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LinkWorth problems

Ron W. [PersonRank 1]

Monday, January 10, 2005
19 years ago

I happened across your comments regarding our service (LinkWorth). I'm sorry you have such a negative outlook on our system and strongly urge you to not continue if you are not happy with it. I'm not sure what you were expecting out of our service, but it appears you have not received your expectations.

The amount of business that goes through LinkWorth is by a direct cause of us buying links for our clients. For example, the phynder link on your site is one we purchased for them. We always seek out partners that are relevant first and foremost, then we look for those who have stuck with us through our trials of getting our system where we want it. As you know, we are only half a year old.

What troubles me with your comments I read, is you have stated the "only" negative things we have encountered since we have been live. Any service will go through tough times, but we have made it through all instances and remained in constant contact with our customers....as you also stated with our response of the issue of an upgrade that caused a few problems. It seems the couple of negatives are the only things worth speaking of.

Now the visual preference is only in the eyes of the beholder. Of course we also felt the need for a navigation change and also a visual change, which we have already updated. The visual aspects were the least of our worries in the beginning, the system itself was our main concern. This meant a not so eye pleasing system for you to look at. Even though it wasn't that bad. We had more compliments on it than we did negatives.

I mostly wanted to send this message because while I was sure to include you in any clients that need links and fit your site, I am now not so sure to include you in the future. Not because of what you have said, because I welcome negative criticism to help us better ourselves, but because it seems you are not interested in using LinkWorth. If you do have such a negative outlook on our system, or if it troubles you as much as your comments lead me to believe, then maybe we are not a good fit for you. We want our customers to be happy and if you are not happy, then you would probably be happier without us.

Hopefully your opinions have changed, but if not, I ask that you find a service that makes you happy. While I would love to make things right, I would feel much better if you found a service that fulfills your needs you thrive for.

If you have any questions, you know my email. Let me know and I will be as helpful as possible.

Regards,
Ron
LinkWorth.com

Ron W. [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

[Follow Up]

Philipp...one more thing to add...we are constantly changing the system to make things easier and much more pleasant for our customers. We listen to every complaint or suggestion given and have implemented almost every suggestion given to us. So I completely understand there are certain aspects which could be much better, and we're working to get there. As I said in the previous comment, I really hope things get better for you, but if you are unhappy, don't make yourself more miserable by sticking around with us. Do what is best for you.

Alternatives for you would be places like text-link-ads.com or textlinkbrokers.com. These are the two I would recommend, although they are not really built like us. Textlinkbrokerage.com is evidently a place not to do business with (read a ton of info on v7n.com forums). There is another site that is building something similar to ours linksmile.com, but they are new and have a long way to go. The dude that runs it, "Wesley", is a real ****off to top it off. Not even knowing who I was, he called me an "idiot" for asking a simple question!!! Anyhow...thought I would give my suggestions if you do choose to move on.

Again...I would love for you to give us the chance and time to get to where you are happy, but if you need to go that's what needs to happen. If making you a happy customer means you using someone else, then that's what I would prefer.

Email me if you want to discuss anything further. I'm always there to chat, yell, scream or just talk to. :-) ron (AT) linkworth (dot) com.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

Thanks Ron for your comments. I will include a link here from the original article, so that whoever may read it will get your view too.

Here's the URL of my criticism:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2004_12_23_index.html#110379542268369051

First of all, I voiced my opinion first in an email to your support – only when the support email didn't work did I publish my "bug list" in my blog.

> For example, the phynder link on
> your site is one we purchased for them.

The Phynder link came shortly after my negative review, and unfortunately it was the only good thing that happened to me.

> Now the visual preference is only in the eyes of the beholder.

Not at all. Get a professional designer and it will look much better. Once it reaches a certain level of professionalism you may say it's "up to the beholder", but that's just a nice way of saying "even professionals get certain details wrong". That may be a level of taste – I was talking about what I consider to be usability bugs.

> The visual aspects were the least of
> our worries in the beginning, the system itself was our main
> concern.

I understand this. That's why, referring to my layout criticism, I said: "These are all small pains if the rest of the system would be in perfect shape."

> I mostly wanted to send this message because
> while I was sure to include you in any
> clients that need links
> and fit your site, I am now not so sure to include
> you in the future.

I cancelled my web site from your program a while ago in my account settings, so according to that I hope your system will just ignore me.

> We want our customers to be happy and if you
> are not happy, then you would probably
> be happier without us.

At this state of the service, yes. I don't hold a grudge and you may bug-fix what's wrong, and I may try again in the future. Your reply here shows you care, and that means good things for your service.

Thanks for the pointers.

Ezzra [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

Something about the tone of Ron's mails tell me that he still "doesn't get it" ("it", being Web 2.0 customer service.)

Besides portraying himself as a victim (we're new..,etc), he repeatedly makes it clear that he would rather lose you as a customer than have to deal with another bout of well-written criticisms of his service.

Probably best to take his advice on visiting the competition.

Ezzra

Ron [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Ezzra...I feel before you can judge someone, you must first deal with them or speak with them. I have zero "tone" and I do get "it". I am unhappy that Philipp is unhappy, therefore I must do whatever I can do help. It appears he has made his decision in wanting to look for another service, so I can only be supportive. If I was to come here blasting him for his comments, then you could have your incorrect opinion of me, but I have only tried to explain the issues and made it his decision. If you know anything about LinkWorth, Philipp means nothing to us financially, yet, I still want to try to explain things for him in hopes he will give us a chance. I feel his outlook is incorrect but instead of being condescending, I am supportive. Maybe your "Web 2.0 Customer Service" you abide by is a bit outdated. I go by Web 10.0 Customer Service. :-) OK, now that was a "tone" and I apologize.

Philipp...we could debate back and forth regarding the visual aspect of the account center forever. I have been building websites for over 10 years. It's actually my background. I will never claim to be a "graphic artist" by any means, but I can work photoshop pretty well. Visual takes you so far. I think the layout before what we have now was a bit harsh on the eyes, but the one in place now is fine. When you are dealing with as much information as LinkWorth queries from the database, having fancy designs will only slow things down. There is a fine line drawn that we have to reach between look and speed. You can have the coolest and most eye pleasing site in the e-world, but if it's slow, it sucks. My own preference would have a very fancy graphic in place because I love a good looking designed website, but I forfeit my likes to speeding things up for slow internet connection customers.

You mentioned canceling your website. Did you actually "delete" it from your account? That is the way you would remove it from receiving requests. I'm sorry if it wasn't clear. I will make sure to stop the phynder ad at the end of this month and close your account for you. I will not remove it in hopes you will give us a shot later on down the road. When our, as you called it, small pains, go away. We "listen" to any criticism or suggestions from our customers because it's the only way to make a great service. So I appreciate everything you have said. And "NO", I'm not wanting to lose you "than have to deal with another bout of well-written criticisms of my service"!! HAHA... Ezzra did give me a good chuckle. I think I even said I hope you stay, but I'm not into forcing people to stick around. Especially if they seem uninterested. We have plenty of interested customers to focus my energy on.

Now Ezzra...you seem like a firecracker type. I would LOVE to go a few 'bouts' with you on politics, life, religion....or better yet, your self biography of "Web 2.0 Customer Service" :-) Shoot me an email...it's listed above. I am not an avid reader of this website, I just browsed back to see if Philipp had any comments for me, so if you are trying to chat with me here, there's a better than average chance I will never see it.

Philipp...give me a shout if you need anything at all.

Ron

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

Ron, I will try to make it short.

No, good design will not make your site slower. (Good design is not about graphic-intensive downloads.)
Yes, everything you write will have a "tone", like Ezzra said. (If in a restaurant you complain about the food, not because you have a bad day but because it was too salty, wouldn't you think of it as incredibly rude and patronizing if the waiter replied "Well, we don't want you to be unhappy, so you better go to another restaurant"?)
And let's not invite Ezzra to religious bouts, or anything of that sort, which doesn't help anyone. My original criticism was about a credit card fraudster, lack of activity after sign-up, confusing emails being sent out automatically (and multiple times), PHP errors on your site, the support email not working, a below-average layout, and in general low usability. After all we expect certain standards of a site, which however young apparently is old enough to handle our credit card data.
I can see you already had a major redesign on LinkWorth after log-in, and it's a big step in the right direction. So keep up listening to your users.

yandoobies [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

[Just an aside after reading LINKWORTH and RON]

Ron sounds like a stepford wife. There's something condescending or, robotic, if you will, in the tone of his responses. He is unhappy if people are unhappy with him and unhappiness or dissatisfaction is uncomfortable, so why deal with it in anything other than a HAL (2001) kind of tone. HAL is the perfect A.I.
Dealing with messy things like customer dissatisfaction MUST be the fault of the customer (obviously an organic being – and all organic beings are, by nature, imperfect and abundantly responsible for error while HAL is incapable of such error). I am cutting off your oxygen now, dave.

Ron W [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Ok, ok....I see no matter what I say, I'm going to be treated like the bad guy. I was "joking" about the religion talk....I would have nothing to say. My comments are in no way meant to have a tone, but I guess they do. I guess it takes people that don't know me to tell me how I am. Philipp, your example of the restaurant makes sense, however, if that customer was upset and walking out the door, I would not step in front of him to stop him. Sometimes it's best to let people do what they want and accept it. I read your rant about LinkWorth and you seemed as if you were that guy pissed and walking out the door. A nice guy I try to be, and ass kisser I will never be. Maybe that's my downfall. I see both sides of the coin and I openly admit it. The only part I don't agree with is the comments about me being condescending. Maybe it's my personality, but my goal was to never be condescending to you. I think if anything, the two others that chimed in were a bit condescending and unknowingly opinionated. But "hey"...that's what blogs are for. "Enough said" on my part. Sorry to take up your blog space and waste all of our time. Best of luck to you.

yandoobies [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

hee-hee...

Jill [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

I have to say that I have had my own dealings with this 'Ron' from Linkworth and I honestly do not know how they remain in business. Yes Ron, I admit, you rejected one of my sites to be listed, it wasn't good enough for Linkworth, you claim there is not enough content and since we are new you couldn't see stats, which is fine by me, but when first questioned about your methods and the way you accept sites you responded with ignorance. Your site, besides the design, your site suffers from poor spelling errors. I mentioned it as well. The moral of this entire story is, even if a customer ticks you off, which WILL happen in any business, you must be patient and not instantly toss them aside and think they can instantly be replaced. See word gets around, and one after another you yourself will discard any current or future clients.

Here's Rons professional and the man behind who manages YOUR money when dealing with Linkworth.com:

What exactly was so wrong with my response Jill? Wow, you are very argumentive! All I did was explain the reasoning for what happened and gave examples so you could hopefully understand the thinking behind our actions. If this was so negative, then I would say you are either super senstive, or you are having a bad day.
  
As for submitting this to search engines....hehe....I guess you are still wet behind the ears in business, aren't you! Here is a few things I want to throw your way....
  
1) you can't submit to search engines honey, unless you pay for it or optimize your site for it.
  
2) Do you not realize that bad publicity is just as good as good publicity?
  
3) I will bet my entire bank account that if you let 100 people read my reply to you, 99 of them would side with me that there was nothing negative about it and that if anything, I was making light of the situation and your negative comments.
  
If you really wish to get in a battle with me on defacing our company....I will assure you that I will repay the favor...and realize that we know exactly how to make it happen quickly. This entire situation is just baffling to me. All we did was decline your listing and give suggestions on how to get it listed. Then you attacked us. Maybe look into this site for some help http://www.clarocet.com ....
  
Regards,
Ron

Jill [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

OK, since this Ron won't stop, he is going to post the ENTIRE conversation. And Ron, like I said, a customer ticks you off, like me, you got to grin and bare it, not get crazy. But post the entire thing it's a free country you know

HA! [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Philipp, I apologize for this lady posting more on this old topic. She's a bit upset because we declined her listing because her prices were too high. We gave suggestions on pricing that would help her sell links, then she completely went off on us threatening to post negative things about us all over the net. I guess she found your discussion and felt the need to post. As you can probably guess, she pulled out my response to her threatening us to no end. If anyone wants to see the entire story, feel free to email me over on our site and I will give you the full story. It will show what type of conversation really happened instead of her self portrait here. I can assure you it was nowhere close to what she states here. I suspect one of our competitors is behind this...but oh well, what can you do?

Again....sorry and hope all is well with your site.

Jill [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Well at least I'm posting my name, and I did say from the begining " Yes Ron, I admit, you rejected one of my sites to be listed " and I wanted your reasoning to be explained. You came off right away with ignorance in your first email to me – how do you justify this? Poor customer service will sink anyone, fast. We had no problem selling at higher prices, we've sold 12 so far in the last 3 days. And as for the competition, you sent me right into their arms. You just don't get that it had nothing to do with your rejection, it had everything to do with I didn't understand and wanted an explaination on how this system of yours works. And frankly, I've been looking at all the spelling errors on your site for months – look at your forums I'm not the only one who has a pick about it.

Good luck to you, this is the silliest and most childish situation I've been in since grade school.

PS. you never did send me the link where all these big CEO's and such applauded your customer service methods

Jill [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

and PS again, Ron, you didn't fool our system ok? we have and did trace your isp address right back at ya – grow up

Bryan [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Well , It seems like Ron pissed of Jill. I only read part of the post ,but heard from both sides. Regardless of how "unprofessional" and "immature" Ron is described by Jill. It seems that she is doing the same thing by starting a cyber war on his help desk and then here. Jill, I am all for Customer service and if you were a paying customer then you would have a vaild arguement in my opinon. Since you were denied and knowingly so for what ever his reasons. It seems as though you choose to take it personal. There is no obligation to any business to please everyone , especially those who are not customers.

To that earlier post about the restaurant and the waiter.....If a person enters a resturant and is in the owners mind is rude and insulting it is that owners right to refuse service to anyone. That is business. If someone is not happy about , oh well. It makes no sense for the person to mount an attack or even think think twice about it. They should just go to the next resturant. Nobody spit in the pizza you paid for, because you are not a customer.

Jill, I am all about customer service.I just dont think you are a customer in this situation. There are plenty of LInking companies out there and you can find another that will better suit your needs. It seems pointless to take it personal , since infact you never actually used the service.

Ron and his company will go on with or without you and it seems silly to me to have such a fued about he said she said stuff.

Granted, I only heard one side and I am sure there is more to this story...but....WHO CARES?

Just my humble late night opinion

Bryan [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

One more point if you will induldge me. If this is going to be an issue here then why dont both Ron and Jill post the entire conversation they had instead of snipits with refferences to a few lines. Was Ron immature and unproffesional ? Did Jill Make threats and name call?
I think that is only fair to get both sides. If not then it's best for you both to just move on.

If you ask me it all seems silly

Jman [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

Linkworth takes 30% commission, pretty greedy if you ask me. I won't be with them for much longer.

DDonna [PersonRank 1]

18 years ago #

Jman, I used to feel the same way about the 30% until I started looking for another broker to sell ads through. Every other broker I checked wanted 40-50%, so while you think it's greedy, I've found it's actually the cheapest commission of all the brokers.

I have been with LW for 9, almost 10 month's now. Reading through this string, I just don't see the negativity from their customer support personnel as portrayed here. I've always been paid on time, always been helped in a timely manner and they have been extremely polite while helping me.

I think it's just one of those things where you only hear the negatives because the happy one's like myself never have a reason to rant. I"ll definitely be watching for this 'tone' that is spoken of now.

Joeychgo [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I have experienced very few problems with Linkworth, and non Ron didnt fix almost immediately. I have always been paid on time.

Linkworth has provided me with a very good and steady revenue stream with minimal work on my part.

Joeychgo
www.vbulletin-faq.com

Stevo [PersonRank 0]

18 years ago #

I was doing a search for a random term and noticed linkworth so thought I would read. Wow...looks like Ron is passionate about what he does, IMHO. I've used linkworth for over a year with nothing but perfect support. I'm a bit of a pain, me thinks, because I always ask for custom things and they always hook me up. I've dealt with Ron and probably all of their other reps and not one single time have I ever received a tone. And if anyone deserved one, it would be me. It's just who I am. I bug people. :-)

So had to give Ron and linkworth my high praises because personally, I think this string of messages is such the wrong dipiction of those guys it is almost humorous. I guess to really know, go over to their site and contact them with some off the wall question or suggestion and see how they respond. Reason I say this is because that is how my messages to them probably seem, off the wall. Ok, enough from me, I'm going to go bug someone else.

oh ya, forgot to mention I make a killing over at linkworth. Earning just over 2k and have been for almost 8 months. helps pay bills!

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