SMMLOCO Review:
Since I can't see any reviews from actual users, only bumps from test balance requests of $1 that get denied, I'll leave mine.
I'm not very impressed, but I'll try to stay somewhat objective.
My conclusion is that their services may or may not be perfectly fine; they probably are. However, the customer support and the way you are treated as a customer is among the worst I have experienced. While I can't say there is something wrong with their services, as that would be an unsubstantiated claim, they gave me the worst customer experience I have had in years. I would recommend anyone choosing providers to pick someone else.
I'd also recommend not depositing more into the balance than what you need to test the services, as you cannot withdraw unspent balance.
Honestly, I recommend not depositing at all.
On the other hand, if you love wasting time waiting for support to reply and not really address your issue, this is the provider for you.
I'll admit I don't have a lot of experience with mass DMs, but out of 200k DMs, we got 4 website visits. Since we are selling Ozempic/Mounjaro/Retatrutide without the need for prescriptions, I would think just pure curiosity would get more than a 0.00002% conversion rate (I'm talking about conversion into website visits, not sales) when targeted towards followers of fitness and diet influencers. (I could be wrong, but that's beside the point).
Raising a concern with their service and asking a legitimate question (that admittedly could have been phrased better) is met with the assumption that you are an idiot who thinks sending DMs equates to sales automatically. Your actual question is ignored, and you are labeled as difficult to deal with.
The actual question was about the conversion into website visits, and I doubted that it was done correctly since the response was abysmal (note that they claim the DMs are delivered with push notifications). I never mentioned sales; I just stated that I had doubts that 4 website visits is a normal result from 200k DMs.
The response I got was:
"I got an update from the team concerning your order. They said that just because you target people in fitness hashtags, it doesn't mean people will buy from you, and that it is a very bad strategy. I am compiling the reports to send it to you. May I know your username, please?"
(I have not received any reports yet, and it's 2 days later.)
The fact that their average response time is 12-24 hours does not really help, as you will have plenty of time to stew and be annoyed by the time they decide to reply, after abruptly ending the previous/ongoing conversation.
Correcting an error in your order, even if you notify them right after it's done and the order was ultimately delivered 5 days later, is not a priority, so don't make any mistakes.
The long story (I know, the short version was already long...):
I deposited $800 intending to send out 300k mass DMs.
I bought a few followers for an account since I had some spare money after depositing an "ish" amount for what I intended to buy. For my purposes, the quality of the followers wouldn't matter anyway, so I haven't looked into that; it's probably fine.
The follower service worked just fine and delivered quickly.
I placed an order for 100k mass DMs and realized I made a mistake filling out the fields (totally on me). I contacted support, which responded. Not very fast, but they did respond.
I was asked to create a new order, and they would cancel the erroneous order.
The result was that the new order was canceled, and the erroneous one was still there.
I contacted support again, explained the issue (maybe a bit poorly), and never really got a reply confirming it was resolved. Clearly, it's not a high priority to make sure the problem is resolved or not.
I contacted them again, this time clearly listing the order IDs and marking them with OK, OK, and "has the message in the order field and not where it was instructed to be (in the # field)".
This was still 2 days before the order was actually completed.
Still, I wanted to get some DMs out, so I opened another order which I filled properly so my total would be 200k and assumed that they would fix the orders by the time they were sent out (which takes 3-5 days, so plan ahead of time if you use their services).
In the end, my order that was not as intended ended up getting sent out, together with the additional one I placed. They never bothered to contact me to check if it was corrected as requested. Again, I do realize this is my fault for being a bit quick filling the order form, but I do expect a service provider to take an interest in correcting mistakes and keeping customers happy.
In the end, the result from 200k DMs was a whopping 4 clicks on the profile bio link.
Admittedly, I'm currently testing and in an early phase since our product is not exactly legal to market. The account we sent traffic to could definitely be better, and the text was probably "ok-ish" and could be better. But bad enough to have a 0.00002% conversion to website visits makes me wonder if there could be an issue with the service since I have been warned by multiple people about DM services being unreliable.
So I figured I would request to withdraw my balance and try a different provider to see if the issue is with me or SMMLOCO.
I asked if I could withdraw my unused balance. After waiting for 24 hours for a reply, I got impatient and requested it instead of asking and added a snide comment since I was already fed up with support taking ages to get back to me.
I got a reply that completely ignored my request, so I requested withdrawing my funds again.
They asked for time to address my concern. I waited another 9.5 hours with no update, so I requested to withdraw my remaining balance again. Three hours after that, I got a response, which was simply, "What's going on?"
Since I was already quite fed up with the snail-paced responses, I decided to be somewhat rude about it and replied:
"I would like to withdraw my balance. Your DM service seems to be bunk. Or it could be that IG scans messages and didn't like it (I have no clue if they actually operate that way, but our product is rather sensitive, so I wouldn't be overly surprised if that was the case). In either case, I would like to withdraw my funds."
(By "bunk," I meant going to spam, which I did not make clear. My intention was not to accuse them of not sending the DMs)
Their response:
"I got an update from the team concerning your order. They said that just because you target people in fitness hashtags, it doesn't mean people will buy from you, and that it is a very bad strategy. I am compiling the reports to send it to you. May I know your username, please?"
At no point did I express or have an expectation of a single sale, but 4 website visits from 200k DMs makes me wonder if they were sent or not.
So I responded in kind to the ridiculous remark with:
"That's the dumbest response I have ever heard. Just let me withdraw. My concern was a 0.00002% CTR to the website."
Then I tacked on some whining from my end, but with no profanity or personally targeted rudeness towards the representative (except initially calling the response dumb, since it did not consider my expressed concern and I never once expressed that I was expecting sales.
My questions were about the resulting website traffic. If they had addressed that and maybe brought up some examples, the conversation would have taken a completely different turn).
After more waiting, I was referred to the terms and told that they do not offer refunds. I was not requesting a refund; I was requesting to withdraw unspent funds.
At this point, I was rather fed up with the 12-24 hour response times and replies stopping mid-conversation. (It might just be bad timing since I am forced to keep checking the browser tab, as their ticketing system doesn't convert the chat into emails, so maybe my responses are a bit slow at times since I can't sit there staring at the chat waiting for a reply. Investing in a proper ticketing system would be worth considering).
So I let them know that I would be happy to leave a review for them since I found it rather ridiculous that I can't withdraw unused funds.
Their response:
"We're answering you as fast as possible, and you were happy about it. And we answered all your questions. You blame us for your poor marketing skills. That's not how it works."
(I don't understand when i have ever expressed that I'm happy with neither their response time or the DMs, where i still don't know whether half of them was sent incorrectly because they didn't bother to correct the error in my order that i notified them about).
I do understand the policy and that it's probably quite common (or a result of customers not returning and withdrawing their remaining balance after testing), but I would have expected some flexibility since I was clearly unhappy with their service. (More with their customer service and response time rather than their actual service).
I have no way to verify whether it was executed correctly or not. And neither can they, since the service clearly states that the DMs come with push notifications. I wonder how they track that? That is beside the point anyway. There is no reason to be directly rude and obnoxious to a customer who expresses a concern. Sure, I could have been friendlier, but 12-24 hour response time and having to keep checking the website chat is a goddamn pain in the ass which cuts my patience short).
Copy-pasting some other parts of the conversation here - I'm happy to provide the entire conversation (I probably am, as I'm rather upset with the service and wait time).
Me:
"Is this seriously how you conduct business? I was going to skip leaving a review since whether the DMs work or not can be due to several factors. But if this is the treatment I get for questioning whether the service was provided properly, the reply is that I suck and I can't have my unspent money back since I'm not happy with the service. Is that the review you would like me to leave? And it's not a threat, it's an honest question. I realize that I can't with confidence say your service is bad (though since you are clearly using a third party, I doubt you can either). So I would prefer trying another service for reference, and this is how you respond..."
SMMLOCO: **
"To be honest, it's not about the review; it's your approach after you not expecting your ideal results. We're here to SEND the DMs, not to guarantee you results. Marketing strategy is on you, not on us. Please understand that. It's not about the review, it's about how you're talking to our staff."
I scrolled through the messages, and this is the closest I can find to me being rude:
That's the dumbest response I have ever heard. Just let me withdraw. My concern was a 0.00002% CTR to the website.
I also had a list of influencers in addition to the hashtags and assumed those would be prioritized. So telling me targeting fitness hashtags is a bad strategy makes no sense to begin with, and a blanket statement basically calling me an idiot is not helpful either. My complaint was not about sales, but a conversion rate that makes no sense, so I strongly doubt the messages came with push notification. I am done. Withdraw what's on my account and I wish you good luck.
Which was a response to:
"I got an update from the team concerning your order. They said that just because you target people in fitness hashtags, it doesn't mean people will buy from you, and that it is a very bad strategy. I am compiling the reports to send it to you. May I know your username, please?"
Again, I have never once mentioned anything about sales. My concern is a CTR to my website that's 4 out of 200,000. (I guess the phrase "conversion rate" can only apply to sales and there are no other conversions...?)
Unless it's rude to request withdrawing funds or to repeat a question about withdrawal when it's ignored by the representative (while I'm already rather annoyed by a 12-24 hour response time).
If that's enough to upset their staff and warrant direct rudeness, they should probably stop hiring special snowflakes as support representatives.
Me: ** continued from the previous reply marked with **
"I just asked if the DMs were sent and wondered if there could be an issue with my text or the accounts used for sending. Your reply was to tell me I suck. Scroll up before you make a damn statement."
SMMLOCO:
"If your order is marked completed, then yes, man, the DMs were sent. We can send you proof of it as well."
Me:
"That's a bit late now, isn't it? I don't like you, and you don't like me." (this seems out of context, not sure if it's a bug in jivochat, i could swear i sent this after they said things had gotten a bit out of hand. Or there is a message that's deleted, I'm very sure it was my reply to an attempt at de-escalating)
SMMLOCO:
"Logically, if you're not getting good return on mass DMs, it's because your marketing strategy on DMs didn't work. Things may have gotten a bit out of hand, but we're here to help you answer all your questions. I mean, the happier you are, the more you spend with us. But at the same time, we're doing our best answering all your questions. Ideally, the best thing to do for mass DM is to get people to go to your profile on IG, get them to engage and all that. Really. If they really want to buy from you, they'll do it.
I'll be on break, mate, getting back to you soon!
And I'm back to waiting. AND AGAIN THEY TALK ABOUT SALES - All I'm saying from start to end is that I'm looking at website visits, and the result was 4 from 200k DMs (0.00002). Which might be reasonable, I don't know. But instead of addressing that concern, I'm told I can't expect sales just because I send some DMs.
I am completely aware that my text could have sucked, and the profile could definitely be better.
But what pisses me off is the attitude that "I am asking for the moon."
I'm just asking about the website visits that seem awkwardly low even if the text was bad. Out of 200k people following fitness and diet influencers, I would think more than 4 might be interested enough in buying Ozempic without a prescription to at least click the website link (but I might be crazy) - and the fact that 100k was probably sent with a cropped text since I placed it in the wrong field when opening the order (I notified them about this 3 days before the DMs were actually sent).
Next, they went on a 2-hour break, so I get to wait more instead of finishing the conversation. So I guess I'll just post my review and order some services I don't even want to empty my balance.
I'll be back to update on whether leaving a negative review makes them decide I'm so rude they won't deliver the services I order for my remaining balance (I don't really doubt that they will, I'm just annoyed).