Re: UKNM: Excite's Less Than Exciting Customer Service

[Mike Zeederberg]

<Cross global rant> What you need is a partner from a large media buyer /

someone who spends loads of money with Excite, and get them to take up your

cause. I know we've got a lot of clout over local directories out here

(Australia) because we spend lots of other people's money with them, so if

you

can find someone who's got a lot of hold over a media rep, you should be

able to

manipulate it that way. Have a look at what ads are running on the site,

work

out which agency placed them (NMA used to run a banner watch, i think, with

the

buying agency's name) and get the agency to leverage it for you.


Otherwise, it's obviously blatant non fulfillment of the contract, so an

advertising standards body would be a good approach. Failing that, The

Onion,

ZDNet, or a "Chocolate cookies recipe" type viral campaign against Excite

should

solve your problem pretty fast.  I'd certainly be willing to spend some time

helping you come up with an amusing but vindictive way of spinning your

correspondence with them so far.


This is driven by the fact that i've been in extensive discussions with

various

search engines about their "FastTrack" services, which are rapidly turning

into

"The Only Track" way of getting websites listed. I appreciate the need for

revenue to stop the sinking feeling in pure-plays, but then at least they

must

deliver...


</end cross global rant>


At least the sun is shining in Australia...!


Cheers

Mike


nick berry wrote:


> Hi

>

> Just thought I'd share my grief with you in the selfish hope it would

lessen

> the pain, oh yes, and so other people can learn from my errors ! I used

the

> Excite $199 48hr/fast submission service in the hope that they would

update

> the (now-obsolete-and-never-submitted-but-somehow-spidered) entry for our

> site. Two weeks on and with nothing happened I explained my dilemma to

their

> customer service - was my site in line to be indexed ? Had I made a

mistake

> ? What else could I do to get my entry updated ?

>

> I had an amazing reply, basically saying the fast submission counted for

> diddly squt ($199 well spent there) and that they could not guarantee

> including my site. I replied, somewhat puzzled, a) because if there are no

> guarantees their sales copy is wrong/naughty/misleading/total w*nk [delete

> as applicable] and b) because they had already indexed my site at some

time

> in the past and I just wanted to know if it would be updated. I also

wanted

> to be clear that by paying for their service I was entitled to some

customer

> service.

>

> Their fantastic reply, ignoring everything I had asked/raised, merely

stated

> that Looksmart handled their directory and I should consider submitting my

> site to them (odd given that they are included in the fast submission

> service and they have already correctly listed my site).

>

> Is there any point in me trying to sort this out with Excite ? Berry's law

> dictates that if it looks like shit, sounds like shit and tastes like shit

> then in all probablility it is shit and is not going to get any better.

>

> Does anyone have a good experience of the fast submission services offered

> by search engines ? Does anyone know what I should/can do to get my site

> listing updated ?? In fact, given my current boredom with search engines,

> can anyone please suggest a decent search engine optimisation company that

> will do it all for me ?

>

> regards

>

> nick

>

> Nick Berry

> Marketing Manager

> AdvertWizard - 'Internet Advertising Made Easy'

>

>

nick [dot] berryadvertwizard [dot] com

> Tel: +44 (0) 208 591 1125 ext 223  mob: 07715 748894

>

> www.advertwizard.com

> AdvertWizard is a free website promotion service that makes internet

> advertising easy, instant and effective for businesses of any size



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