Why customer service is important; a lesson that SpyFu desperately needs to learn.
What is it about some companies that make them think that they can post up an inferior product, charge a monthly subscription fee, and then sit back and offer no assistance? At what business school did they learn that letting their customers attempt to navigate through a maze of glitches and unfulfilled product expectations would lead to a successful company?
When we purchased a monthly subscription to the competitive research tool SpyFu, we expected to get access to a range of quality tools that allowed us to understand our competitors paid search campaigns. The website promised us an internet marketer’s dream, an easy way to download competitors’ keywords and AdWords data.
Unfortunately what we found instead was a hodgepodge of programming errors, halfway implemented features, and a complete lack of customer support.
We first emailed SpyFu when we were unable to download one of the essential keyword reports the company offers. At this point we weren’t too worried, even the best software has a few glitches, and we just assumed that they would respond in a timely manner.
As we proceeded to use the program, we continued to find glitches, bugs that prevented us from getting what we wanted, and also a poorly implemented reporting program that left us unable to download the information promised by the software.
Once again we tried to contact SpyFu, this time by phone as well as by email. Unfortunately, the phone number lead us right to a full mailbox and there was still no reply to either of the emails we had sent.
Finally, at a point of complete frustration, we decided to cancel our service and use the money back guarantee that SpyFu offers. After some difficulty getting the system to cancel the account, we were left with no way to request the refund except for another email!
Needless to say, we still have not heard back from SpyFu or its parent company Velocityscape.
We’ll keep you updated.
6/5/09 Update: We’re glad to see the President of SpyFu respond to our requests for help. We’ll keep you posted concerning the outcomes. Stay tuned.
6/8/09 Update: SpyFu President, Michael Roberts, has been incredibly helpful in addressing our concerns and making things right. We’ve received a full refund and a complimentary month of services. Stay tuned for an in-depth review of Spyfu in the coming months.
Tags: Bad Products, Competitive Research Tool, customer service, Software Glitches, SpyFu, Velocityscape
Yeah, they still don’t reply to emails. What a goofy company.
Ray,
What you describe sounds like a terrible user experience, and I am sorry this happened to you. The cornerstone of my company is customer responsiveness, and I want to get to the bottom of this issue. Could you email me your username and/or the email you used? I want to figure out how we dropped the ball.
You’ve given us some obviously needed feedback. I hope that in speaking with you, I can address your concerns, or at the very least, determine how to not repeat them. Please drop me an email…
If you have the time, I’d also like to talk to you about the specific issues that you mention.
* Regarding the download of very large lists — Based on user feedback, We’ve recently released a completely overhauled way to download and manage large lists — actually, if the problems you’ve had have happened this week, I’d be curious whether they have been due to the new roll out.
* Difficulty cancelling your account — I hate the whole “let’s make it really easy to sign up, but cancellations are only possible with a signed fax”, crap. We try to make it pretty simple and obvious to cancel. So, if you had difficulty, I’d like to know about it.
* A full voicemail box — I gotta tell you, I spent about over an hour trying to track this down. Here’s the deal: paid subscribers like yourself, get access to a VIP support line. When you are logged in, that’s the only phone number you’ll ever see. When you call our 800 number that’s where you are directed. But, apparently, when you aren’t logged in, a totally different very old phone number with a “480″ prefix is displayed. I have no idea where it came from, and sure enough, when you call it, the mailbox is full. We’re removing that old number.
I’m sorry that you had difficulty, and I’d like to be sure that we’ve completely closed out the account to your satisfaction. Or if you’d like, I can personally help to see that you get the information you signed up to receive.
Thanks,
Michael J. Roberts
President, SpyFu