Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
We have purchased 5 of these sites (yes, I know now) with big promises of page 1 Google rankings. We were promised that the sites would personalised with all our company logos to match our brochures and main website. We provided all this info twice. We specifically asked that everything be done in draft for compliance checking.
The sites went live straightaway. Quite frankly I could have produced better with my £100 Microsoft Front Page webwriting program. No company logos. Company name spelt wrong and I still can't get it changed which makes us in great danger of falling foul of Financial Services Authority.
Two of the sites spent about 4 or 5 weeks on page 1 of Google which was as promised. Now none of them are to be found anywhere which makes me worry that CS got them there with blackhat SEO. I'm very worried that will damage our main website rankings with Google which links from all our CS sites.
This is such a mess and it all sounded so plausible when they phoned and we really should have known better.
For all of you who are being offered a 4 page site for £1k - our main company, all singing site with over 60 pages is about to be revamped for £3k.
DONT touch with a barge pole! I'll let you know how I get on and will happily retract all the above if they come up trumps...
My criticism of this company is pretty much the same as everyone elses.
I was told I would have and exclusive territory (Hull) - a complete lie. My biggest competitor has almost the same webpage and promotional package as me for the same area, and they cold called me within a month to offer me the same exclusive area again.....
I was told I could cancel with 1 month notice period - another porkie.
There is no cooling off period and they have registered my original website to the wrong address...
don't do it! once i was told after ten minutes of 'facts and figures' that the 'manager may do me a deal' i was put on hold for a few minutes. low and behold a £100 was knocked off the quoted £299 registration and the monthly payments halved from £60 to £30 per month. Yellow pages and yell.com do it better!
I have read some of the comments on customer street and have had exactly the same problems and have been taken for a serious ride. My advice is stay away from this company, the bamboozel you with facts and figures that are just a pack of lies. What good comments you have read about is probably an employee posting positive feedback because these guys are not capable of providing good service.
This is the complaint letter and response that I sent to them...
I am writing to complain abut the way in which your product has been sold to me. The following is the sequence of events that led me to believe I was getting a value for money website, which as it turns out is not the case.
- Your salesman contacted me and I asked him to call my wife as I am cautious of offers that sound too good to be true.
- She was at home and able to access the internet.
- Salesman quoted figures in excess of 200 hits per month to our website, and how could we really say ''no'' to such exposure
- Salesman quoted positions 1,2 or 3 on all major search engines
- He made a hard sell threatening there were only 2 positions left for this area and the price was for a limited time only
She asked for examples of what was on offer and the salesman proceeded to take my wife to google where some of your websites came up in positions 1& 2,
he then went to show my wife websites that you have designed saying that this is what is on offer, web design included in the £200 setup package and maintenance @ £30 per month.
At no point did he mention that costs are only for templates with personal information copied over.
When I called in to discuss my queries I was told we are not getting business from the website because it was no good? This does not detract from the fact that we are only getting a small fraction of hits promised, design up to this point has no bearing!
I was then told that I stand better chances if I had a better design?? I made queries as to how I can improve my website and was told there is a limit to what I can do myself, and not only can I not do it myself even if I had the chosen software, but that it would cost me an exhorbitant £900 vat if I needed your compay to do it for me. The price came down to £700 over a phone call and ten £500. This is still totally unacceptable.
The searches do not come up in 1 or 2 and our web page is not being viewed 200 times per month.
I will be taking advice from consumer services as I am not happy with the deceitful sales methods presented by your company.
Response:
Thank you for your e-mail.
With regards to the issues you have with the package you have already purchased, the best people to speak to would be people working in our Customer Services department, who can be contacted on 08450135104.
With regards to what you was offered by me, I just want to clarify a few things. Firstly, I was offering you design as an option if you was intending on developing your site further from a more bespoke point of view, so that you didn't have to pay another company, maybe more than what we would charge & also lose your rankings at the same time.
I wasn't saying that you have to buy design nor was I saying you can't use the software nor did the price go from £900 to £700 to £500. I simply showed you the rankings you had & the hits that you had received, which granted may not be a ranking of 1 or 2 on every search engine for every key phrase, but you do have very good rankings none the less. Your hits may also not be 200 but once again you have received a very good level hits to your site.
The price was £935 plus VAT if you opted for a 4 page site with a standard updateable page, as 4 pages are priced at £735 plus VAT & the standard updateable page is £200 plus VAT. You were offered it at £735 plus VAT because as you had only been with us for a month so you were entitled to a £200 discount. This wasn't affordable by you at the time, so I said I would have to discuss things with my manager & that I would come back to you if there was anything else I could do with price as I didn't have the authority to offer more discount. I then came back to you a few days later with the price of £535 plus VAT, because my manager had agreed the discount.
I must also state that I didn't say you could not use the software, but I advised you to make sure that if you were going to use the software, that you should make sure that what you do add to the site passes the page analysis so that your site remains Search Engine friendly. I also advised you that there are limits to the software because it is not inteneded as a design tool, but more a content manager that allows you to keep your site up to date but more to the point, Search Engine friendly.
I did also however, get the site Re-Engineered with your requested Key Phrases & you may have noticed that your site is now ranking in the top 20 on Google & Yahoo for all your new Key Phrases, which is excellent.
I must re-iterate that I only offered design on the basis that you had received a good level of hits but you stated you had no enquries come through, hence a redevelopemt of your site could have helped.
I hope this information is of help & clarifies a few issues about what I offered & why, but you can contact Customer Services about the Customer Street package.
As you can see they would not even allow us to design our own website, and we ended up paying another £600 just to get a decent looking website (which is what they initially sold us) You will not get a straight answer from these guys, they did not address any of the issues in my letter directly. Dont throw your money away by giving to these guys. We recently got a call from them trying to sell us google spaces which is what they intitially used as a selling point, and are now trying to make us pay for top positions on google!
Firstly I would be grateful if you would contact me directly regarding your complaint about your Customer Street package. When you check you terms and conditions you will see that there is a commitment to our customers with regards the service level that they have received from us. In certain instances over a three month period there may be the option to cancel the package early should we not be able to achieve an increase in the figures.
I’m sure that if you have looked around you will have seen that we are aware that the rapidsite we provide as a free part of the package are dated, but it doesn’t get away from the fact they are fantastically search engine friendly. They will in 90% of cases be producing great search engine result sin anything from a matter of days to a few weeks.
Our support staff can obviously only work within the limitations of the site software and our director Stuart Forrest has posted on his blog (theforrests.co.uk/customerstreet) about the new software only last week. The rapidsite replacement will, when it is launched in a few months time, be a market leader and anyone with a rapidsite already should then be able to upload the content of their old rapidsite straight onto it giving it a fresh modern feel. You have to remember that the internet is ever changing and a bit like the latest mobile that you get it is already outdated before it ever hits the shelves. Our new software will be web based so it will avoid all issues with compatibility with pc’s operating systems etc. Updates will be able to be carried out as often as they are needed to make sure the software stays as up to date as possible.
I would be interested in looking at your account as the process you have described with regards to your refund is not the way a refund can be authorised in such a short space of time. We would normally carry out a full investigation into the issue and then make a decision based on that. All this being said I am pleased that we have listened to your complaint and resolved it to your satisfaction.
Well here is my Customer Street experience. Early in January 2008 I received a call from Customer Street saying that they need Electricians in the Bolton and Wigan areas as they are getting inundated with enquires for electricians in these areas and do not have any electricians listed. 68 people are currently looking for electricians as they were selling me the service. They could design a web site, give me a domain name, list me at the top of Google, allocate me a 0845 telephone number and guarantee me 5 leads a day. It will work out much cheaper than my current advertising with the local papers. They explained I had a 5 day cooling period. Sounded good, perhaps to good, so I thought about it and they rang me back the following day. If they could deliver what they said then yep it would be good for business so I signed up and paid, £584. After I paid this on credit card I decided to do some research into the company and looked on the web to find feedback of others who had used this company.
I came across a Business forum site and scrolled down for CS users comments. I was shocked and horrified what I read. If only I had done this research before signing up! All the comments were negative with common points that they don’t get anywhere near the leads they tell you. Most large companies get some negative feedback and I accept this but I couldn’t find any positive feedback, that’s what bothered me. This was on a Friday and all weekend I was worried that I had been ripped off. Here today gone tomorrow company. On Monday I phoned them to cancel and was told that someone would contact me. 30 minutes later I received a call from the accounts manager who said that the forum I looked at was full of there competitors who were giving CS a bad name. I was not convinced and the conversation went on for 45 minutes. The summary of the call was that I could try it for a few months or so and if I am still not satisfied I would receive a full refund. On these terms I accepted, (fool me) and let them set my account up, although I still had my doubts. I give them a chance and they produced my web site, a shoddy pathetic most basic off the shelf web site which a six year old could do better and was the same as several of my competitors but had different shading. It certainly was not a ‘design’ package that I was sold. I complained about this and they said they would get a web designer to call me. All he did was change a few words around and said I could download there web design software. I tried this and I could not change individual lines of text to different sizes. I decided to build my very own from scratch. I did this and called them back a few days later and they put a web forwarding on to mine and used one of my pictures to put on the site.
Another few weeks went by and I decided to cancel but again the accounts manager said give it a bit longer so like a fool again I did. Overall 7 weeks down the line and £584 out of pocket I had not received one lead. In the meantime I had stopped advertising with the papers and the work started to dry up. My vans had never been cleaned so many times. I had to find something for my staff to do as work was very patchy. I had to start advertising with the papers again and the calls started to return but still nothing via CS. This was the end of the line, I was cancelling the account. I contacted them and they said they would call me back within 2 days. Over a week later they still had not contacted me. I rang gain and was told the person dealing with my account was on leave, how very convenient for them. I insisted I speak to someone else and they called me back and told me I could cancel the account but would not receive a refund as it was outside there terms as I did not cancel within 5 days. I explained that I did contacted them initially to cancel within 5 days but came to an agreement that if I was not happy after a longer period then I could cancel anytime after. I advised them to speak to the account manager who told me I could cancel if I was not satisfied as I had already notified them within the 5 day cooling off period. In the end I had to mention that if I do not get a FULL refund that I would raise a case with Trading Standards for ‘miss selling’ the service and ‘failing to deliver’. The person on the other end went silent for a few seconds, lost for words I think, then said “I’ll just pass this to a senior manager and get back to you”. Not ten minutes later I received a call back from them saying they will give me a full refund which I did receive 5 days later. I certainly hit a nerve there.
Threaten this company with Trading Standards. If they sold you the product saying they will guarantee you x number of calls per day and they don’t, then they have ‘failed to deliver’ and ‘miss sold’ you the service. This is irrespective if you contacted with them like I did within the five day cooling off period. No doubt this company has had many similar complaints from the comments I have seen on forums. I’m sure Trading Standards have a list of repeated complaints of this company and they don’t want to rock the boat more than is necessary.
I have wrote these comments as a personal experience that has occurred to me and which has cost me money in lost revenue when I ceased advertising with the papers as they said they will generate more leads than the papers and I was concerned that I could not take on more work than I was already getting from the papers. But CS failed to deliver what they promised and the leads failed to materialise. I didn’t expect a miracle overnight but neither did I expect to not have one lead over seven weeks. Let this be a lesson to others. No wonder this company do not give a free trial of the service which I did ask for.
The website Gavin purchased is still being built to his specification at the moment, as it was when he made his posting at the start of January. We are hoping that his site will be finished and signed off soon. Not everything can always be sorted in an instant and I think that this shows Customer Street’s commitment to providing excellent customer service.
I Have recieved lots of calls from this company promising me the earth and let me tell you guys, they delivered i run a small building firm and i wasnt receiving any phone calls from the internet. i checked out there website and spoke to a couple of salesmen and decide to put my trust in them. I paid £270.00 up front and after being on the site for 3 weeks i recieved a call and converted the business. it has now set me up for life and i have always got work. so i would just like to say thankyou to customer street. it was the best thing that could ever happen to my company. I strongly recommend this company to any tradesmen out there looking for business
I got a call from customer street last July, they guaranteed me business leads by placing my business top of the pile on google, they gave me all the speal about enhancing my business, building me an all singing all dancing website and how they represented top companies like Marks & Spencer, I was taken in by this rubbish and to date they have provided
No website
No statistics
No billing statements
No leads
I have paid Customer Street £1442.48 for this service, more fool me I know. I must have made over 100 telephone calls to this company stating my case only to hear the same rubbish about statistics, leads, google etc every time.
These people really are blaggers and I am now speaking to solicitors with a view to issueing legal proceedings. I would STRONGLY say to anybody considering using this company, DONT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THEM, you will have a better chance of getting business by pacing a small advert in the local paper on the Outer Hebrides.
I am nobodys fool, however, this company have worn me out with their excuses and reasons for not providing any leads for me, if they bother to respond to calls! Once your money is in their bank, they switch of contact.
They have spent the last three months trying, and I mean trying, to build me a website with their website designers. Customer Street website designers are no more website designers than I am. They askd me for some information about my business and simply copy and paste it straight into a template site, they then ask for pictures & logos and do the same, and to think I have paid them a premium rate for this service.
Following my concerns they have dismissed three designers (is that supposed to make me feel better about this very, very poor service?).
With regard to Google, what rubbish, I have constantly searched for my business, however, I have never, never once found my bisiness anywhere following searchs.
I have consistantly requested, pleaded, demanded, begged for my money back, all I get is 20 minutes of speal about giving me additional advertising, reducing my premiums etc, they woffle on & on until I have heard too much, what ever I say to them goes in one ear and out of the other.
I have tried to keep things simple by putting it this way "I HAVE PAID YOU £1'422.48 AND YOU HAVE GIVEN ME NOTHING BACK, DO YOU THINK THATS FAIR?" Again I get the same woffle I have been listening to for months.
I'm sure any readers get my message, THIS COMPANY ARE DISHONOURABLE, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT USING THEM
Hi Brucey,
We have tens of thousands of customers who are all very happy with the level of enquiries they receive.
Very often we find that people aren’t aware of where the enquiry has come from because they don’t ask everyone they speak to where they came across their details. It may also be that some people say they found your site on the internet, when in fact it is Customer Street who have put the site there and promoted it so that it can be found.
We don’t have a fast track queue for building the sites, mainly due to the fact that our premium design sites are usually built within a week to fortnight of us receiving the information that we request from the customer. It may be if there has been a delay in you sending the information in then we haven’t been able to complete the build of your site.
There is no easy way to really find out how your customers find you unless you ask consistently. However if you don’t feel that either your Customer Street promotional package or your premium design website aren’t working as effectively for you as you think then please let us know and we will do our utmost to get things back on track.
If you still feel that you are having problems then please call our support line on 0845 338 0500.
since having the salesman from customer street phone up saying that i would recieve between 20-40 enquiries a month i have recieved 3 which doesnt even cover the set up costs.
i have only ever recieved 3 calls from customer street twice was pushy sales people who wont give up until they get what they want(my money!). the last time was when i got blagged into taking up a premier design package when i said that i wasnt getting enough business of customer street i got given the usual rubbish this will pay for itself 10 times over.
the third time was when i said i wanted my money back from my premier design package(which hasnt started yet and im on fast track i'd hate to be in ordinary que)and cancel my contract all i got was usual "we had a customer who wanted to cancel their contract and then they got a 1.3 million contract out of us" sorry i dont believe that and they refused to give me my money back
further to my earlier comments, customer street have now done everything possible to redress the poor opinion i held of them, if the national sales director is a true reflection of the company, as opposed to the chap i dealt with originally seriously consider what they have to offer, more leads means more business, which is always a good thing.
Hi alurch,
As you had also taken the time on Friday evening to email our feedback mailbox on this matter I was able to speak directly with you on Monday in order to look into the matter with a view to bringing about a speedy resolution.
Our National Sales Manager has been in touch with you today and I have been informed that the issue has now been dealt with to your satisfaction and that you have accepted our apologies regarding your complaint.
I declined an offer from customer street, and then received a tirade of verbal abuse on two further phone calls. I would seriously question this companies working practices, ethics and customer commitment if they resort to calling potential customers 'cocks' (I'm sure any censor will not allow the rest of the conversation to appear). All I requested was a variation on the standard contract before I would proceed. As the customer surely this is not to much to ask? If you want to spend £29 per month and £150 up front I suggest you go to the pub and spend it as this seems to generate plenty of customers for me and no abuse!!!
Add a comment about this blagger
Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
The sites went live straightaway. Quite frankly I could have produced better with my £100 Microsoft Front Page webwriting program. No company logos. Company name spelt wrong and I still can't get it changed which makes us in great danger of falling foul of Financial Services Authority.
Two of the sites spent about 4 or 5 weeks on page 1 of Google which was as promised. Now none of them are to be found anywhere which makes me worry that CS got them there with blackhat SEO. I'm very worried that will damage our main website rankings with Google which links from all our CS sites.
This is such a mess and it all sounded so plausible when they phoned and we really should have known better.
For all of you who are being offered a 4 page site for £1k - our main company, all singing site with over 60 pages is about to be revamped for £3k.
DONT touch with a barge pole! I'll let you know how I get on and will happily retract all the above if they come up trumps...
I was told I would have and exclusive territory (Hull) - a complete lie. My biggest competitor has almost the same webpage and promotional package as me for the same area, and they cold called me within a month to offer me the same exclusive area again.....
I was told I could cancel with 1 month notice period - another porkie.
There is no cooling off period and they have registered my original website to the wrong address...
This is the complaint letter and response that I sent to them...
I am writing to complain abut the way in which your product has been sold to me. The following is the sequence of events that led me to believe I was getting a value for money website, which as it turns out is not the case.
- Your salesman contacted me and I asked him to call my wife as I am cautious of offers that sound too good to be true.
- She was at home and able to access the internet.
- Salesman quoted figures in excess of 200 hits per month to our website, and how could we really say ''no'' to such exposure
- Salesman quoted positions 1,2 or 3 on all major search engines
- He made a hard sell threatening there were only 2 positions left for this area and the price was for a limited time only
She asked for examples of what was on offer and the salesman proceeded to take my wife to google where some of your websites came up in positions 1& 2,
he then went to show my wife websites that you have designed saying that this is what is on offer, web design included in the £200 setup package and maintenance @ £30 per month.
At no point did he mention that costs are only for templates with personal information copied over.
When I called in to discuss my queries I was told we are not getting business from the website because it was no good? This does not detract from the fact that we are only getting a small fraction of hits promised, design up to this point has no bearing!
I was then told that I stand better chances if I had a better design?? I made queries as to how I can improve my website and was told there is a limit to what I can do myself, and not only can I not do it myself even if I had the chosen software, but that it would cost me an exhorbitant £900 vat if I needed your compay to do it for me. The price came down to £700 over a phone call and ten £500. This is still totally unacceptable.
The searches do not come up in 1 or 2 and our web page is not being viewed 200 times per month.
I will be taking advice from consumer services as I am not happy with the deceitful sales methods presented by your company.
Response:
Thank you for your e-mail.
With regards to the issues you have with the package you have already purchased, the best people to speak to would be people working in our Customer Services department, who can be contacted on 08450135104.
With regards to what you was offered by me, I just want to clarify a few things. Firstly, I was offering you design as an option if you was intending on developing your site further from a more bespoke point of view, so that you didn't have to pay another company, maybe more than what we would charge & also lose your rankings at the same time.
I wasn't saying that you have to buy design nor was I saying you can't use the software nor did the price go from £900 to £700 to £500. I simply showed you the rankings you had & the hits that you had received, which granted may not be a ranking of 1 or 2 on every search engine for every key phrase, but you do have very good rankings none the less. Your hits may also not be 200 but once again you have received a very good level hits to your site.
The price was £935 plus VAT if you opted for a 4 page site with a standard updateable page, as 4 pages are priced at £735 plus VAT & the standard updateable page is £200 plus VAT. You were offered it at £735 plus VAT because as you had only been with us for a month so you were entitled to a £200 discount. This wasn't affordable by you at the time, so I said I would have to discuss things with my manager & that I would come back to you if there was anything else I could do with price as I didn't have the authority to offer more discount. I then came back to you a few days later with the price of £535 plus VAT, because my manager had agreed the discount.
I must also state that I didn't say you could not use the software, but I advised you to make sure that if you were going to use the software, that you should make sure that what you do add to the site passes the page analysis so that your site remains Search Engine friendly. I also advised you that there are limits to the software because it is not inteneded as a design tool, but more a content manager that allows you to keep your site up to date but more to the point, Search Engine friendly.
I did also however, get the site Re-Engineered with your requested Key Phrases & you may have noticed that your site is now ranking in the top 20 on Google & Yahoo for all your new Key Phrases, which is excellent.
I must re-iterate that I only offered design on the basis that you had received a good level of hits but you stated you had no enquries come through, hence a redevelopemt of your site could have helped.
I hope this information is of help & clarifies a few issues about what I offered & why, but you can contact Customer Services about the Customer Street package.
As you can see they would not even allow us to design our own website, and we ended up paying another £600 just to get a decent looking website (which is what they initially sold us) You will not get a straight answer from these guys, they did not address any of the issues in my letter directly. Dont throw your money away by giving to these guys. We recently got a call from them trying to sell us google spaces which is what they intitially used as a selling point, and are now trying to make us pay for top positions on google!
Firstly I would be grateful if you would contact me directly regarding your complaint about your Customer Street package. When you check you terms and conditions you will see that there is a commitment to our customers with regards the service level that they have received from us. In certain instances over a three month period there may be the option to cancel the package early should we not be able to achieve an increase in the figures.
I’m sure that if you have looked around you will have seen that we are aware that the rapidsite we provide as a free part of the package are dated, but it doesn’t get away from the fact they are fantastically search engine friendly. They will in 90% of cases be producing great search engine result sin anything from a matter of days to a few weeks.
Our support staff can obviously only work within the limitations of the site software and our director Stuart Forrest has posted on his blog (theforrests.co.uk/customerstreet) about the new software only last week. The rapidsite replacement will, when it is launched in a few months time, be a market leader and anyone with a rapidsite already should then be able to upload the content of their old rapidsite straight onto it giving it a fresh modern feel. You have to remember that the internet is ever changing and a bit like the latest mobile that you get it is already outdated before it ever hits the shelves. Our new software will be web based so it will avoid all issues with compatibility with pc’s operating systems etc. Updates will be able to be carried out as often as they are needed to make sure the software stays as up to date as possible.
I would be interested in looking at your account as the process you have described with regards to your refund is not the way a refund can be authorised in such a short space of time. We would normally carry out a full investigation into the issue and then make a decision based on that. All this being said I am pleased that we have listened to your complaint and resolved it to your satisfaction.
Well here is my Customer Street experience. Early in January 2008 I received a call from Customer Street saying that they need Electricians in the Bolton and Wigan areas as they are getting inundated with enquires for electricians in these areas and do not have any electricians listed. 68 people are currently looking for electricians as they were selling me the service. They could design a web site, give me a domain name, list me at the top of Google, allocate me a 0845 telephone number and guarantee me 5 leads a day. It will work out much cheaper than my current advertising with the local papers. They explained I had a 5 day cooling period. Sounded good, perhaps to good, so I thought about it and they rang me back the following day. If they could deliver what they said then yep it would be good for business so I signed up and paid, £584. After I paid this on credit card I decided to do some research into the company and looked on the web to find feedback of others who had used this company.
I came across a Business forum site and scrolled down for CS users comments. I was shocked and horrified what I read. If only I had done this research before signing up! All the comments were negative with common points that they don’t get anywhere near the leads they tell you. Most large companies get some negative feedback and I accept this but I couldn’t find any positive feedback, that’s what bothered me. This was on a Friday and all weekend I was worried that I had been ripped off. Here today gone tomorrow company. On Monday I phoned them to cancel and was told that someone would contact me. 30 minutes later I received a call from the accounts manager who said that the forum I looked at was full of there competitors who were giving CS a bad name. I was not convinced and the conversation went on for 45 minutes. The summary of the call was that I could try it for a few months or so and if I am still not satisfied I would receive a full refund. On these terms I accepted, (fool me) and let them set my account up, although I still had my doubts. I give them a chance and they produced my web site, a shoddy pathetic most basic off the shelf web site which a six year old could do better and was the same as several of my competitors but had different shading. It certainly was not a ‘design’ package that I was sold. I complained about this and they said they would get a web designer to call me. All he did was change a few words around and said I could download there web design software. I tried this and I could not change individual lines of text to different sizes. I decided to build my very own from scratch. I did this and called them back a few days later and they put a web forwarding on to mine and used one of my pictures to put on the site.
Another few weeks went by and I decided to cancel but again the accounts manager said give it a bit longer so like a fool again I did. Overall 7 weeks down the line and £584 out of pocket I had not received one lead. In the meantime I had stopped advertising with the papers and the work started to dry up. My vans had never been cleaned so many times. I had to find something for my staff to do as work was very patchy. I had to start advertising with the papers again and the calls started to return but still nothing via CS. This was the end of the line, I was cancelling the account. I contacted them and they said they would call me back within 2 days. Over a week later they still had not contacted me. I rang gain and was told the person dealing with my account was on leave, how very convenient for them. I insisted I speak to someone else and they called me back and told me I could cancel the account but would not receive a refund as it was outside there terms as I did not cancel within 5 days. I explained that I did contacted them initially to cancel within 5 days but came to an agreement that if I was not happy after a longer period then I could cancel anytime after. I advised them to speak to the account manager who told me I could cancel if I was not satisfied as I had already notified them within the 5 day cooling off period. In the end I had to mention that if I do not get a FULL refund that I would raise a case with Trading Standards for ‘miss selling’ the service and ‘failing to deliver’. The person on the other end went silent for a few seconds, lost for words I think, then said “I’ll just pass this to a senior manager and get back to you”. Not ten minutes later I received a call back from them saying they will give me a full refund which I did receive 5 days later. I certainly hit a nerve there.
Threaten this company with Trading Standards. If they sold you the product saying they will guarantee you x number of calls per day and they don’t, then they have ‘failed to deliver’ and ‘miss sold’ you the service. This is irrespective if you contacted with them like I did within the five day cooling off period. No doubt this company has had many similar complaints from the comments I have seen on forums. I’m sure Trading Standards have a list of repeated complaints of this company and they don’t want to rock the boat more than is necessary.
I have wrote these comments as a personal experience that has occurred to me and which has cost me money in lost revenue when I ceased advertising with the papers as they said they will generate more leads than the papers and I was concerned that I could not take on more work than I was already getting from the papers. But CS failed to deliver what they promised and the leads failed to materialise. I didn’t expect a miracle overnight but neither did I expect to not have one lead over seven weeks. Let this be a lesson to others. No wonder this company do not give a free trial of the service which I did ask for.
Graham Armstrong
Customer Street
No website
No statistics
No billing statements
No leads
I have paid Customer Street £1442.48 for this service, more fool me I know. I must have made over 100 telephone calls to this company stating my case only to hear the same rubbish about statistics, leads, google etc every time.
These people really are blaggers and I am now speaking to solicitors with a view to issueing legal proceedings. I would STRONGLY say to anybody considering using this company, DONT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THEM, you will have a better chance of getting business by pacing a small advert in the local paper on the Outer Hebrides.
I am nobodys fool, however, this company have worn me out with their excuses and reasons for not providing any leads for me, if they bother to respond to calls! Once your money is in their bank, they switch of contact.
They have spent the last three months trying, and I mean trying, to build me a website with their website designers. Customer Street website designers are no more website designers than I am. They askd me for some information about my business and simply copy and paste it straight into a template site, they then ask for pictures & logos and do the same, and to think I have paid them a premium rate for this service.
Following my concerns they have dismissed three designers (is that supposed to make me feel better about this very, very poor service?).
With regard to Google, what rubbish, I have constantly searched for my business, however, I have never, never once found my bisiness anywhere following searchs.
I have consistantly requested, pleaded, demanded, begged for my money back, all I get is 20 minutes of speal about giving me additional advertising, reducing my premiums etc, they woffle on & on until I have heard too much, what ever I say to them goes in one ear and out of the other.
I have tried to keep things simple by putting it this way "I HAVE PAID YOU £1'422.48 AND YOU HAVE GIVEN ME NOTHING BACK, DO YOU THINK THATS FAIR?" Again I get the same woffle I have been listening to for months.
I'm sure any readers get my message, THIS COMPANY ARE DISHONOURABLE, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT USING THEM
We have tens of thousands of customers who are all very happy with the level of enquiries they receive.
Very often we find that people aren’t aware of where the enquiry has come from because they don’t ask everyone they speak to where they came across their details. It may also be that some people say they found your site on the internet, when in fact it is Customer Street who have put the site there and promoted it so that it can be found.
We don’t have a fast track queue for building the sites, mainly due to the fact that our premium design sites are usually built within a week to fortnight of us receiving the information that we request from the customer. It may be if there has been a delay in you sending the information in then we haven’t been able to complete the build of your site.
There is no easy way to really find out how your customers find you unless you ask consistently. However if you don’t feel that either your Customer Street promotional package or your premium design website aren’t working as effectively for you as you think then please let us know and we will do our utmost to get things back on track.
If you still feel that you are having problems then please call our support line on 0845 338 0500.
Graham Armstrong
i have only ever recieved 3 calls from customer street twice was pushy sales people who wont give up until they get what they want(my money!). the last time was when i got blagged into taking up a premier design package when i said that i wasnt getting enough business of customer street i got given the usual rubbish this will pay for itself 10 times over.
the third time was when i said i wanted my money back from my premier design package(which hasnt started yet and im on fast track i'd hate to be in ordinary que)and cancel my contract all i got was usual "we had a customer who wanted to cancel their contract and then they got a 1.3 million contract out of us" sorry i dont believe that and they refused to give me my money back
As you had also taken the time on Friday evening to email our feedback mailbox on this matter I was able to speak directly with you on Monday in order to look into the matter with a view to bringing about a speedy resolution.
Our National Sales Manager has been in touch with you today and I have been informed that the issue has now been dealt with to your satisfaction and that you have accepted our apologies regarding your complaint.
Graham Armstrong
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