Reyone
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2012
- 1,617
- 1,313
Friday, 07, 2014
Me and my partner started working on a side campaign to get more involved into content marketing & native advertising. We were compiling and collecting all of the brands that offer this type of deal and it was great to see that many of the companies up there seemed to be pretty big, established and legit.
We love to get on the phone, no matter what it is we are doing or who it is we are dealing, we enjoy picking the phone up and learning how the company operates and deals with their clients. I personally believe that there is no better way to tell how professional a company is than by giving them a ring.
To our surprise, we soon found out that most of these companies were either terrible when helping their advertisers or simply did not ever pick up the phone.
The first one we called was Outbrain, I gotta tell you, out of all of the sponsored/contentsharing/native advert companies, they have seemed to be the best (talking about customer support). Then again, out of the 5 phone calls we made, the support was pretty damn terrible, either landing you with someone who had no clue about it and transferred you to a line where nobody would pick up, or simply just could not really help you.
We then proceeded to call a couple more without success.
Saturday, 08, 2014
Our campaign was rejected by Outbrain; no worries, that's absolutely fine and understandable, so we decided to move on to see if we could finally sign up with some other company.
First one we phoned was taboola.com; out of their 5 locations, none of them was able to reply. Well... it is Saturday and a lot of companies choose not to work, so I guess that's fine
Second one we phoned, get ready for it, http://www.stackadapt.com - very nice site, looks like they got a lot of employees and seems like they deal with some really big brands, well, sounds great doesn't it? Not so much when I decided to pick up the phone. First number I called was their UK contact, after a minute and a lengthy phone call, we were redirected to the voicemail: "Hello, you have reached this persons O2s voicemail..."; awesome, ain't it? What seems to be a bigass company with a cellphone number that does not get picked up leading you to the default o2 voicemail message!
Well, that was the first number right? So I decided, well, its 7 am in NY, maybe they are already in the office, if I call and they don't pick up, no worries, and if they do, great! So I call, and after 6 rings, this dude that looks like he had the time of his life last night picks up the phone and answers (picture a heavy french accent, no disrespect, I also got a big accent)
Him- Hello, who is this? (ultra sleepy voice)
Me- Hi there, is this stackadapt.com?
Him- (really confused) ehhhh mmmm yes why, who is this?
Me- Just an advertiser, wanted to get a bit more information on your network.
(Shocking one, get ready for it!)
Him- (angry tone) ah, why are you calling me now? did you know it is 7 am Saturday morning? (angry/confused)
Me- (At this point I was absolutely like WTF!!!) what do you mean 7 am, is this not the number for stackadapt?
Him- (angry) yes but it is 7 am
Me (angry) I cannot believe you are talking to an advertiser like this, this is absolutely unprofessional
Him- (angry) no, it is not
At this point I just felt like a retard so I just hanged up, no point in starting an argument with a half sleep dude.
I have no problem if you do not work on Saturdays, but dude, if you pick up the phone listed on your company's site, HAVE SOME DECENCY AND DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENTS!!!
Seriously, unbelievable, never seen such a display of unprofessionalism in my life. And if any of you is going to reply with something like "people have a life", you are fucking right people have a life, but just don't link your personal phone to the company or at least don't pick up the goddamn phone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's the story so far, I will update it later if they decide to call us or something.
I am by no means perfect, and I do make a lot of mistakes, but what I'm trying to say here is that if you guys put a phone number on a website, BE READY TO ANSWER, and be ready to answer politely, they are customers on the other side of the line... its money and growth for the company, it is absolutely inexplicable to act this way.
The worst part is probably the fact that these companies have super beautifully designed websites with what seems to be hundreds of legit employees... you just don't expect that.
Anyways, that's my rant over; definitely learned a lot today, good experience.
Have a good weekend everyone!
Me and my partner started working on a side campaign to get more involved into content marketing & native advertising. We were compiling and collecting all of the brands that offer this type of deal and it was great to see that many of the companies up there seemed to be pretty big, established and legit.
We love to get on the phone, no matter what it is we are doing or who it is we are dealing, we enjoy picking the phone up and learning how the company operates and deals with their clients. I personally believe that there is no better way to tell how professional a company is than by giving them a ring.
To our surprise, we soon found out that most of these companies were either terrible when helping their advertisers or simply did not ever pick up the phone.
The first one we called was Outbrain, I gotta tell you, out of all of the sponsored/contentsharing/native advert companies, they have seemed to be the best (talking about customer support). Then again, out of the 5 phone calls we made, the support was pretty damn terrible, either landing you with someone who had no clue about it and transferred you to a line where nobody would pick up, or simply just could not really help you.
We then proceeded to call a couple more without success.
Saturday, 08, 2014
Our campaign was rejected by Outbrain; no worries, that's absolutely fine and understandable, so we decided to move on to see if we could finally sign up with some other company.
First one we phoned was taboola.com; out of their 5 locations, none of them was able to reply. Well... it is Saturday and a lot of companies choose not to work, so I guess that's fine
Second one we phoned, get ready for it, http://www.stackadapt.com - very nice site, looks like they got a lot of employees and seems like they deal with some really big brands, well, sounds great doesn't it? Not so much when I decided to pick up the phone. First number I called was their UK contact, after a minute and a lengthy phone call, we were redirected to the voicemail: "Hello, you have reached this persons O2s voicemail..."; awesome, ain't it? What seems to be a bigass company with a cellphone number that does not get picked up leading you to the default o2 voicemail message!
Well, that was the first number right? So I decided, well, its 7 am in NY, maybe they are already in the office, if I call and they don't pick up, no worries, and if they do, great! So I call, and after 6 rings, this dude that looks like he had the time of his life last night picks up the phone and answers (picture a heavy french accent, no disrespect, I also got a big accent
)Him- Hello, who is this? (ultra sleepy voice)
Me- Hi there, is this stackadapt.com?
Him- (really confused) ehhhh mmmm yes why, who is this?
Me- Just an advertiser, wanted to get a bit more information on your network.
(Shocking one, get ready for it!)
Him- (angry tone) ah, why are you calling me now? did you know it is 7 am Saturday morning? (angry/confused)
Me- (At this point I was absolutely like WTF!!!) what do you mean 7 am, is this not the number for stackadapt?
Him- (angry) yes but it is 7 am
Me (angry) I cannot believe you are talking to an advertiser like this, this is absolutely unprofessional
Him- (angry) no, it is not
At this point I just felt like a retard so I just hanged up, no point in starting an argument with a half sleep dude.
I have no problem if you do not work on Saturdays, but dude, if you pick up the phone listed on your company's site, HAVE SOME DECENCY AND DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH YOUR POTENTIAL CLIENTS!!!
Seriously, unbelievable, never seen such a display of unprofessionalism in my life. And if any of you is going to reply with something like "people have a life", you are fucking right people have a life, but just don't link your personal phone to the company or at least don't pick up the goddamn phone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's the story so far, I will update it later if they decide to call us or something.
I am by no means perfect, and I do make a lot of mistakes, but what I'm trying to say here is that if you guys put a phone number on a website, BE READY TO ANSWER, and be ready to answer politely, they are customers on the other side of the line... its money and growth for the company, it is absolutely inexplicable to act this way.
The worst part is probably the fact that these companies have super beautifully designed websites with what seems to be hundreds of legit employees... you just don't expect that.
Anyways, that's my rant over; definitely learned a lot today, good experience.
Have a good weekend everyone!
