I have had a couple frustrating experiences lately with tech companies. In both instances these companies created barriers for me giving them money. It’s almost like they were implementing a “sales prevention” strategy!
Who are these companies? Normally I don’t squeal but I’ll make an exception here- Facebook.com and ChaCha.com. Both have great advertising platforms- ChaCha.com with ads on their text (SMS) responses to user questions and Facebook.com with demographically targeted social networking ads. What they don’t have is a system that works, yet.
In the case of ChaCha I had a client that was very interested in trying their SMS text advertising system. So I filled out a form through their website and waited for a response. Days went by, nothing happened. Through a fellow Small Boxer, PJ Christie, I networked to the VP of marketing or someone similar. Finally, after a few more days, I was contacted by a sales rep. After a very confusing quote process we finally went forward with a $2000 budget. The campaign started and we waited for some ROI.
Next thing we knew our ads had run their course in a matter of two weeks. We had the understanding that we would test the waters in December and really start to roll in January. I was given no communication that we could burn through 60k or so impressions in 2 weeks. We had spent $2000 and had next to nothing to show for it. The client wanted to target late January and February and was willing to ramp up spending then if the trial worked. When we broached this topic we were told for the first time that a national (competing) company had an exclusive during that time so we couldn’t even buy ads if we wanted to.
To say the least I was not happy with the experience. To add insult to injury (with a little comedy) I received a call a full two months after filling out the original form from a new sales rep asking me what kind of campaign I wanted to run. Needless to say I wasn’t interested at that point!
In the case of Facebook I wanted to test their demographic/region targeted advertising system so I set up some campaigns for Small Box. Pleased with how the ads were getting my company’s logo in front of thousands of targeted users I decided to start using Facebook to advertise for some clients.
All was going well until Facebook suddenly had an issue with my credit card. After checking with my credit card company and resubmitting it several times, along with several other cards that all have plenty of credit, I was unable to get a card accepted for payment, the system claimed an issue with the address, no matter how I entered it.
So the ads stopped running. I contacted Facebook via their help system and was told that it was an issue with my card. I called the card companies, again, to verify nothing was wrong. Still it will not, to this moment, accept any of 4 different cards that all should work fine- and do regularly on other sites.
I contacted Facebook again, I searched in vain for a phone number to call, I Twittered to see if anyone knows how to reach support directly. Nothing. It would seem they would have a toll free line for me to call with any issues. It’s like they don’t want to take my money.
What’s the lesson here? Don’t launch a product or service you can’t support. It will turn off would-be product evanglists like myself and create a legion of discontents writing blogs titled something like “Don’t Stop Me From Giving You Money!”
that’s wild! it’s no wonder that these people don’t seem to be making any significant profits. My number 1 goal is being EASY to do business with. Why is this such a hard concept to grasp.
That doesn’t surprise me about your experience with ChaCha. I hear nothing but horrible things about their company, concept, and personally – my experience wasn’t very good either. The only thing they seem to be good at is getting VC money to keep on wasting.
And when it comes to the credit card issues… I have had similar problems with one particular card on several ad platforms where no matter what – my card is always denied usage. I end up having to switch over to a debit card that has a VISA logo. Maybe that can help you in your situation?
Good luck.
Thanks for the suggestion, I have actually tried debit and credit cards to no avail. If 4 cards that work perfectly fine everywhere else stop working one place I have to assume it’s not the cards.
In terms of ChaCha, I am actually a fan of their service and think it could be pretty successful. My point is that they need to have a system that supports the product. I suggested a Google Adwords style system and they said they were working on it. I heard through the grapevine that Bitwise might be developing it, we will see.
If you cannot get Facebook to work for ads Myspace has launched a similar program called MyAds that we have enjoyed using for our clients. Just a thought if you haven’t checked it out.
The Facebook saga continues. In an attempt to get some ads running for clients I created a second account but could still not get the system to take any credit cards. Finally they contacted me to let me know that they had fixed the problem and deactivated the duplicate account which was actually the primary account, my personal account!
So now I have spent the last week trying to get back into my personal account via various contact methods.
Bottom line, they have no real support and will lose advertisers in droves if they don’t fix these kinds of problems. They have already lost $100s from me due to their incompetence.
Eh, screw a bunch of Cha Cha. Lately, the answers have always been at least misleading or completely wrong. The final straw was when I was in DC, trying to use their services and was informed that I had reached my 4 questions/ 72 hour limit. Of course, this didn’t stop them from sending along a few more ads to my phone.
Word on the street is that they cut the pay of their guides in half a couple of months ago. Guess that’s working out real well for them.
Sorry, if anything, after seeing an ad on Cha Cha, I would be more inclined to avoid the company being advertised.