Mamma.com Telemarketing Team

[Mike_Mackin]

Got a call from a nice young lady.
She gave her pitch.
When I asked her a question she said that she would have someone get back to me.
Got a call from a guy who answered my question.
Then I asked for a quote on a 3 word phrase.
The quote he gave me was 4 cents higher that the #1 position at GoTo.
When I told him [unpleasentness] NO WAY, he wanted to negotiate.

anyone else had this experience?

[bigjohnt]

Got the same pitch. (I expect we'll receive the same pitch for evey domain that we handle. - Oh, Goodie.. :-(

When I told her we specialize in placement, and PPC , she became confused. They are being very aggressive, as is Ink/Ptech. SEO/SEP/whatever we are calling ourselves, we have new competitors - well heeled competitors with large marketing staffs and budgets.

I asked about info re: agency status, and perhaps re-selling this service. I await an email on this.

Clever and aggressive telemarketers can not only sell this product, but also make us look bad, when the client does not fully understand what we do, as compared to going "direct".

We have had several instances of clients calling "in a huff" after aggressive telemarketers pointed out the "mistakes" we were making on their behalf- all unfounded of course.

In the recent surge to monetize search, I expect a lot of telemarketing activity like this.

I suggest that we all send our clients a general pre-emptory(sp?) message to be aware that this is going on (as a service to them, of course), so they are not "suckered" into buying direct, without our experience and expertise. Our clients will be grateful that we can sort it all out for them. Just have them refer all such sales calls to our number.

[tootalldave]

I had tried to contact Mamma.com about their Mamma recomends listings.It took three times to even get a response.The response was one of Excel and Powerpoint presentations telling of many things that they had to offer except for the info which I requested.I contacted them once again and asked for the information on the Mamma Recomends program, I received an e-mail with information about the program except how pricing or charges would be determined, it has been my many years of experience in business that when prices or cost or not disclosed that this business has a product that is overpriced or they or looking to hagel(get every pennie they can)I finally spoke with one of their reps on the phone. I represent a brick & mortar company that makes sporting goods which every american knows but yet he keep trying to compare the cost that we should pay per click to the cost of the keyword "gambling" on Goto.com.then I told him although we do have keywords on Goto.com which we pay upwards of a dollar a click or average click cost is ten cents per click.The reason why I put this post was not to knock Mamma.com because I think they are a great search engine who are going to be one of the leaders in the industry.They provide great Search Results and a great avenue for advertisers.Their future strenth and growth can and will be a benifit to the internet.But to talk to one of their sales reps they give off the air of a low budget company with bad business practices.

[Mike_Mackin]

Yup and Welcome to WmW tootalldave