Yahoo Search Marketing | Behind the times in Web 2.0?

I recently sent a question to Yahoo Search Marketing as my account needed to be transferred from US to Canada. Standard thing really but I got a bunch of errors. I needed some help how to pay my bill. Long story short I have used Yahoo’s SEM service when they were Overture so needless to say, I know their system in and out. Plus I spend a significant amount of money with them. Ok, I tooted my horn. :)

What follows is super crazy dumb but so easy for Yahoo to fix.

The question I had was laid out in detail and submitted to their support team. This question I had is easy to solve. In fact Google makes it REALLY easy. With Yahoo... not so much.

The Reply:
So the reply I got back from them after 3 weeks (note that I am not spending any monies with Yahoo during this time) so they missed out on 3 weeks of revenue. The reply was cut and pasted from Yahoo’s FAQ plus an apology.

CUT AND PASTE!? Apology? Huh?

I wonder if this person even read my support ticket? No need to apologize. They are the ones who missed out on revenues from me. I simply boosted my spend with other search engines. No skin off my back. My sales are still good. I think they are actually up.

So many companies are doing business this way. You know the standard “Sorry for your inconvenience”. Blah blah blah. Why not just address the problem and fix it?

SOLUTION:
In the Web 2.0 era, which I call “So how do we use Web 2.0?!” companies need to get smarter. In this case; answer my question. Companies need to:

1. Listen what people are saying and talking about. I sure hope executives at Yahoo read this post. :)
2. React faster to concerns.
3. Be smarter in their communication messages. The CEO might say smart things but if the ground level staff don’t know, what good is it?
4. Passion is transparent. Customers can easily tell if the service they get is genuine or regurgitated info.
5. Focus on influencers rather than influencing me personally. (If their FAQ had more help from influencers they would help me. LIVE help??)
6. Monitor, measure. In this case support tickets. Did it solve the problem? Am I happy?
7. Make it easy for customers (like me) to communicate back to them. E.g. They never answered my question but I have no way to reply to the message. Do I start all over again? Who do I reply to? Should I even bother?

On the flip side I am happy that companies are still clueless because it employs me as a Strategic Web Marketing Consultant. So keep doing “wrong things” so I can get more work. lol :)

Until next time. Stay tuned. Stay hot.
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