Is YellowPages.com Losing Its Touch?

Is YellowPages.com Losing Its Touch?

I’ve been dealing with a frustrating advertising situation that I wanted to share (some of you may be able to relate). Having seen via a client that an ad on YellowPages.com generated good results, I decided to get one for myself. I worked with a rep to get set up.

A few weeks later, an ad magically appeared on their site. I wasn’t contacted to find out what I wanted in my ad, and that showed. It looked like a fifth grader designed it; it was very rudimentary and didn’t look professional at all. Add to that the fact that my contact information was wrong. I won’t give you details on how many dozens of calls I made to get it taken care of, but in the end (really, in the middle) I paid a designer to create the ad.

Two months later, my phone number is still wrong (despite speaking to at least 5 people about it) and I have received a bill for my ad.

It seems the sales department and the graphics department don’t communicate very well, and the customers are the ones who suffer. My sales rep gives me the number of customer service and the graphics department and asks me to contact them. Naturally, I’m a busy woman, and I pay for this service, so I don’t feel I should jump through hoops to get this corrected. I even went to the trouble of emailing the CEO of AT&T (they own YellowPages.com) explaining how frustrated I was, since there really wasn’t anyone else who could really do anything about the major disconnect between departments. Don’t hold your breath; he didn’t write back.

So now I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I believe the ad in its correct form could generate some business. And I don’t want to take my business elsewhere because no other company has the name recognition that YellowPages.com has. But it seems they’ve gotten too big for their britches and have forgotten the most important thing: the customer. If it’s not easy for the customer, you’ll soon lose them.

Take this as a lesson. Are you making it easy for your customers to buy from you?

PS Today I received the 2008 phone book, and they put in an ancient ad for my client (not the new one they were given)! Thin ice, Yellow Pages, thin ice.

PPS After writing this post I made a final attempt. I was on hold for customer service for 10 minutes (!!!) and spoke to no one. I’m pulling my ad. Has anyone else had this same frustrating experience??
-Susan
Like this post? Subscribe to the Egg Marketing Blog RSS Feed