A colleague’s frustrating experience with Yahoo Customer Service

I had to share this email I received from a colleague of mine who had to deal with getting an IO faxed to Yahoo Search since I was out of the office all day. It was her first time working with them directly. (warning: explicit language has not been edited out of this email, while all client/vendor names have been)

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How the hell does yahoo make any goddamn money? You call - you press all the buttons…you punch in your account number…or you don’t know it…so you wait…punch numbers cause you want to speak to a human…oops that button made no sense…you are put on hold…wait….fax? why didn’t they get my fax? …they don’t seem to receive any faxes! It’s bizarre…I fax two times….they don’t receive it….the guy who leaves a message just says after a hugely long winded voicemail that could have been edited down to 2 seconds - ‘ask for YAHOO REP’S NAME- they’ll put you right through to me’ but there are several YAHOO REPS WITH THE SAME NAME there when I call…what like that one guy doesn’t know this already? He can’t speak concisely. More frustration. He uses far too many words to get a simple point across. Tick tick tick – just tell me what program this is for…oh CAMPAIGN NAME- of course. Ok here it is- I faxed it to FAX NUMBER HERE- what?? That’s not your number? Well YAHOO REP, it’s right here on you fuckin IO! Why did you put a phony fax number on you mother fucking god damn stupid IO?! Can I tell you what my number ONE pet peeve is in this business is? PEOPLE WHO DON’T PUT THE CORRECT FAX NUMBER- OR DON’T PUT ANY FAX NUMBER- ON THEIR GODDAMN FUCKING IO’S. REP NAME, really…YAHOO? YAAHOOO - REALLY??? 
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Finally, some vindication!! Okay, now for the constructive criticism…

It is frustrating when you fax an IO to a company, any company, receive a confirmation email and expect a campaign to go live on the scheduled day - only to be met with head scratching (on the vendor’s end) when you call to see why the campaign isn’t live.

Yahoo, please, we have to work with you every day. We sell search marketing to clients as a valuable tactic to add to their media mix. We love search, really, but we do hate looking like fools to our clients. Please please please start assigning dedicated reps to your clients. You may actually make MORE money by providing this valuable service.

Add comment July 28th, 2006