 Sensis ignoring your business? Sure, but why?
Saturday, 23 September 2006
Do you operate a small business, here in Australia? If so, is it listed in the online versions of the “yellowpages” and “whitepages” directories?
Are you sure?
If, like us, you’re actually not listed in either directory, do you know why? If you do, would you kindly let us know because the support people at Sensis seemingly either have no idea or refuse to reveal their reasons.
A few weeks ago, while experimenting with their “new and improved” yellowpages and whitepages websites, I noticed that our company wasn’t listed in either. While we weren’t startled to discover our absence from the yellowpages, we thought it was a little odd that we were missing from the white pages directory too.
My original (and straight-forward) query on their “contact us” page:
Can you please tell me why you don’t list all Australian businesses, despite the fact that you say that you do on your help page? Try searching for “Lutrov Communications” in postcode “3113″ to see what I mean.
Their befuddled reply, a couple of days later:
Kindly try using the white pages as the yellow pages is a paid advertising medium used for finding a product or service. The white pages are designed to locate businesses to which you are already aware of the name and location.
I began to wonder whether this person has even looked at their yellowpages website:
If, as you say, “the yellowpages is a paid advertising medium used for finding a product or service”, why does the home page offer a search option to “find business name”?
My question was either too hard or I had become too annoying because their “ever-so helpful” response arrived 6 days later:
To assist you in your search, we recommend the following sites:
To find a particular business or person - white pages(r) online site - http://www.whitepages.com.au/
To find a product or service - yellow pages(r) online site - http://www.yellowpages.com.au/
To find maps or directions - whereis(r) site - http://www.whereis.com.au/
To find a website - sensis.com.au(tm) site - http://www.sensis.com.au/
The yellow pages has a find business option for customers who choose to use the site in that way, it by no means implies that just because the listing appears [sic] in the white pages that it should also apear [sic] in the yellow pages as the information contained in both mediums are diffferent [sic].
Thinking that the responses I’ve been getting perhaps aren’t from humans, I attempt to ask my question once again:
Lutrov Communications is an Australian business and as such, I would expect to find it listed in both, yellowpages.com.au and whitepages.com.au but it’s not listed in either. The yellowpages.com.au help section says this:
“In a ‘find business name’ search you can enter a name of a business and we will look for the name you entered in our database of Australian business listings.”
It appears that your database of Australian business listings is incomplete and you’re either accidentally or deliberately excluding some businesses, both in the yellowpages.com.au and whitepages.com.au websites.
I would like to know why this is the case.
That was two weeks ago and we haven’t heard from them since.
While we’re sure that there must be legitimate reasons why Sensis would exclude some Australian businesses, we’re not amused by their unwillingness or inability to state why.
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You realise you must pay to be listed in the Yellow Pages, right? You will automatically be listed in the White Pages only. You can use Yellow to search for a business by name, but you'll only find them if that company has paid to be listed. I would have thought this was a fairly obvious and well-known fact.
Obvious and well-known? Perhaps not. In any case, their help page fails to inform the user that the database is incomplete. Futhermore, why do you suppose white pages doesn't work? Could it be using the same incomplete database?
Sorry but you are either being pedantic and/or stupid if you don't know that the yellow pages is a paid directory. Nice attempt at getting a linkback from the herald site. Too bad for you they nofollow their links.
I can tell you the customer service response is wrong - I can only assume that they had the trained monkeys on that day.
Every business is entitled to be listed within the yellow directory, whether they pay or not. The reason that a business may be listed in yellow is the service is "opt in" whereas whitepages is "opt out".
If you have a business that you would like listed for free visit this part of the site and fill in the details.
JJ: I know I'm not stupid. As for pedantic, maybe.
My issue is to do with the fact the lovely folks behind yellow pages and white pages don't disclose to the users that they don't list all Australian registered businesses. I know there are plenty of other potential users of their website who don't know that, so I guess by your conclusion, they too must be "pedantic and/or stupid", no? How hard is it to acknowledge that your website only published paid listings?
As for your linkback diatribe; you're completely wrong. I'm fully aware that the links are "nofollow", just like mine are. It wasn't a linkback, it was useful and relevant information which supports the general consensus that both white pages and yellow pages do indeed suck really hard.
BTW: I can see that you haven't actually read this post. If you scroll up, you'll see that I said this:
You're not an employee of Sensis, by some chance, are you?
Tony: thanks for the info.
I don't recall seeing a link to the free listing on their advertise with us page, so I can't say whether it was there or not, back in September 2006. But the monkeys that responded to my emails that week didn't seem to be able to understand my simple questions. Is my command of the English language that poor?
Or do the monkeys only get a handful of peanuts per day?
The link was put on the site in Nov/Dec 06 so you must have just missed it.
I think the people responding were too concerned with getting any answer they didn't bother to try & understand the question that you were actually asking.
KS, JJ - you can have a free listing in yellow pages. All those listings in tiny print with no flashy features are free.
Yellow pages is opt in and white pages is ostensibly opt-out, but sometimes businesses are left out of white pages. This can be a stuff-up by the phone carrier not sending details correctly, or a sensis stuffup in not acting on the information, or a myriad of other reasons. Doesn't happen too often, but it does happen.
Hi,
Sensis is a money hungry sales force pitching last decades technology at todays public, how do I know. I used to be a Senior Account Manager at the Telstra subsidiary. They derive revenue of approx $2,000,000,000 (billion) from both the Whitepages & Yellowpages print directories and have a net profit of almost 40%. This is unheard of in most businesses UNLESS you do not reinvest profits for future & better technology. Plain and simple it's a cash cow that Telstra will milk dry.
NOW.
To clarify something. Every business is entitled to a free listing in the Yellowpages, yes FREE. It's called a complimentary listing, it's a simple line listing with your business name & telephone number. By requesting your FREE listing your business will be in the next edition of the Yellowpages and eventually on the Yellowpages site.
The same applies to the Whitepages. Of course you will then be contacted to upgrade but it's not a condition.
I am launching a new business to offer Australia's first Google + Yellow solution being qualified in both mediums. Google is vital, and for some businesses Yellow is very important still.
PS: I'm not holding my breath for Sensis to upgrade its web properties any time soon.
I can relate. Our house is now up to its ninth Foxtel IQ box (in just over 12 months) and sixth rental landline phone (in just over 9 months)! After all the inconvenience of the device failing, waiting for a technician to come, standing in the queue in the Telstra shop to return the faulty landline phone, waiting on hold on the phone etc etc, Dealing with them on the phone is a frustrating experience too. Patronizing and plain arrogant some of them are. I wrote an email to Telstra to express my annoyance and disappointment.
The reply DID NOT address any of my concerns and it was full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. When I telephoned them hopeful of a better response, I was told, "I didn't write the email, so I don't know what mistakes are in it." and this little gem, "Are they fixed now? Well.......Things break, deal with it!"
At that point, I thought it time to write to the Telecommunications ombudsman.