Max M.

I received a call from a Yell sales man who was very good at his job. Sticking to his script which had been very well thought out and designed by the compliance staff. The salesman made strong points to make Yell seem much better than they have proven to be, I.e 'Yell have 50+million people visit the directory every year, which is drastically better than Checkatrade or Mybuilder who have 4.5million and 3million'.

Being a new company I have to make sure I spend money wisely advertising my services. I don't feel spending £80 a month on a service which has generated one new lead is by any means sufficient. Checkatrade manage 3-5 new leads a week and Google SEO optimisation is about the same. Which then compared to Yell's 1 in 4 months is insane, especially when you take into account Yell charge more than the Google SEO optimisation and the same as Checkatrade.

After speaking to the customer services team about the lack of leads I received they looked into my ad then and there with me on the phone. They told me my pictures were good as was the description. The only thing they could think of to help generate new leads is to customise a new banner to make the ad look more aesthetically pleasing. Why this wasn't done in the first place when they helped me create the ad sounds unprofessional and lazy. Since the new banner I have yet to receive any new leads...

The fact Yell made me sign up to a 12 month contract when they know their directory is severely flawed is just deceitful business. Instead of spending money to try to make their business model change with the times, they instead get businesses involved with a 12 month contract which they full well know isn't going to generate the companies a sufficient amount of business.

I have pleaded with Yell to remove me from their directory to no avail. I won't be paying for a service which doesn't work and if Yell feel they have to keep threatening me with a debt collections company then that's what they'll have to do but that won't change my mind and I wont be bullied into paying for something which DOES NOT WORK.

Looking back on some of the points the salesman made I see how what they said was suppose to mislead me. For example, people go to Checkatrade and Mybuilder solely for tradesman whereas people would go to Yell for anything from a barbers to a train station... When you take this into account the more realistic comparison could be Checkatrade have 4.5M+ people a year visit their platform for tradesman whereas Yell have 100,000 people look through their platform for tradesman.