Yodle Lied to Me – My Rating: F
Update – 05/22/12 – See the update at the bottom of the post (hint: they still suck).
These sales guys drive me batty.
My assistant just answered the phone. She told me that a colleague was calling from the Canon Law Group to talk about DUIs. She gave me the guy’s name, which I can’t remember.
I didn’t recognize the name or the firm, but I figured it was an attorney who might have a question or want to bounce something off me. I’m always open to that.
I get on the phone, and the guy cryptically starts talking about the work he’s doing with the Canon Law Group to increase the number of DUI calls they’re getting. Then he mentions Yodle. (It’s an online marketing company. I’m not going to link to them because I’m pissed and don’t want them to benefit from my link.)
I stopped him and asked if this was a sales call. He stuttered and paused.
I laid into him for lying about the purpose of the call and who he was. (I clarified with my assistant that he DID say he “is with the Canon Law Group”.)
Of course he defended himself, saying “we do work with the Canon Law Group.”
Yodle, are you listening?
This is NOT the way to do business. Liars may prosper a little, but honesty works much better. And it’s the only decent way to run a business.
Until this call, I was actually interested in Yodle. I read a Yodle review that said they actually produced some results.
Too bad he lied. I would’ve considered his pitch if he was honest. But now that’s another company on my bucket (of crap) list.
Update – 11/18/10 (see the newest update below)
I published this post yesterday (11/17/10) at about 2:30pm. At 5:30pm, I missed a call from Kara Silverman at Yodle. We connected earlier today.
See the comments below, especially the first one, which is from Kara herself.
Basically, Kara and Yodle’s Marketing Director spoke with me and apologized for the salesman’s misrepresentations. He’s apparently pretty new to the company.
I accept the apology, and I’m glad to see Yodle working to maintain a respectable image.
With that said, I’ve heard from other colleagues who’ve been contacted by Yodle sales people. They all had similar experiences to mine. I mentioned that to Kara, and they seemed honestly interested in improving their training. Hopefully things will get better.
Update – 5/22/12
I just received an email from a colleague who had a couple rounds of deceptive phone calls with Yodle. A higher up gave him an apology routine, but it sure seems hollow. And this is just a few days after I read this updated article about Yodle on Lawyerist.
One mistake can be forgiven. A pattern of “mistakes” over a couple years seems to be standard operating procedure.
My official Yodle rating remains an F.
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4 Responses to “Yodle Lied to Me – My Rating: F”
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About Andrew Flusche
Lawyer, bicyclist, husband.
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November 18th, 2010
Andrew, thanks for taking the time to talk with me on the phone today. We take all feedback on our sales process very seriously, and appreciated the opportunity to have this conversation with you. I also wanted to share the conversation we had with your readers so they could understand more about our sales process and company.
Like we said on the call earlier today, we sincerely apologize for any misunderstandings. It is not our intention to be misleading on the phone. The reference to Canon Law was to help establish credibility and demonstrate results and nothing more. We work with thousands of attorneys every day on everything from building a website to search engine optimization and social media. We wanted to harness that expertise to help drive more leads for you and we’d be happy to show you the product and service at any point in the future.
Thanks again for having this conversation with us and helping us to improve our sales process. If you or any of your readers have any questions, you can contact me directly by phone 212-542-5403 or email info[at]yodle.com.
November 18th, 2010
@Kara – Thanks for calling. It was good to speak with you guys, and I appreciate the apology.
November 20th, 2010
Andrew
I have Callruby under instructions to press hard on callers to screen out sales people and I see tons of google places “experts” lying to get through along with some larger lawyer database people. If you lied to get through to me, I have no reservations about hanging up on you.
A sales caller to a web savvy law firm ought to have enough brains to know we use email, not the phone and to draft a hand written email that clearly and succinctly lays out the merits of their product.
The worst are the guys from Insider Exclusive “oh hi I am a producer with FoxNews and we want to do a story on a recent case of yours…” Reality?: privately produced TV show that sells its show to some local affiliates. Complete misrepresentation. They totally backpeddled when I called them on using Fox’s name.
November 20th, 2010
@Simon – I couldn’t agree more. I don’t hesitate to hangup on liars, but I like to give them a piece of my mind first. 🙂
And I’m with you on email. But they know that hard sales tactics don’t work the same over email. It’s much easier to delete an email than to hangup on a person.