Blog | Paul's Rants

Ok. So it's pretty apparent by this site that I have a lot to say about a lot of stuff. Well... check this out... If you really want to hear my 2 cents worth, keep tuning into this blog. If I offend anyone in the process, I apologize in advance ;-).

Friday, December 14, 2007 | Vonage - Not So Good
I recently decided to switch to VOIP specifically with Vonage in an effort to reduce overhead. This was a big mistake. After almost 4 weeks of giving them my business, my lines were still not transferred. I spent hours trying to resolve with no success.

With Vonage, once you are a customer, should you have any issues including, service, customer care or otherwise, you are routed to a call center in India. The only way to speak with someone in their coroprate office (located in New Jersey) is to call the sales number from their website and threaten to close your account. They will not even answer their main telephone line: (732) 528-2600.

I finally decided to stay with Cincinnati Bell, which is considerably more expensive, but they have great customer service. I cancelled my account and received a Return Authorization for the broadband router which I shipped out that day via UPS. The router was delivered but Vonage sent an eMail today saying that they did not yet receive it via an eMail that said "Do Not Reply". I went to their website so that I could find a customer service eMail where I could forward this eMail to them along with the tracking information and there isn't one provided on the contact page. I couldn't find one so I looked at past eMails sent to me and finally found what I needed. For anyone in the same predicament, here is all of their corporate and contact info as provided by the BBB:

Vonage
23 Main Street
Holmdel, NJ 07733

www.vonage.com

Mr. John Rego, CFO

Ms. Christina Felber, Manager of Executive Response - (866) 243-4357

Additional DBA Names:

Vonage Holdings Corp
Vonage Digital Voice
Vonage America

VonageCustomerCare@services.vonage.com

Monday, April 14, 2007 | You Get What You Pay For
Buying a website is a lot like buying and maintaining a car. You can't expect to pay for a Kia and get a BMW! If you don't do the required maintenance to a car, you will get poor performance. It will eventually break down causing you to pay a lot more in time, money and energy to either get it running again or you'll have to buy a new car altogether. Not staying on top of your web presence will yield the same results. In order for a website to be successful, it's simply not enough to put up a brochure style site. I've talked with prospects that have complained that their website is not delivering the goods and they can't understand why because it is "such a nice looking website."

Most of the websites that I looked at where this is the case offered little more than that businesses products, services, capabilities, and contact info.

That is the first mistake. You can not only approach getting new business through your website by saying "Look at me, look at what I have, check out what I can do!" and expect to get results. It is very important to ensure that there is enough relevant content on the website that it will help you rank well in search engines because it is content rich and up-to-date. Also, I'd like to emphasize that it is very important to value add. Make your expertise available to your audience. This shows your credibility, but more importantly, you are more likely to get someone's business when you've put your best foot forward first to help them. You not only build credibility, but you also gain their trust as well.

Which brings me to my second point. If you have a web site that has had the same content on it for months or years it's kinda like watching the same show over and over again—you probably won't. If you want to attract search engines and repeat visitors to your website, you need fresh stuff. If you don't have the time to write it and update it yourself you should have a professional do it. You should let a professional do it anyway. I mean, you wouldn't perform surgery on yourself, right? That could get messy ;-).

This brings me to my final point. It is simply not enough to just update the content on your site. You need to consider on-going SEO to ensure the best possible search engine rankings. If you are not an expert in SEO, don't try to be. Focus on growing your business and let a pro do it.

Pinching pennies by not doing enough to ensure a successful web presence will only ensure that there is a pretty good chance that your website will suck ;-).

Thursday, April 5, 2007 | Just Try To Get A Refund...
First of all, I'd like to say that I've been using McAfee products for years and never had any issues with them until recently. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to upgrade to their "Total Protection" product mainly because my wife wanted something a little more robust than what we were currently using because she does not aspire to becoming a security guru and does get a lot of eMail, some of which contain attachments with all kinds of neat little bugs that have jumped on board. The goal was to add an extra layer of protection preventing those attachments from coming through if the eMail server mail scanner slipped up.

Well, I installed the new software based on some pretty good reviews (I'm now wondering what the reviewers were smokin'...) and was really disappointed with it. The software, in my opinion, was overly intrusive with the OS as well as with Outlook. It took up way too much memory, locked up my machine, slowed down Outlook as well as not allowing it to shut down properly.

I tried to resolve the issues with their technical support, but did not have any success, so I asked for a refund (which they claim they will gladly do within 30 days of purchasing their products).

I called the first customer service number (1.866.622.3911), and after a bunch of menu options and waiting on hold for several minutes for a person, someone answered, asked me for account information, asked me what the nature of my call was, and then proceeded to give me another number that I needed to call in order to get the refund (1.801.431.1751). Well, I called that number, went through the whole dog and pony show again to find out that the number I really needed to call was (1.866.897.9325 Sigh... Deep breath... Moving onward.) I called the new number, went through the entire process again, and was told I needed to call another number to get my refund (1.801.431.1751). Are you kiddin' me?! I just called that number! It's a technical support number where they try to trouble shoot in order to keep your business. I just wanted my money back—so I finally said, this is ridiculous, I do not want to call another number and I need to speak with a supervisor immediately. They finally refunded my money and I didn't actually have to speak with a supervisor.

For reference, the number you need to call where they will actually refund your money after you demand to speak with a supervisor is:

1.866.897.9325

Monday, April 2, 2007 | Bogus SEO Experts
For my first entry, I'd like to call out the SEO companies who guarantee placement, and charge you a ridiculous amount of money when they are putting in only a few hours of work at best. Oh c'mon, you know who you are! Buyer beware. There are a lot of bogus companies out there who make a lot of promises that they can't even deliver on.

First off, any reputable SEO company that does excellent work should never have to cold call anyone to get business. If they're any good at all, they will get their business through word of mouth or through great organic rankings!

Second, if an SEO company guarantees you a number 1 position, they're lying! Go to Googles site yourself and read. Google even specifies that there is no guarantee your site will even be indexed! If you get some bonehead "SEO expert" ever telling you this, ask them for absolute proof other than a company name being number 1. Most company names are unique, so being ranked first when doing a search by typing the companies name direct will almost always result in a number 1 listing. A good way to find out how good they are is by simply searching for that company using relevant key words that should include the geographic location of that company (i.e. you would google cincinnati health insurance to find relevant listings for health insurance providers in cincinnati). If the SEO guru shows you a client site via a search, ask them for the site owners contact information and permission to contact them to ensure they didn't just pick any random well ranking site.

It's always a good idea to check the SEO company's background. Find out as much information as possible about that company like how long they've been in business, ask for references, ask to meet the individual personally when possible. Do a "Whois" lookup on their domain name as part of your research to make sure the company is straight up with what they've told you. The bottom line here is not to make a hasty decision and to do your homework so you don't get scammed.

As far as SEO goes, it's not rocket science. You need a well built site with lots of relevant, rich, and up-to-date content. Additionally, the more important and popular your site is, the more other relevant sites will want to link to it thereby increasing your popularity. Strategic Partnerships are a great way to network in the virtual world and if your partner's site ranks well and has a lot of traffic going to it on a regular basis... Cha Ching!!! Offer good stuff on your site, keep it up-to-date and watch your rankings improve!

[Back To Top]

Marketing efforts not working? Need a "wallet friendly" way to get your products and services out there? Well what are you waiting for?!

[Get Adobe® Reader®]

Opt-In eMail is Best

Think twice before switching your company's phone service to Vonage.

Read on...