The Yahoos at Yahoo Search Marketing

Though I’ve been helping clients with Google AdWords for a while, I recently made my first venture into Yahoo’s Search Marketing (formerly Overture). Unfortunately, I’ve been totally disappointed by their customer service. Unless you’re interested in dubious customer support stories, you may want to abandon this entry here, before it gets tedious [more]:

1. On August 4, I signed up for their “Fast Track” program, paying US $200 for a customized ad program and an accelerated implementation. I chose this because I already had a detailed spreadsheet that described all of the keywords and ads we wanted to set up.
2. On August 8, the account manager replied with a proposed set of keywords and ads. I immediately replied and gave them the go-ahead to set up the program.
3. I didn’t hear from them for two weeks. On August 22, I received a copy of the email I’d received on August 8, prompting me to approve their proposal.
4. Baffled as to why the program hadn’t already started, I emailed my account manager. I tried on several occasions, but received no reply.
5. The program was eventually started, nearly three weeks after I’d approved Yahoo’s proposal. So much for ‘Fast Track’. I sent an email of complaint to the account manager’s boss.
6. To add insult to injury, I recently checked the account, and found that it had been disabled five days ago. I called Yahoo, and the customer service rep I spoke couldn’t explain why. He put me back in touch with my account manager. He couldn’t explain either.
7. As fiasco piled on fiasco, I went over the account manager’s head again to his boss, demanding an explanation, an apology and a refund of the $200 for the not-so-Fast Track service. Instead of getting a reply from the boss, I became service ticket #1843123, and got a reply from some random customer service rep. It follows:

Regarding the refund of $199.00 for the proposal I will not be able to return that, our records show that you signed up with us on Aug. 4, 2005 and [account manager] sent you a proposal on Aug. 8, 2005. It also shows that he resent the proposal to you on Aug. 23, 2005. I asked [account manager] why he resent the proposal to you and he said you stated you didn’t receive it so he resent it out to you. So unfortunately I can not return the $199.00 because we sent you your proposal on time.

Regarding your account being turned offline in September that is due to your complaint email regarding your account, sometimes when issues need to be looked into regarding the account it will be placed offline so the issues can get resolved, I apologize for that, your account is now online and will stay online unless you request for that to be taken offline. I can tell you this won’t happen again unless it is at your request to be off line, and if you stay with yahoo this can be of some service to your company with advertising and bringing in more business.

So, because the account manager claims that he didn’t get an email from me, I don’t get my money back. I attached that August 8 email with my complaint–do they imagine that I manufactured it? And then they turn off my account, without my knowledge or consent, and leave it off until I notice? It’s a customer service nightmare. If it were me, and not my client, I’d end my relationship with Yahoo. They’ve been error-prone, slow and unresponsive. Is it any wonder that they’re a distant second to Google AdWords?