Yodle

After reading dozens of these reviews, now I understand why I've been receiving so many unsolicited and illegal marketing phone calls on my celphone number (which has been on my state and the national do-not-call lists since the day I got it in 1997) from Yodle. And I was really surprised at first to see that the ratings chart was a "bathtub curve" (the opposite of a bell curve), but after reading reviews I saw why -- Yodle appears to have stacked the five-star reviews with shill reviews. Add to that -- "Syvenna" and Radley Moss ask the more vociferous complainants to call them to discuss problems -- but not on a toll-free number. Instead, it's on the disgruntled customer's nickel.

The reason I'm writing this? I got email SPAM through careerbuilder.com from Yodle. They want me to sell ads for them. Well, after being illegally phone-SPAMmed by them for the last two years, and now seeing what their actual customers have to say... thanks but NO THANKS, both to their proffered services and to their solicitation of employment. And I'll continue my web-based commerce without their meddling, since my inventory turnover is always near 100% in the first 15 days after inventory acquisition.

Couldn't be more DISSAPOINTED with Yodle - Couldn't be more DISSAPOINTED with Yodle.com. The call recording is nice, but it is about the only feature you get beyond regular PPC with low cost (or no cost) analytic tools. And what do you pay in return... 2 to 4 times the average cost per click of doing it on your own. This makes each click almost the same cost as a verified lead through lead and referral websites. In the end EVERY click on average is costing $10. I set out with a $500 budget and I'm getting 50 clicks... yes a whopping 50 clicks. When I signed up they said I should average 75-150 which I was fine with. With an average conversion rate (which just means they contact you) of 1%-3% I can hope to get half or a couple of contacts every month. And what did those contacts turn out being... people seeking employment, people seeking to sell me stuff, competitors trying to get information. Added to that a fair number of the clicks were from out of market areas. I wish my experience was different but I have a client in a different field in the same general market who has had the same exact experience. Can't wait for my mandatory 3 month trial to end and wish they would just refund my account balance to cut my losses.

My experience with the Yodle rep was super. I do want to empahisize that I am leagally blind with some vision. The rep was VERY understanding and willing to answer my questions so I COULD ACCESS things on this wvebsite.

It would be very helpful if you could put down my vision needs are limited and that hings on the pages of the yodle website need to be explained to me in terms of physical placement on the page. My Zoom Text large print software does not enlarge your webpages nor this review to 24 or 36 font size. So I do need your help in navigating these pages.

I will always choose to be contacted in the early morning as my vision does decrease each day. So far youyr reps have been WONDERFUL in respecting this. Thanks,
Marie

In the three months I've had Yodle "working" for me I received no new client contacts whatsoever... none. I should qualify that a bit. In those three months I received three calls from two individuals attempting to reach an entirely different business(i. E. wrong numbers!) Visits to the website (not the website I own but the website they set up for me) totaled approximately one every two days and as for their claim of getting me up to page one of Google resulted in having fewer page one listings on today than I had on day 60 or day 30. The dashboard doesn't track movement to or from Google page one. I had to print out the list each week to track it. After the first month I called ever 10 days to 2 weeks to express my concern that nothing was happening, no calls, no meaningful website traffic. In order to find my services potential clients had to search by zip code to find me, 61xxx accountant. I explained to Yodle in my market (pop. 300K) I didn't believe potential clients were searching by zip code but more likely by city, state and service or the reverse-service city and state but they insisted to me that their experience showed otherwise. I can only speak for my experience but it was a complete waste of money. It drove no contacts, leads or web traffic. I'm poorer by $900! I believe that one would be better served to identify a small local company to assist in helping generate contacts, leads and business.

My wife and I started Taking Shape in Encinitas, CA. almost two years ago. We are to put it kindly, not the most adept at social media or it's peripheral advertising opportunities. We had numerous companies making strong claims about how they could get our business visible in the Googlesphere and the wider inter web.

Put simply: Yodle delivers as promised. Our phone began ringing with Yodle leads within maybe two hours of commitment. It keeps ringing. That is the difference between what Yodle does and others don't. We put a very high focus on customer service. Yodle has given us the kind of service we strive to give our own customers. From the beginning our rep, Jeff Edwards has done an outstanding job. He kept things very simple and concise. Proper expectations were set. Morgan Rigsbee, our site manager, does an equally fine job in making sure that the adversites look and function properly. We recommend Yodle very enthusiastically to every one who wants to generate more qualified leads for their business.

I wished I had found this site before signing up with Yodle to do Internet Marketing for my company. Luckily I only signed the 3 month agreement, unfortunately, I cannot recover any of the $3000 plus dollars.

I was promised quality leads to supplimnet the leads I'm getting from Yelp and relationship marketing. For the dollar amount charged, I was hoping for quality, solid leads. The results are disappointing at best. Sure I've gotten calls, but from people looking to kick the tires, not do any thing. I actually had one person set an appointment with me, then forget who I was, so when I showed up at their house, they thought I was with another company.

Quite frankly, if I had burned the cash in the fireplace, I would have better results... and maybe more fun. In addition, when you call the complain, so they can 'tweek' the campaign, my account rep never called me back. It wasn't until I treatened to call my states attorney general did the manager return my calls. By then I was livid, and the conversation wasn't very pleasant.

A word of advice, stay away from Yodle as a Internet Marketing firm. They are clueless about how to conduct this type of business, and won't cop to the poor performance or high prices.

I have been working with Yodle for 1 ½ years. We started extremely fast, and the results were great, as they have continued to be great. We upped the budget a few times, eventually doubling my monthly ad spend. The leads actually doubled too which surprised me. I've worked/work with AT&T, ServiceMagic, YellowBook, and the results aren't even close. My contact at Yodle is in the same city as I am (Boston), though we've never met face to face, he's always available to talk if I have any questions. And what seperates them from the company's I listed above is the internet marketing person I work with. It's a good sign to have multiple people helping you out, and if I can't reach one, I can always reach the other one. They've always been truthful and aren't afraid to tell me no, which I appreciate.

I've been paused for a few months because I was travelling, but am now back and plan to activate my Yodle account in the next few days. I own two other business' as well on top of my Junk Removal company (a restaurant and concrete business), and I have attempted to sign them up with my rep, but he was honest and said it wouldn't be a good fit because they don't think they can give me a good return. I respect that. Again, no complaints, only good things from these guys.

The title says it all. I haven't been able to have my marketing running since early April of these people. I have officially had to give them a "GET YOUR $#*! TOGETHER" date before we fire them and move on to someone who can actually help us. They keep saying they will be in touch and they never are. They keep passing me to someone new who says that they will PERSONALLY get the problem handled. Then when they cant, they pass me to someone else. It's shocking how many managers apparently have managers too. So as of right now... STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! Unless you are ok with zero marketing and hours upon hours on phone calls that do absolutely no $#*!ing good! When they get my marketing going then I will pull this review down. So PLEASE, I dont want to hear any responses from any Yodle professionals trying to talk me down from this. When you do your job, this will get removed... If you don't, then I will find every review site possible and post this same review. I don't wish the stress I've been put through on anyone!

I signed up for a 6 month contract, with promises of a great product that was easy to use and would help boost my business, and I would only need 10 minutes a week to accomplish the great benefits. I had problems right from the start. I spent an hour trying to upload photos with captions, only to have it erase my work over and over again. My customers tried to submit reviews, but it would not work. I contacted them to let them know I was having issues, and they told me they sometimes experience bugs for 24 to 48 hours. They must have had a bug every time I tried for the first two months. At the end of the 6 month period, they charged me an additional month at $299, so I called to cancel and get a refund for the months that I couldn't get the dashboard to work, and they screwed me around for an hour, just to tell me that they denied my request. I asked to talk to a manager, and the guy (James) told me he was the manager, so I asked to talk to another manager, and of course they were all unavailable. He told me he would schedule one of them to contact me the following week. I received another call to let me know that my request was denied, and it was James again! It still has not been resolved. I am anticipating another call from the same manager to let me know that he will not help me sometime soon. Waste of time and money!

I was hesitant to try yodle, but after quite a bit of time on the phone the sales rep pressured me into giving it a try with the understanding that i would not pay a set up fee or be in a contract agreement. The services (regardless of whether leads were generated or not) we very underwhelming. The adversite was very bland and sounded like a mindless informercial. The reviews feature (which i was clearly told would populate reviews on all the profiles they managed) was bare bones and only submitted a post to Facebook when a review came in. The e-mail campaign feature was buggy and visually unappealing, especially since mailchimp offers a free service for my size company that is infinitely more capable.

When it came time to cancel it took over an hour on the phone with a manager, repeatedly expressing my disappointment to get them to understand. They then tried to convince me i was obligated to an agreement and they had the recording from my set up call. I told him repeatedly to check the sales call and he would hear me say several times how i would not enter any time contract with them. After i finally got service canceled it was an enormous pain in the $#*! to reclaim all of my relevant online profiles (in fact i'm still dealing with it).

By the end of my time with yodle they were willing to give me their service for $150/month for life with no contract and no set up fees. If you are interested in yodel's service, at least get them to lower the outrageous prices they are asking and don't pay more than $150.

I have been on the phone several times with Yodle the last few days but I had such a great experience with Javier just now that I decided to post this review. Javier was so helpful and knowledgable, he helped me with every little thing I asked for. He went the extra mile to suggest even more than I was hoping for. For example he added a Google link on the adversite so people could post a review on Google too but then he also posted a mobile one on the bottom for people that would want to post a review using their mobile phone. I could go on forever with all the little details but this review would get very long. Lastly, when I asked him what time it was there, he said it was 6:25PM (on a Friday) and I felt so bad that I had kept him almost 30 minutes past the time he was supposed to get off work. He, however, had not mentioned a word or showed me in any way that he was in a hurry. He just helped me patiently with a bunch of things for so long. He did a great job and I was so impressed!

I was called yesterday regarding this 'program' in which they sell you a website (I already have one) a phone # (already have one) and ads on google, etc. I was initially interested because who isn't interested in growing their business?

WOW. I can't believe what a hard sell this guy Nick Mangum pitched me. Every time I had a question regarding initial investment, price, etc. he said 'well guarantee me a tornado won't come through your town and I'll take that bet!'. Then after I told him I would think about it over a week's time, he said that he couldn't offer me the same deal next week and wanted to know if I was interested right there and then. Of course I declined.

I would NEVER deal with a company who 'reps' hard-sell you like that. I would steer well clear of a business that acts like this. I would read the reviews on here thoroughly as I did and read the following excerpt to get a background on this company;

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2014/07/08/digital-marketing-company-yodle-files-for-ipo/

I am a small investigation company, I thought I would try Yodle, I made it clear that I would try for 6 months, then we would talk before any more money would be taken from my account. I had problems in the first month of the contract understanding the dashboard and all I was told is to watch videos and learn this way. I got nothing back after that and only received 69 calls in the 6 months and most of those were existing customers. I got no phone calls from them toward the end of my contract so I called a month or so prior and they said they would have somebody contact me. I then noticed they took money from my account. When I called, I had to leave a message and then had a manager call me and state he would call my cell phone number. (never happened) I then called and had some other lady tell me too bad on the money, she will look into it. She tried to explain about the recorded calls I received (the 69) and as we both listened it was existing clients. She said I should stay on and my amount of calls will increase. RIGHT! I get an email the next day stating how glad they are that I am interested in joining them. How unorganized can you be? They lie to you, they blame you for their mistakes and then take your money unauthorized and state "We will look into it" and do not offer it back. I called within days of the new month they took the money out for and said "OUR POLICY IS TO NOT REFUND OR PRORATE".