinary serving of noodles, made tiny by the size of the dish. The wish around the rim was written just for the occasion. In English it reads roughly, “Happy birthday! Eat your noodles and may your wish come true.”
Our founder and colleagues had planned the surprise down to the lavender StellaLou on the cake. There were flowers, a Dyson hair dryer and a banner wishing Helen smooth sailing. When everyone squeezed in for the photo, some colleagues made finger hearts. If you’ve ever wondered about the person who starts a NiceNIC support reply with “my friend,” this is the table we’d like you to see.
What ten years at the same table means for a customer
Our core management group has worked together for more than ten years. Everyone in that group is still here. Some have spent more than twenty years in technology. You can find a little of that history in a customer letter Helen co-signed in 2013. Her title then was chief operating officer. Today she runs the company. Jolin Wong leads customer operations. For a hosting partner in another time zone, Helen's relationships with registries and Jolin's work with the support team can meet in the same case.
Suppose you run a hosting company. A client has paid to renew the domain on their shop window. Its expiry date is tomorrow, and their account still shows the old date. The most valuable thing we can do for you is find out where that renewal stands while there’s still time to act. That means looking up the order, checking the domain record and contacting the registry if the two disagree. You need an answer you can take back to your client, including who is following up if the renewal is pending.
We count that continuity among the strongest safeguards we can offer a domain owner. If you’re comparing providers, ask what happens to an open case when an acquisition changes the team, a support desk moves to a contractor or the person on shift goes home. The colleague who takes over should be able to pick up where the last conversation ended.
When a person has to make the call
A report comes in about a phishing form on a shop’s website. Someone who reaches the form could lose their password. The shop, meanwhile, may use that same domain for every customer email it sends. Both facts matter to the person reviewing the report.
Our team examines the URL and the evidence and acts promptly when it confirms DNS abuse. If we restrict a domain, its owner can send us evidence that the site has been secured or that the original report identified the wrong page. Our review process gives that evidence a route back to the team. NiceNIC has served domain customers since 2006. As an ICANN-accredited registrar (IANA ID 3765), we have responsibilities under Section 3.18 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. For the person writing to us about their store, the immediate question is simpler. Has someone looked at my case, and what do they need from me now?
A word we use with people we know
“My friend” feels natural to many of us. With a few longtime partners, it’s “brother” or “sister.” With others, it’s a first name. After years of looking after domains together, you learn which greeting fits. You can also put it to a practical test. Will the person on the other end tell you what a name costs next year as readily as they’ll tell you today’s price?
This November, Verisign raised the annual .COM wholesale fee by 71 cents. Under our year-end .COM offer, a VIP reseller pays $12.99 for a first-year registration through December 31, 2026 (UTC), including the applicable ICANN fee. That's $2 below our $14.99 Market registration price. The current VIP renewal is $16.99. Those are the figures we'd want in front of us if we were quoting a client.
For a host considering a move, there's also the question of how much work it will take. With an active account you can try our free API sandbox before making a reseller deposit. If you already license WHMCS, the NiceNIC registrar module is free. Eligible names include lifetime WHOIS privacy at no extra charge. Partners who fund their accounts with USDT, USDC or BTC pay no NiceNIC processing fee, though the payment provider or network may charge its own fee.
If you already look after names for clients elsewhere, we'd like to hear about that business before your first order. Tell us what you manage and how many names you typically register or renew in a month, either in a support ticket or on Telegram at @NiceNIC_NET. We can review a reseller tier with you and explain the price and funding terms before you decide.
Long noodles are a Chinese birthday wish for a long life. Around Helen’s table, we’d already had the pleasure of spending a good stretch of those years together. To the customers who have shared some of them with us, thank you, my friends.
