It's been one month since I signed up for YAHOO local listings....or thought I did.
I went online today to make an edit to my YAHOO-supplied website, and began a customer service nightmare. I was very surprised, because I had always thought of YAHOO as very customer-oriented. I only hope my experience today was an exception to the rule.
Everything began when, as I said, I went online to edit my website. I couldn't find the page where that would be done, though my YAHOO website was still at http://fl.local.yahoo.biz/dancingcactusimports, an address that I can probably now recite in my sleep, given the number of times that I repeated it today.
I asked the last rep I spoke with for YAHOO's consumer relations email address, and good thing I did! For it is nowhere to be found on their website, or if it is there, it is very well hidden.
Following is the text of my email to them. I will let you know if I receive a response, though I am not holding my breath.
Hello. I recently signed up for a YAHOO! local listing. I had a very distressing customer service experience today that I would like to tell you about. I realize this email is long, but I ask that you read the entire thing, bearing in mind that reading it will not take you nearly as long as the three hours I spent on the phone today with YAHOO.
With the local listing, I received a small website. I set up the website, received an email confirmation of my local listing, and thought everything was OK. I even corresponded via email with my local listing sales agent the week after I ordered the listing.
Today, I needed to make an edit to the website, and could not find the webpage I needed to do this from. (I remember having trouble with this last month too. You really need to make it easier to find.)
I called your toll-free number and pressed the option for web support. The person I spoke with said that this is not a web issue, it is a local listing issue, and I should call them.
OK, I called again and pressed the option for local listing. That rep asked me why I was calling sales if I had an existing account. I don't really know why, that's who I was told to call. So the rep "helpfully" transferred me to "the people I need to talk to".
The gentleman in "the people I need to talk to" department said that YAHOO doesn't give out websites. Well, I have one, I told him. Would you like the address? No, he says, I can't look up websites, can you hold for a moment? Sure, why not?
Well, this helpful gentleman blind-transferred me back into his own department! I worked in the call-center industry for many years, and this popular stunt was grounds for immediate termination. But, back to my story.
The next rep was only slightly more helpful. She said that I needed to tell her where my website was stored. When I told her it was stored on YAHOO's server, she said, "No, you must have saved it somewhere. Where did you save it?" After going round and round about this, she said it didn't sound like I have a YAHOO website. I said I know I do, because I'm looking at it. She asked me for the address. I gave her the address from my browser, http://fl.local.yahoo.biz/dancingcactusimports, to which she replied that it wasn't a valid web address because it doesn't end in .com.
I asked her to type it in her browser, She said she did, but that nothing came up, "and anyway, a YAHOO address would not have all those slashes." HUH?????
Then I asked her if I could email her the link, since she was obviously typing it in wrong. She received the link and was able to bring up the website. She confirmed that indeed, I do have a website (YAY! Progress!) but that she did not know how I would edit it. I asked her if she could then connect me with someone who does know, and she said she would give me another phone number to call.
I called that number, and this time the person insisted that "if" I have a website, I would edit it on my local computer, where she apparently felt I should have it saved, and "publish" it to YAHOO. It was useless trying to explain that I never, in the whole process of creating this website, saved anything to my computer. She asked me where, then, it was saved. I answered "On YAHOO's server" for about the fiftieth time today. (I have cut out much of the repetitive parts of my conversations from this email for the sake of brevity). She didn't understand how that could be possible, and transferred me yet again, to....Guess where?
Local listing sales!!! Of course that rep not only told me that local listings just do not come with free websites, but that if they did I shouldn't be talking to sales for technical help anyway. Well, hello! Who, pray tell, should I be talking to, and why don't you connect me with them?
She couldn't do that, but she could give me another phone number to call. I suppose I should have expected this.
The rep at that number, now after almost three hours on the phone, while trying to run my business at the same time, said that my local listing had been declined. He also told me that I did not have a YAHOO web site. One, why did I not receive any prior communication telling me this? Two, why could none of the other reps (who all asked me for multiple forms of ID) tell me this? Three, why was there no link to this information on my "MY YAHOO" page? Four, why does everyone at YAHOO seem to think that I don't have a YAHOO web site, even after I provide them with the address? When I asked this rep why my local listing was declined, he said he couldn't tell me (?) and that I would have to look it up on my local listing page. Well, I'd love to, but nobody seems to be able to tell me the address of that page. (hint: you may want to make this address more readily available to your customers)
Luckily, this rep knew that the address is http://listings.local.yahoo.com. When I looked there, sure enough, I saw my declined listing, saying that YAHOO didn't have enough information to approve it. Apparently, they did not like the way I had formatted my address, with the name of the mall in it. So, I took that out and resubmitted the listing. I was then able to make the edit to my (supposedly non-existent)web page that had started this whole escapade.
I wonder if YAHOO will accept it this time, and how I will know if they don't?
I'm still not quite sure why I resubmitted the listing if this is the kind of customer service that I can expect to receive, and I'm still re-thinking that decision.
I would also like you to know that I write a small-business blog for Know More Media, at www.bizcradle.com. I excitedly posted to my readers last month that I had signed up for local listings, and they asked me to relay my experiences to them. I will be sure to do so.
I look forward to your response.
--
Cathi Kent, President
Dancing Cactus Imports Inc.
Phone: 561-271-1639
Fax : 561-544-8051
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