Back in October, I had Yellow Pages contact me, as to regard advertising with them. The local representative gave me a call and was very helpful and I decided to take out a yell ad on yell.com with a link to my website and the "Connect package" that puts you on 500+ directories, allegedly! I had many phone calls asking me if I had signed the paperwork and at the particular time I was busy and I hadn't, so I eventually signed the paperwork electronically, which is over the phone and using a smartphone.
Supposedly I was all set to go, apart from I couldn't log into my account as it appeared that yell had found an old account mixed up with my new account, this took numerous phone calls and nothing actually happened. Yell has a help team in the Philippines which unfortunately were unable to understand my basic straightforward questions. I cancelled my direct debit as I hadn't actually made any payments at this point and then a month or so later I received an email threatening to take me to a debt collector to collect the payments for something that I haven't received!
I then spoke to a manager at yell who could understand my problem and wiped off the debt and gave me three months free with yell.com. I also made an appointment to speak to him, in view of being in front of the laptop as he wanted to show me how to get the most out of yell, he failed to call me. I then made another appointment for 8:30 AM today, which once again he failed to make contact with me, therefore wasting my time waiting for him to call while I was in front of the laptop!
After doing some quick research, my Webmaster has some tools where he can submit my website to directories for a one-off payment of 25 pounds I believe, much cheaper than yell! I also looked up yell.com on www.alexa.com and they don't rank particularly high, 497 in the UK and 15,150 globally.
Just out of interest, what is your experience with yell?
Thank you for reading.
Roy
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Replies
id be intersted to learn about the directory listing for a one-off payment
Hello Ian, thank you for your reply. I will find out more about the directory listing for a one-off payment and I will let you know. This is something I also want to use, it's a slow process signing up for directories one by one!
Yellow Pages used to be a great service.Back in 2006 to 2008 I was running an IT business and using the YP to pick up perhaps 50% of my work.
I moved on, YP shrunk to a almost a magazine size, and Yell.com became their main product. I found the YC sales team extremenly unpleasant and pushy and at times relentless in their pursuit of my business. They called again this year, usual patter about getting better and more clients, even going as far as saying I need more business.
Look around online and you'll not find many people singing their praises. Wouldn't touch their services with a long stick!
Hello Scott, thank you for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it. I was also using the Yellow Pages around this time and it was much better back then. The Internet has really changed how we market our businesses and it seems to me that Yell is always a couple of steps behind the times now.
To be fair, the salesman who was trying to sell me the product was very professional, but in the office, they seem very slow and the helpline is based in the Philippines and they in my experience just do not understand my questions.
Indeed, I don't hear many people singing their praises!
Not good at all took a what i was told was a top advert last Nov for landscape fencing ect. Very poor return for the money. I called them no help brick wall your in a contract etc... So i told them I would refuse to pay due to very very poor performance.The same thinng they just tell me im in a contract so i laugh they laugh. The point is they are out dated super seeded by google and are over charging to try to stay afloat. The bloke I met looking back grossly miss sold the ad talked it up signed me up and spanked my bottom!
Thank you for your reply, Alan, I hear what you're saying! They did seem very keen to sign me up, I was also told that they would help me every step of the way, I haven't had any help whatsoever! As I mentioned in the previous comment, the way we market their businesses has changed dramatically over the past few years.
Incidentally, have you paid for your advert Alan?
Enjoy your weekend.
Roy
I use the free services from https://www.attracta.com. You press some buttons, and it creates and sends a "site map" to the main search engines, as well as some link building stuff. It is free, so worth a try on a rainy day!
Thank you Ian, I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I will take a look and like you say, it may be a rainy day job!
I still advertise with Yell, and have done for several years, but people I know have been either historically unhappy with them or more recently. When I was sold this year's deal I spoke to an English person, I'm pretty sure.
I worked with a tree guy recently who's thinking about switching to Check a Trade as he's not getting a lot of business from his Yell advert. I have done in recent years, although not so far so much this year. Mind you, it's been so cold nothing much has grown and people aren't venturing into the garden let alone thinking about employing someone to work in the garden!
Overall I get the majority of my business from adverts in church magazines which I pay less than £100 a year for in each, whereas Yell costs me over three times that much. I think I should re-think advertising with them next year.
Thank you for taking the time to comment Angela, it's interesting what works for some people and what works for others. A couple of years ago I carried out a leaflet drop, which was totally unsuccessful. I believe that with the invention of smartphones and the Internet, most people are searching on Google. However, as you mentioned, I do believe that church magazines, parish magazines, worked very successfully in small communities. It does sound like Check A Trade may be worth a look too.
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