(800) 689-1273
Facebook Twitter Youtube Linkedin
Prospect Genius logo

Prospect Genius

Menu
Log In
You are here: Home / Search for "customer reviews"

Search Results for: customer reviews

HomeAdvisor: Helping Large Companies Crush Small Ones

Last Updated: December 22, 2014

multi-tasking man being stepped on by a shoe
Are you using HomeAdvisor to locally market your appliance repair company? You’re joined by hundreds of other nearby appliance services, many of which are at a huge disadvantage. You’ve probably gotten this feeling already—that the game is rigged in favor of larger companies with greater resources—and we’re here to confirm your suspicions. HomeAdvisor is bad for small businesses like yours.
Let’s start off with the most obvious pain point: the speed at which you’re forced to respond to leads. By now, you’ve realized that the only way to be successful on HomeAdvisor is to respond immediately to any and all leads that come your way. However, as a small, one- or two-man operation, that means you have to balance your work with answering the phone and hunting down leads. As you know firsthand, it’s awfully difficult to answer the phone when you’re already on another job with your hands inside a dishwasher or squeezed behind a refrigerator. Frankly, it’s unrealistic for a small appliance repair outfit like yours to land these jobs unless you happen to be free at the moment the call comes in. This is where big businesses get a huge leg up on you.
While this unrealistic demand for immediacy is enough of an obstacle, there’s another major problem with HomeAdvisor: the cost. At the start of your program, you agree to pay a certain amount per lead. But based on the feedback we’ve heard from many of our clients (who are small business owners like you and former HomeAdvisor customers), leads are often shared with as many as five to ten other businesses. You probably already had a feeling that the odds were stacked against you, but let’s do the math: If leads are shared with five different businesses, then that means you have a one-in-five chance of closing each lead. So, if you think about it, you’re actually paying five times as much for every lead you finally do close. On top of that, we’ve heard reports from our clients that HomeAdvisor would occasionally charge them far more than what they were told they’d be charged per lead. Has that ever happened to you? Clearly, HomeAdvisor is rigged in favor of big businesses with big budgets, because most small companies like yours are hurt by such an expensive, unpredictable investment.
But that’s not even the most frustrating part, is it? You know that even when you do respond to a lead in time, there’s a significant chance that the prospect on the other end is looking for a service that you don’t even provide! That’s because HomeAdvisor is fundamentally incentivized to send you as many leads as possible, even if they’re barely relevant to your company. The reason for that is simple: The more leads HomeAdvisor sends you, the more money it makes. Since HomeAdvisor will still charge you for a bad lead, you’ll not only be taking time away from work to track it down, but you’ll actually be losing money on it, too. Again, big companies might not have a problem with this, as they have plenty of room in their budgets. You, on the other hand, really feel the consequences of HomeAdvisor’s poorly designed services.
It’s no wonder HomeAdvisor has a one-star rating on ConsumerAffairs.com.
Prospect Genius took all of the above pain points into account when we created our lead generation program. We take great care to ensure that our goals are the same as your goals, that our success is dependent on your success. Unlike HomeAdvisor, our Core package uses SEO (search engine optimization) to generate leads and only requires a flat, monthly fee. We provide you with your own fully functional website and metered phone number. This way, when a prospective customer discovers your website or Google listing and dials that phone number, they will be calling you directly. You won’t have to go on a wild goose chase for leads that four or five other businesses are also hunting down. You can respond at your earliest convenience (although promptness should always be a priority) without worrying that you’ve automatically lost a job. Best of all, it doesn’t favor big businesses over small ones. Everyone has an equal shot at success.
You don’t need an “advisor,” you need a partner! Prospect Genius champions small businesses like yours. We offer a wide variety of online marketing tools that will match any budget. Go ahead and browse our advertising services—or better yet, give us a call for a pressure-free chat with one of our representatives! It’ll only take five minutes to figure out if we have products that make sense for your particular situation.
Stop working harder than you have to—and stop lining the pockets of a company that’s only helping your larger competitors get a leg up on you!
Call now at (800-689-1273).

Common Ways Businesses Sabotage Their Own Advertising

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Way back in September, we discussed how you can figure out which form of online advertising best meets your company’s needs. Then, in October, we reviewed the traits you’ll want to look for in a provider. Now that you’ve found the right program and the perfect provider for the job, a successful advertising campaign is yours to lose.
Here are the ways many business owners wind up unintentionally sabotaging their own online advertising campaigns.
Man about to topple house of cards

How to Ruin SEO

Hire more than one advertising company at the same time. The advertisers will counteract each other’s work, you’ll likely ruin your web presence, and you’ll be paying twice as much. To cause even more damage, don’t tell your advertisers you’re working with another company. See also: For SEO Companies, Two’s a Crowd.
Post fake reviews. Google, along with most online business directories, can detect when you’re posting an anonymous review from your own computer. You’ll get flagged as spam.
Post reviews from locations far away from your listing’s IP address. If you’re a local service provider and you have customers post reviews from distant locales, search engines and most directories will find that suspicious, leading to a penalty.
Tinker with your Google Maps listings. If you want to get flagged by Google, just keep changing information on your Maps listing. Google will detect random changes coming from a second IP address and will most likely penalize you.
Don’t send your PINs and log-in info to your provider on time. Instead, you can forget to call your account manager with the PINs that Google and Bing send you, preventing your provider from completing your listings’ authentication process (which obviously prevents your campaign from performing).
Use a fake address on Maps listings. Whether it’s Google or Bing, you can try using a fake address that places you in a prominent service area—but only if you want to get caught and have your listing suspended.
Don’t use a consistent business name from site to site. To confuse search engines and dilute your campaign’s potency, use different variations of your business name on various directories and listings. Even differing punctuation and spelling can affect your web presence.

How to Ruin PPC

Search for your own ads frequently. Doing this will drive up your ad group’s costs (due to high volume impressions and low click rates), so you’ll be causing yourself to pay extra for the exact same services.
Click on your own ads frequently. High click rates will raise the perceived value of your ads and therefore your ad costs. Again, you’ll be causing yourself to pay more without any actual increase in lead generation.
Don’t utilize the reporting tools and performance trackers available to you. Prospect Genius offers a Client Portal with a number of tracking features, and many other advertising companies offer certain tracking as well. But don’t use them if you want to ruin your PPC campaign. When you want to check on your campaign’s performance, just keep searching for and clicking on your own ads. That’ll do the trick.

How to Ruin Local Directory Listings

Purchase Facebook “Likes” and Twitter followers. Having a large number of followers on Facebook and Twitter may look nice to newcomers at first glance, but it’s quite transparent and ultimately does nothing for your web presence. In fact, Facebook is cracking down on fake accounts, so if your fan base is full of them, then you’ll soon feel the repercussions.
Post fake reviews. To repeat what we said above:  Most online business directories can detect when you’re posting an anonymous review from your own computer (thanks to your IP address). Usually you’ll get flagged as spam; in the case of Yelp, those reviews will be completely filtered out before they even make it to your page.
Tinker with your company contact info on Facebook. This will be confusing not only to your fans, but to search engines as well. Facebook and Bing are actually connected, so changing your company info on Facebook could wind up impacting your performance on Bing.

How to Ruin Pay-Per-Lead

List your company multiple times on the same directory with slightly varied information. Business owners might try signing up for the same pay-per-lead directory multiple times, whether accidentally or on purpose, which only leads to confusion for consumers. Plus, you could wind up paying to receive the same lead twice.
Use your paid phone line in your contact info on other sites. If you provide your contact info to sites like the Better Business Bureau, Yelp, or Facebook, use your paid phone number. This way, you’ll pay your directory service for any calls that come through that line, even if the leads weren’t generated by that service. Who doesn’t like paying extra?
Don’t complain about bad leads. Sometimes, PPL directories list you for the wrong services or the wrong location, and you’re sent leads that inherently can’t lead to an actual booked job. You still pay for these leads, so unless you ask for a refund, you’ll be paying money without getting any return. To keep it this way, don’t call the directory’s customer service to correct the error or get a refund.
Don’t answer customer calls or respond to e-mails. This way, you’ll still get billed for the leads that are sent to you without ever booking any jobs. It’s a lose-lose!

Don’t Get in Your Own Way

Obviously, this is all a tongue-in-cheek way of telling you what not to do once you’ve started an online advertising campaign. Being a small business owner is hard, and we want only success for you. We don’t want you to ruin or sabotage your campaign; instead, we want you to be your own strongest supporter. Let your advertising provider do all of the work that you hired them to do, and don’t interfere. By all means, keep in touch with your provider and ask for updates on your campaign’s performance and results. Just be careful not to cross the line between asking friendly questions and derailing your campaign’s chances of success.
If you’re unsure whether you’re doing the right thing, simply call or e-mail your provider and ask! You’ll both be grateful that you did.

Outdated Google Hacks You Need to Stop Using

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Google is constantly refining and updating its algorithms to generate the most helpful and relevant search results possible for its users. As a business owner in the year 2014, you’re well aware of this. You’ve probably seen firsthand the changes—some more subtle than others—in Google+ Local, Google Places for Business, and even standard Google search pages. But did you know that these algorithm changes have a significant impact on the advertising strategies that businesses are allowed to use?
In this post, we’ll detail some previously popular Google hacks that are now prohibited.

1. Creating Multiple Listings

To trick Google into thinking your business and/or physical location was more prominent than it was, you used to be able to create multiple listings with information that was half true and half false. Now, however, this practice would never fly. Google cross-references every piece of information you include to ensure that there’s only one listing for every distinct business location and that all of the information is 100% correct.
When we talk about multiple listings, this includes:

  • A new listing for every nearby zip code
  • Multiple listings with fake addresses for the same business
  • Listings with the same address but different, fake business names

For example, we once had a client from Boston who, against our advice, used the same street address in 26 different listings, one for each of the local zip codes. Twenty-six! The party ended quickly, though, when Google yanked all of his listings one day. His average of 40 calls per month plummeted to zero almost immediately. We’ll tell you what we told him: This is a spam tactic, and it is a terrible idea.

2. Leaving Fake Reviews

In the past, you could ask your friends and family all at once to go to your Google Maps listing and leave anonymous reviews of your company. You could even post your own fake reviews. But now, you need to be logged in to a Google account in order to leave a review. Google is also able to detect when multiple reviews are being posted in the same time frame, so having your friends and family blast your listing with reviews will only backfire. Moreover, posting more than one review from the same IP address is a huge red flag to Google, so you also can’t have a computer at your store or repair shop for customers to post reviews before they leave.
Now, if you want reviews, you just have to count on real customers to take initiative from the privacy of their own homes.

3. Using P.O. Boxes

In order for Google to consider you a legitimate business, you must have a physical street address. Google must be able to identify your storefront in order to weed out businesses that are lying about their actual location or business name. While Google used to just mail you a postcard with a verification PIN, which meant all you really needed was an accessible mailbox, it will now send its fleet of vehicles to confirm that your business actually exists at the address you listed. If you are being dishonest about your business’s location, the jig will be up before you know it.

4. Remaining Ignorant About Your Online Footprints

Finally, remaining unaware of the condition of your web presence is a huge no-no. While blissful ignorance may not have had a huge impact on your Google rankings a few years ago, the latest algorithms have put a much heavier emphasis on consistency. The result is that any trace of mismatching or inaccurate information could negatively affect your campaign’s performance.
Even if you haven’t outwardly deceived Google or falsified information on your listing, you may not realize that there’s inconsistent information out there about your business. Some of the most frequent problems we see are inconsistencies in business names, street addresses, and phone numbers. Sometimes these mistakes happen because you legitimately moved locations but forgot to update the info on one of your accounts. Other times, the info might be 99% matching except for punctuation (for example, “B & B Appliance Repair” on Google+ Local and “B + B Appliance Repair” on Yelp will not necessarily count as matches). While these may be completely honest mistakes, they can cause your performance to slide.

WebFax® and CleanSlate™ to the Rescue!

Whether you’re guilty of intentionally bending the rules or you just aren’t sure whether you’ve committed any of these faux pas in the past, Prospect Genius has the solution.
If you want to see what kind of condition your web presence is in, we’ll run a WebFax report. A WebFax report will show all the different phone numbers, company names, addresses, and websites that are out there for your business. This can be the first step in fixing existing problems or it can simply be a measure to help you maintain awareness of your Internet presence. Most people won’t buy a car without a CARFAX report: WebFax is the online advertising equivalent.
If your WebFax report shows problems that need to be fixed, our CleanSlate program is the next step toward recovery. CleanSlate will work to clean up past bad behavior, inconsistent info, and other issues that can prevent current and future web advertising from being successful. Because outdated phone numbers, addresses, websites, and company names on the Internet can make you look like a spammer to Google, it’s important to correct them as soon as possible.

Keep It Clean

Google is a multibillion-dollar corporation. It has the resources to catch you in a lie. For that reason, it’s best to avoid these shady Google hacks. While they may have been effective at one point, they are only going to get you into trouble today. To make sure that your web presence is impeccable, get a WebFax report from us and, if necessary, follow it up with our CleanSlate program. Don’t put it off for one more day—call now to get started and ensure your online advertising has the foundation for success.

Make These Resolutions for Smarter Advertising in 2014

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

As you dip your toes into all of the new beginnings and clean slates that come with the New Year, why not make a few resolutions that you can actually keep?
Prospect Genius has compiled a list of some of the best things you can do for your company’s online advertising campaign in the coming year. By putting into practice even a few of these suggestions for smarter advertising, you’ll see a greater return on your efforts over last year.

Resolutions to Improve Your PG Campaign

  1. Include your business name in your voice mail greeting. When matched with a friendly tone, it’s a professional touch that makes a strong first impression on prospective customers.
  2. Send us your company photos. We’ll add them to your LeadTrax™ site for a personal touch that appeals to prospects.
    • Pictures should reflect your industry’s expected level of professionalism. For example, appliance repairmen can pose next to their toolbox or truck, but tax attorneys should have a professional head shot.
  3. Do what you can to make sure your directory listings are populated with recent reviews. While this is somewhat out of your control, it’s important to keep in mind since prospective customers pay closer attention to reviews from the last few months.
  4. Remember Prospect Genius’s package options:
    • Add PPC to strengthen your campaign.
    • Use Boost to promote a seasonal offering.
    • Sign up for a local AdBlast to promote a special discount.
  5. Don’t let calls go to voice mail. There’s no excuse. Use your phone package options:
    • Send calls to your cell phone while you’re on the job. You can change the number yourself in the Client Portal.
    • Reroute calls so that they go to a different line after a few rings.
    • Hire an outside answering service as a last resort.
  6. Use the Client Portal. Our most successful clients regularly check the Portal to:
    • See their lead stats (calls and e-mails).
    • Listen to their call recordings.
    • Harvest client e-mail addresses by copying and pasting the log from the Portal into a separate spreadsheet.
  7. Check your e-mail. No matter what.
    • Set up the e-mail-to-call feature so you can keep track of your missed leads electronically and receive notification on your smartphone when your business misses a call.
    • Forward e-mails to multiple addresses so there’s a better chance of someone responding promptly to a lead.
  8. Periodically monitor your Google+ Local listing to ensure that information doesn’t change or disappear (which is known to happen as Google makes updates). Get a jump on inaccurate information before it affects your rankings.

One Big “Don’t”

Don’t provide fake information to anyone, ever. This particularly refers to Google+ Local. When they call to verify certain information about your company, be accurate and honest. If they find out that you’ve falsified information—and they will—your company’s listing will be severely penalized for a substantial amount of time. Trust us: Honesty is the best policy.

A New Year of Online Advertising

To sum it all up: If you resolve to pay more attention to your campaign and become a more active participant in it, your extra efforts will pay dividends as the year goes on. Start off 2014 by following the above suggestions and be prepared to get a whole lot busier!
As always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you need assistance logging into the Client Portal or using any of its features. We’re here to help!

Is Yelp Doing More Harm Than Good for Your Business? Part 2: Prospect Genius Case Study

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Last month, we issued a post detailing the problems that the popular site Yelp causes for small, local businesses in all different corners of the country. In today’s followup post, we’ll detail how, like many businesses, Prospect Genius was hit by Yelp’s well meant but poorly executed practices. It was an unfortunate experience, to say the least, but there are some important lessons in our story that are worth sharing.

First, an Overview…

As you know, Yelp is a self-described urban guide that’s predicated on active users and community members voluntarily writing reviews of local businesses. Its purpose is to enable individuals to assess how well other customers fared with nearby companies in terms of service, quality, price, and overall value. Generally speaking, Yelp empowers consumers and helps businesses connect with prospective customers.
However, there’s a major flaw in Yelp’s review system, namely the automated review-filtering software. Intended to improve the reliability of Yelp’s content, it weeds out questionable reviews while keeping seemingly trustworthy ones. When a review is filtered out, its star rating goes with it, leaving zero impact on a company’s rating, for better or worse. While this seems like a good idea in theory, it has actually wound up hurting a great number of users due to an imperfect algorithm that seems to favor negative reviews over positive ones. This is what happened to Prospect Genius’s very own Yelp listing…

How the Issue Transpired

We’ve been in business for over five years now, and we’ve always committed ourselves to providing clients with exceptional service and support. In fact, we are accredited by the Better Business Bureau and maintain an A+ rating.
However, our Yelp listing used to paint a much different picture. As it turns out, a former, disgruntled client decided to spam his own Yelp listings and ours. This is a client who had signed up for our lead generation program three different times for two separate, unrelated businesses. On his own listings, he boldly left glowing reviews without even disguising himself with a different username. These reviews beat the filtering system. Meanwhile, on our listing, using the same name, he wrote a deeply negative and false review, which also made it past the filters.
At the same time, five different, legitimate clients gave us very positive reviews. How many of those made it onto our Yelp listing? Zero. You read that correctly: 100% of our positive reviews were filtered out. This left our listing with a one-star rating and a solitary, terrible review from an angry spammer, while five excellent reviews remained filtered and hidden. As you can guess, we weren’t happy about this.

Our Course of Action in Response

Not prone to ignore blatant injustice, we faced the issue head on. First, we reported our former client’s reviews as spam on his own listing (because that’s exactly what they were). Then, we contacted Yelp’s Customer Service Department and requested that a human, not a robot, look at the reviews on our listing because the automated filter had made an error. In return, we received a form response that explained how the review filter works without providing any semblance of a solution.
At this point, we decided to go one step further and contact the Legal Department, this time with a stronger request: either manually review the results of the filter or remove Prospect Genius completely from the Yelp directory. Rather than comply with our request, their response was to mark our listing as “no index,” meaning that it still exists but cannot be found via search. Obviously, this is not the same as deleting it.

The Less-Than-Agreeable Outcome

As it stands now, our listing still exists on Yelp without being indexed. While you won’t find us by searching for our name, you can view the listing here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/prospect-genius-troy.
The negative review from our former client is no longer anywhere on our listing. One terrific client review with a five-star rating has made it through the filter—but four other positive reviews still remain hidden.
Unfortunately, Yelp’s review filter is here to stay. We can only hope that the software becomes more accurate as time goes on. For now, we’ll chalk this up to a learning experience and use it as an important lesson for small business owners everywhere.

The Lesson to Take Away

While this encounter with Yelp and its Customer Service Department has certainly left a bad taste in our mouth, we’ve at least managed to take away a few lessons—primarily, that you must be vocal and stand up for yourself as soon as you notice a problem. Otherwise, the bad guys (a.k.a. spammers and uncaring corporations) will win. Who wants to live in that kind of world?
The second lesson is a point that we’ve made before, but it bears repeating: Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Unpleasant interactions with former clients and impersonal web directories are bound to happen. That’s why you should always use a variety of websites when marketing your company. Some of our preferred directories include Google+, Yahoo! Local, Bing Local, Citysearch, Local.com, and Angie’s List. When you utilize a handful of different outlets, you’ll prevent your honest advertising efforts from being crippled by any one spammer, nasty competitor, or irate customer.
If you decide to stick with Yelp, just remember, that while it can be a useful tool when the system works in your favor, it also has equal potential to harm your reputation. Stay on top of your listing, watch out for dubious behavior, and report any problems as soon as they appear. If you end up having an experience similar to ours (which we wouldn’t wish on anyone), then you can save a lot of time by directly asking for your company not to be indexed. Yelp won’t delete your listing, but at least others won’t be able to find it without knowing the precise URL.

Get Advice From Prospect Genius

No matter which online business directories you decide to work with, vigilance is your best strategy. But if you see something suspicious and aren’t positive that it should be a red flag, feel free to give us a call! Having gone through this ourselves, we’ll be more than happy to give you our opinion.

Sign up for our newsletter!

Join our mailing list and receive regular updates on how to effectively market your small business, along with exclusive service promotions.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.