VerticalResponse

BEWARE!!!! I used to use VR for email blasts but a number of years ago they changed. They are unprofessional, incompetent, raised prices without advising me and charged me after my account was closed. Now I am fighting with them to get hundreds of dollars back. STAY AWAY!!!!

I was a loyal Vertical Response customer for over 10 years. I fully understand that the world of email has changed drastically in the past 10 years. I understand that open rates have dropped in the past 10 years. I have repeatedly reached out the V.R. looking for ways to increase my open rates, my click through rates, etc. Sadly, this was a huge waste of time. Their delivery department was less than helpful. Their senior sales people were less than helpful.

After sharing my frustration in a private Facebook business group, I was told to try a different service who's name isn't relevant. I exported my list out of V.R. and created a campaign in the competing service and sent it out to the exact list with a response 5 times larger. Their fees are also less expensive.

Upon requesting a one month credit for all of the challenges, it was approved by management however not fully executed.

Tried again to let these people make things right, and again they refused to step up. Please understand that my deliverability and company name recognition plummeted as best as I can tell BECAUSE of Verticalresponse. So I HAD to delay sending more emails to try to get consultants to figure out what the problems were. Verticalresponse was of no help at all, and then had the gall to say my credits have 'expired' when THEY were the reason I had to delay doing more sends in the first place. I can't really describe how cheated I feel by this unethical company. I guess I should sue them, but even over $20,000 that's a big hassle, and not quite enough money to get a lawyer to take it on contingency. I would select any other email service provider over this company. You have been warned!

Until a few months ago, I was with VerticalResponse for more than 4 years, mostly because I was always too lazy to change over to another email marketing company. Finally, I took the extra time and I made a switch to Constant Contact...and I am much happier now. MAINLY because Constant Contact has a larger customer service staff...with longer hours (including the weekends). Unlike VerticalResponse, Constant Contact doesn't leave you hanging when you have issues that need to be resolved immediately...especially when your company depends on direct email marketing to make sales.

VerticalResponse simply does NOT have the customer service unit that it needs to service customers, yet they still charge as much as the other LARGER, more equipped companies. There were AT LEAST over 50 times that I had to wait for hours or days to get some resolution from VerticalResponse to my issues. And, VerticalResponse was never very apologetic about it. In fact, their customer service was not very friendly.

Overall, VerticalResponses' prices are too high for what they offer. You are better off paying a bit more and going elsewhere...like I did, to Constant Contact. Plus, the other LARGER competitors offer other perks (like freezing subscriptions, easier opt-in policies, etc) than VerticalResponse.

The is a TERRIBLE company with POOR customer service and BAD policies.

I set up an trial account, loaded in my email contacts and created my first e-blast. Then when I hit the launch button Vertical Response sends me an email saying the compliance department has some bogus problem with the email. The email does not tell me what the problem is specifically and instead gives me links to read there "articles" and figure out what the problem is on my own.

Here is a copy of the email Vertical sent me:

Hello,

Your account has been blocked by the VerticalResponse Delivery and Compliance Team. At this time you will not be able to access your account and any scheduled emails have been cancelled.

We reserve the right to block accounts that are determined as a high risk to send mail through our network, and monitor rates of invalid addresses and complaints from email recipients.

For information about complaint and invalid address issues, please review the following articles:

http://helpcenter.verticalresponse.com/articles/VR2/Direct-Complaints
http://helpcenter.verticalresponse.com/articles/VR2/What-is-a-bounce

For questions or comments, please create a case through our Support Community: https://vr.force.com/community/

Sincerely,
The VerticalResponse Delivery and Compliance Team

KEEP IN MIND, SINCE I HAD NOT EVEN SENT MY FIRST E-BLAST YET, THEY COULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN ANY COMPLAINTS FROM RECIPIENTS. So how did they determine I am high risk? Who knows... some cryptic BS they couldn't adequately explain themselves after I spent 1 HOUR ON THE PHONE WITH THEM!

Secondly, if they had a problem with my email then don't send it out, but WHY BLOCK MY WHOLE ACCOUNT??? Its like I was a criminal or something and I couldn't even export the contact lists I had manually entering into the Vertical Response System.

I spend 3 hours creating the email marketing campaign and 1 hours talking on the phone.

They won't let me talk on the phone with the Delivery and Compliance department. Instead I the phone rep had to go back and forth with them and after 60 minutes of that told me they would email with their reasoning (which they never did).

So explain me this, if we were such a high risk account, which did the number one email marketing company (I can't say the name but their initials are CC) launch our campaign with NO problem just a few hours later.

This was my response to Vertical Response and I have yet to hear back:

Wow. I am shocked at the poor communication by your system.

To lock me out of my account after taking all my contacts and having me devote countless hours to creating my first E-blast is unconscionable.

Not a good way to treat a new customer who is evaluating your services.

A few years ago, I caught Vertical Response making false spam complaints against me, even though my complaint rates were around 1 per 20,000 emails. So, a few years later, I set up a "triple-blind" test with three identical accounts from three different email addresses and three different people emailing the exact same email lists, with the same frequency and Identical messages.

As I expected, they forged complaints against me (personally), while they ignored the same emails being sent to the exact same lists by my co-workers, who were sending identical material.

I'm pretty sure that they are scamming at this point. One example of the lies they told me was "these aren't just complaints, they are complaints that are special..." Special how? A complaint is a complaint... unless they are trying to say, "but since it's you, this is a complaint we will pay attention to..." Bullshit! Also, they won't provide the names of those that complain, unlike competitor services, so there is no way to verify whether the complaints are real. Not very likely, when you consider the probability being so very low, in addition to the other obvious fakery. With my other email service, I have gone without any complaints sometimes for as many 150,000 consecutive emails.

Also, their (Vertical Response's) deliverability rates are not that competitive. They start out very high, then drop drastically.

Just as an addendum, once I told them that there were three identical accounts with three identical lists of email, one of the accounts received its first complaints (three complaints) after two months of no complaints at all. Pretty obvious that the staff put them there and that they were fake, based on probability.

To top that all off, after they blocked my account (which wrecked about thirty ads I had carefully placed on different websites), then THEY sent me SPAM about their seminars, AFTER I cancelled my subscription. Hypocrites.

I've been using Vertical Response (the new version, not Classic) for just over a year. I've had some inconveniences with their site layout and tools (no Undo button if you delete a section by accident; tendency to delete sections by moving them, limited templates and limited ability to customize templates) but I like the analytics tools, etc. However, I've had a very hard time getting hold of Customer Service. After two phone calls/voice messages, an email, an attempt to Live Chat during business hours that suddenly became unavailable as I went to click it, and a 35 minute hold time (all over the course of 4+ weeks) later, I FINALLY got to update my subscription information, which I could not do online. It's not an awful service by any means, but there are tools that need improvement, and they need a larger customer service force. However, the customer service was very friendly and helpful once I got hold of them. My experience has been "eh, okay", but I'm investigating other options that will hopefully bring me more convenience than annoyance.

I use VR for email newsletters. I could not ask for better, more responsive customer tech support. No wait time for either phone or online chat help. And they fixed all my issues quickly. Thanks VR!