Choosing a Registrar - Registrar Recommendations

What Company Is Your Registrar?

I'd like to get some feedback from folks on Registrars. One's you've had direct experiences with specifically.

What I would like to do, if enough folks respond, it to put together a 'recommended registrar' listing or something to that effect.

Any takers?

Is this fair for me to answer??????....I will be 100% objective......

UCAS........my choice is URS out of London
RvA........my choice is NTC-CS out of Boxboro Mass
RAB ...well I guess NTS-CS for that as well

QS would be either. Have had experience with several auditors at both for several years (some when they were with other registrars) and have nothing but thorough, clean professional audits. Both have US and European offices.

ISO14000......URS

$$$ they are equally competitive....

I have audited contract for them both and several others....they are my choice for my clients. I get to see them from both sides, and they are equally professional.

It's fair for anyone to answer - I'll put in my 2cents worth soon. I'm trying to finish a project plan and then I'll jump in.

Short list for me is:
DNV
LRQA
AGA
Entela

Note: This is from 1998!

My company is going for registration in the spring, and this would be very helpful to me, and I'm sure alot of others.
Hope to see lots of information!
And when we finally pick one, I'll be happy to keep putting input in here as to how they are doing.

Our company uses UL. They have some good auditors, but require too much documentation. I have also worked with American Quality Assessors(AQA) and they are fair-priced and have good auditors.

We currently use KPMG, but are currently in the process of getting quotes from other registrars. KPMG appears to be "in bed" too much with the Big 3, and are not as objective as what we want.

We use UL for a corporate Worldwide registration, audits so far have been good from our point of view, They are pretty responsive if we have a question (via a direct line to corporate rep) but the customer service side e.g scheduling is pretty weak.

Our registrar is Entela. I have been satisfied with their performance thus far. They are responsive to our questions, and the auditors are (for the most part) pretty competent.

I have noticed some inconsisitency between auditors, as far as interpretations.....i guess this is to be expected to some degree. I know of a company.that uses AQA..I know this company intimately, (not my current employer).....AQA registered them (ISO 9001), with no non-compliances..I found this incredible, sinc the company is wrought with problems. Makes me wonder how thorough the auditors are. FYI


Bryon

Marc,
It might be interesting to post a list of important qualities of a registrar and let folks judge a registrar by these items. For instance, I have had experience with UL and AQA. Both have several strengths and weaknesses that might be interesting for others to see. Both in this forum and your old forum, I've seen +'s and -'s for several registrars mentioned in this thread. It might give everyone a little more resolution if we saw a list of important qualities. Just a thought...

Roger...great idea......Marc, how about that? A matrix so you can choose the qualities that you are most interested in..just like the AAA books for motels.