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Re: Yellow Pages
Mad Mac….
Phone them again, accuse them of sharp practice and tell them you are cancelling the direct debit. That ought to shake them. As soon as you do cancel, they will be on to you in a flash.
Alternatively, another way is to phone the sales department as if you are a new customer, the phone will get answered very quickly indeed. Works every time as they think you want to spend some money with them. Then lay into them and demand to be put through to a senior manager.
Alex
Re: Yellow Pages
Looked at the pricing section of their website & what i’ve been charged is the advertised going rate for this year.. a 4{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} increase in the basic price ex VAT 😥 Still doesnt change the fact that my bloody rep lied & refuses to even answer calls, unfortunately its my word against hers, there was no one else here 👿
Alex, the guy i spoke to actually suggested i could cancel my ads if i was not happy.. kinda threw me cos i was planning using that threat as my trump card! 😳
Just get the feeling its all mind games with that lot, they have no doubt all been trained to have an answer for every occasion.As its the only advertising i do now having stopped a wee local paper ad i used to run to save on costs, im reluctant to chance a year without it, even though im dubious as to just how much work it actually generates.
The year i give this game up i’m gonna invite them out, agree to spend thousands on a few double page ads..then use my right to cancel on the 11th hour..HAH! That’ll fix ’em. 🙂
Re: Yellow Pages
Had a similar thing with the rep this year. Told him initially I didn’t want to spend more, he came back with some nice looking (but too corporate looking Ads), then the schedule came through…..£2k more than last year. Told them to cancel the ads and I would do the artwork myself (as usual). Smaller ads with all the correct wording and no charge for artwork (hope nobody minds me using an AW23 pic 😳 😉 ) and now pretty much back to last year. Smaller ads but a bigger prescance on t’interweb. They can be real cheeky barstewards though, the reps most of the time can’t really be arsed as they flit between jobs at the drop of a directory.
TC
Re: Yellow Pages
Just happened to google myself the other day, as I do occasionaly, and was surprised to find this:
http://www.angliaelectrics-cm23.co.uk/This is a particularly amaturish (eg. SMEGG) looking web site, showing my address and some details of what we do, not particularly accurate and definatly not my work, and showing a phone number that is not mine! Needless to say I phoned the number and my own phone rang! Whats going on! There is nothing on the site to say who has done this but it certainly was not me.
I had to do a whois check on the domain name and the details stated that the domain was from Yell.com.
I had not asked for this although something was mentioned by by Yellow pages rep that we would be added to a directory for free but no mention of an “alternative” web site being set up on my behalf.
I am worried now that customers getting to this site will note down the phone number which may well be sold on to another service comapany in the future.
I wonder if anyone else out there has the same “clone” site without their knowledge? simply enter www. add a “-” and then your post code.co.uk to your company name and find out.If Yell.com was clearly shown I would not mind as at least cusotmers wont think it is my web site and think I dont know how to spell SMEG!
Re: Yellow Pages
eastlmark wrote:Just happened to google myself the other day
Whatever turns you on, 😆
Very odd site all the same. 😯Re: Yellow Pages
the wrong phone number thing caught me out yell told me that they would analise my calls and give me a breakdown. sounds fine. but when I looked at my ad wow! whats that strange number? it appears that it is used to pass my calls through some sort of counting device I rang and got MY number put in place ( I dont think I was the first to complain) whats the point of having your number printed on cards bills flyers vans only for some #### to change it through some device without a by your leave? 😯
not pleased
wilfRe: Yellow Pages
Very confusing for your customers, & many might suspect they’re being routed through a premium rate set up or something 😯
Yell…its the spawn of Satan 👿Re: Yellow Pages
perhaps its punishment for not taking the Yell.com option. no doubt next year I will be told just how many calls have been routed through their phone number and just how good a service it is.
Re: Yellow Pages
Talking of Yellow Pages, my copy of the Reading & Newbury Yellow Pages has been dumped in a puddle outside my front door. The plastic film saved it to some extent but the last 50 or so pages are nicely stuck together in a crinkled mess enough for me to simply throw the whole thing in the green recycling bin. :rolls:
But before I did that I scraped the pages apart to see where my listing had ended up in case they’d cocked-up my ad. It was there so that’s OK. But it was interesting to note that this years Reading & Newbury edition is 254 pages smaller (1166 pages last year – 912 this year) meaning more businesses have gone to the wall or have simply stopped advertising in Yellow Pages (or both!)
Re: Yellow Pages
Martin wrote:Talking of Yellow Pages, my copy of the Reading & Newbury Yellow Pages has been dumped in a puddle outside my front door.
According to this article in the DAILY MAIL after being dumped outside your front door many copies are unwanted and go straight in the bin outside your back door. No surprises there then……!
Re: Yellow Pages
eastlemark wrote
This is a particularly amaturish (eg. SMEGG) looking web site, showing my address and some details of what we do, not particularly accurate and definatly not my work, and showing a phone number that is not mine! Needless to say I phoned the number and my own phone rang! Whats going on! There is nothing on the site to say who has done this but it certainly was not me.
I had to do a whois check on the domain name and the details stated that the domain was from Yell.com.
I had not asked for this although something was mentioned by by Yellow pages rep that we would be added to a directory for free but no mention of an “alternative” web site being set up on my behalf.
I am worried now that customers getting to this site will note down the phone number which may well be sold on to another service comapany in the future.
I wonder if anyone else out there has the same “clone” site without their knowledge? simply enter www. add a “-” and then your post code.co.uk to your company name and find out.They informed me that it was a free website designed to maximise hits from Google etc. One look at it told me it had either been designed by an iliterate robot or someone with no english langauge knowledge.
They seemed quite upet when I told them that if I was a punter looking for a service and came across that site they’d probably look elsewhere as it seemed so unprofessional even down to font and colours used as a backing. SEO pages they call them.TC
The old business model isn’t working anymore and, for the leads generated for a lot of businesses, it’s not worth the cost.
Hence, YP etc. are trying to adapt to the internet age.
This was happening in California when I was out in Silicon Valley a few years ago, the YP business there had collapsed and there were fears for it’s future simply because fewer and fewer people where using it. What was happening there in 2001/2 is just happening here now.
I don’t know how YP are doing out there now, I’ve not looked.
K.
kwatt wrote:The old business model isn’t working anymore and, for the leads generated for a lot of businesses, it’s not worth the cost.
K.So why aren’t the gits DROPPING their rates 😯 seems we’re paying more to get less.
For the £70 a month i’ll be paying this year i really dont think i’m getting value for money, i used to think that even one job a week from YP would mean i break even at least, so was worth carrying on with, but i swear many weeks all my customers are previously visited ones or referrals.Next year i think i’ll drop my ad’s to the bare minimum size & look at setting up a decent web page, i’m sick of giving yell my hard earned.
I used to get a far better class of punter from my ad in the county rag when i think of it 😯 typically older country types with freshly baked scones & a pot of tea waiting 8)
Plus, id far rather give my available ad budget to a local paper than the BMW driving lying b******s who work for yell.. yes sir. 👿Madmac wrote:So why aren’t the gits DROPPING their rates 😯 seems we’re paying more to get less.
Because they still have huge costs.
The cost of the actual book itself isn’t really that massive, the admin, marketing (massive cost), delivery of the books and sales costs all will be eating up cash I suspect.
Add to that a dropping pool of local businesses and a drop still further as many discover, just as you seem to be, that a well focussed website combined with local advertising seems to be more effective and you end up with high costs for lower results so far as YP/Yell go.
It used to be that it was absolutely essential to be in YP but, these days, it really isn’t IMO. I’ve not advertised in it for a decade or more.
Yell.com and the traditional YP are taking an absolute pounding since that service was made to be no longer a monopoly that YP had. This opened the floodgates to competition from the likes of the directory services from BT, 193 193 (or whatever they are), Google Local and a myriad of other competition that YP now has.
I personally do not use or, know anyone that uses, Yell.com.
And this change in the way that people find a business has led to the upsurge in the likes of BG, 0800, repaircare and others in this industry but it’s also led to much the same thing in many others as some with deep pockets can afford to throw money at Google etc. to advertise online. This skews what people see and, on the face of it, what they see on offer is less of a risk as the costs are “fixed” so they take a punt on it.
That can be combatted as well but it’s not a two minute job to do so.
It is quite ironic though that everyone used to bleat about the cost of YP and therefore competition was introduced then, as a direct result, the actual cost rises as you now have to advertise across a range of mediums to get the same sort of effect.
But, the world moves on and I imagine it will only be a matter of time before YP and Yell become extinct ultimately.
K.
Madmac wrote:So why aren’t the gits DROPPING their rates 😯 seems we’re paying more to get less.
Due to ‘unfair competition’ ruling the Monopolies & Mergers Commission ‘capped’ the rates Yellow Pages could charge way back in the 1990’s. That price capping obligation ran out in 2008 hence their rates have risen considerably since.
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