Comments on: BT Web Clicks

By: Charles Richardson

Charles Richardson — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:36:12 +0000

We like many others were contacted by BT about having a visit from someone to point out the benefits of BT, we agreed as we felt up to this point that BT were a credible and decent company.
We agreed to try BT webclicks out and see if it worked for us but only on a non contract basis.
We like a lot of companies have had to look at ways of saving money and even though we thought it was a good product it just wasn’t working for us, so after three months we cancelled.
I was then contacted by Kenneth Stubbs who attempted to bully me into keeping BT Webclicks by saying we were contractually obliged to remain customers, I pointed out to Kenneth that the only thing we signed was a direct debit mandate but still Kenneth insists that we can not cancel, he eventually resorted to sending me a unsigned Terms and conditions pdf as an excuse for why we have to remain with BT Webclicks.
We have now spent over a month back and fore with BT Webclicks saying they are going to send our account to a debt collection agency and still we keep phoning saying we will pay our bill only up to when it was cancelled and everytime we request a correct bill we just keep getting threatening letters from BT Webclicks about debt collection agencies.
I am extremely dissapointed with how BT Webclicks which is part of the well respected BT brand has attempted to bully and through deceit keep us as customers, the sad thing was we were going to relook at BT Webclicks in the future but with a far higher spend allocated as we did believe that the potential for driving traffic to our site was there, it was just the wrong time for us.
We now no longer want anything to do with BT Webclicks and this whole episode has soured our once high opinion of BT and I am sure that we will never look at BT in quite the same trusting light as before.

March 31, 2011

By: hackedoff

hackedoff — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:25:47 +0000

Earlier this week I had a call from a BT sales person telling me that they could get more qualified hits to my website. I asked for more details but I ws told a visit would be required to explain how it works and would work for my business.

Today was the meeting. The rep arrived without making the confirmation telephone call I was expecting. Most inconvenient for me. The the rep was unable to connect to the internet using her mobile wireless connection, so I ended up uing my own laptop for the demo. My ‘rural’ location was blamed – like it’s my problem?

Fairly quickly I realised this was a pay-per-click scheme. £1 per click (minimum £100 per month but offering a 10% discount so 90p per click) but plus a £250 set up fee. On the sales per click ratio that I already know this wasn’t viable for me and I told the rep so. The rep argued with me that I must be wrong – I know my business don’t I? I’m not selling Rolexes, Bentleys or Gucci shoes so I know the return on advertising spend I need – whether it’s pay per click or any other method. Funnily enough the ‘500 leaflet’ argument was brought up, so it must be in the BT Sales training I guess……

Anyway, long story short, I said wouldn’t decide to sign up to what very late in the pitch I learnt was BT Web Clicks without some further research and the rep tried to make me feel guilty for wasting their time, “driving all this way, spending more time than I usually would explaining things” etc etc.

So, this evening I come to my PC and Google “BT Web Clicks Sussex” (as I was told that the local thing was ket to the service and I knew my rep came from an office in Sussex) – and guess what? The first listing is PC Advisor Magazine. This HM2K thread is ranked fourth by Google – and there are NO sponsored links for BT Web Clicks!!

I guess that says it all. Even BT Web Clicks don’t used the service they are selling.

Now why would that be…………………….?

By: James Kenwood

James Kenwood — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:46:49 +0000

Couldn’t agree more with most of the comments here. Webclicks is without a doubt the worst service I have ever signed up for. My web traffic has slightly increased but not from any site of value. I have had three additional calls in nearly 8 months. One was from an old lady who was looking for her friend, one from a young boy wishing to reset his Nintendo Wii password and one from some other kid who was trying to find someone on google maps!! I provide Apple Mac support, how do any of these calls relate to me?

By amazing coincidence my webclick account also shows that BT have hit their minimum number of leads every month, no cash back here. Which means they have sent the minimum number of pointless clicks my way.

If you haven’t signed up DON”T this should be shut down by Trading Standards, missold, misguided and a complete waste of money.

By: hm2k

hm2k — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:20:24 +0000

In reply to Sue. @Sue Wise words.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:04:33 +0000

I have just had someone ostensibly from BT trying to sell me BT Webclicks. We never buy from the phone, or from someone who just happens to have someone in the area who can come and give us a demo, so I asked them to send me all the information in writing by email. This he refused to do. If he was genuinely from BT I would have thought he would have done this no problem, so beware – phone salespeople sometimes aren’t all they seem to be!

By: john

john — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:46:08 +0000

I too am in dispute with BT over our webclicks package, we were grossly oversold, i.e. guaranteed phone calls, much more business..
The truth of the matter is i might just as well throw the money out of the door every month! Now the matter has gone to an overselling dispute, i keep getting calls from customerstreet asking the same questions…do i think we were oversold, what did the rep promise etc etc. Im thinking they are just stringing it out, so eventually i will get bored and give up! That aint going to happen. Webclicks is the best way to waste hard earned cash every month, dont fall for the reps sales pitch!

By: david ashman

david ashman — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:38:09 +0000

i was called by BT customer st in december 09. after a 90 minute phone call i agreed to pay a £353 setup fee and £82 per month for what i thought was SEO for my personal website. obviously what i got was something very different. i tried canceling the contract as soon as i realised but without success. i then sent a letter stating they were in breach of contract and gave them 14 days to rectify the situation. they were unwilling to do this so i made a claim against them in court.
their legal team have sent me a document outlining the defense against my claims. one point i raised was that there are many other people in the same position as myself who have been mis-sold a service by BT Customer St. their response was that they have no knowledge of this and i have no evidence to suggest so. i included links to several of the many webpages where people have complained about them, however this does not seem to be substantial enough. if anyone would be willing to briefly outline their complaint and send it to me i would be very grateful. maybe we can finally expose this company for how they have exploited many small businesses and get some justice.
please send your replies to [email protected]

By: John Wheeler

John Wheeler — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:19:40 +0000

I would like to introduce myself as someone who knows first hand how the BT web clicks + campaign works for 2009. We have several contracts with this service and it works well for us which we refer to other businesses in the Southeast and to our BT rep.

BT Webclicks is based on the PPC click campaign process and is derived from Google Adwords in essence. The service combines many different elements of internet PPC.

BT Web Clicks is a new advertising proposition which offers small businesses advertisers media exposure via a range of sources to deliver a Guaranteed package of ‘contacts’ (clicks and calls). Customers choose a contacts package with a sales person for a 12 month term. For a fixed monthly fee, BT Web Clicks places priority listings on BT Exchanges and Google, Yahoo and Bing; and a few smaller search engines which BT now own which are: UFindUs, SmileUK and MoreUK to fulfil the customer’s contacts package.

Advertisers can track the performance of their contacts package via monthly analysis and a performance guarantee applies across the minimum contract term (12 months) with a credit or refund policy for contacts not delivered (money back guarantee.)

Our business was in Tier 3 on one package and T1 on another. This at first seems a bit confusing until you understand the logic behind what the tiers are and costs etc.

Tier 5 – Mortgage Companies, Accident Claim Experts etc
Tier 4 – Call Centres, Debt Collection, Casinos etc
Tier 3 – Kitchen Design and Installation, E-Commerce, Energy Saving Consultants
Tier 2 – Plumbers, Double Glazing Installation, Car Body Repairs, Computer Services
Tier 1 – Garage Doors, Golf Shops, Sign Makers, Vets, Water Sports

The main reason for the tier policy is to make it as cost effective as possible for both parties as BT give you unlimited keywords to run your campaign for the full 12 months.

Instead of paying for every word that you add to your campaign a fixed cost is put in place, so that you do not let it run your business which we did with Google Adwords.

The Tier policy allows for a straight forward cost and click process worked out as an average cost over the year. We think BT are taking a bit of a gamble on this service as we have 80+ keywords on each campaign we are running which cannot be cost effective for BT buying from Yahoo, Bing and Google.

I see on the other forums people ranting about paying £15.00 for a contact etc, well that may of been the old webclicks service, this is called BT Webclicks +. They have enhanced the solution now.. the system they use actually makes good business sense to us, as we know what we pay all year round and it does not fluctuate every day like other PPC campaigns.

Tier 5 – £10 a contact//click – Mortgage Companies, Insurance etc
Tier 4 – £5 a contact//click – Debt Collection, Call Centres etc
Tier 3 – £3 a contact//click – Kitchen Design and Installation etc
Tier 2 – £2 a contact//click – Computer Services, Car Repairs etc
Tier 1 – £1 a contact//click – Sign Makers, Painters etc

So from here you can see how it all works.

We have a Tier 3 package with Mobile Phone Shops for 1200 contacts for the year and the cost is £3600. We pay the whole lot on 12 months Direct Debit and our costs are spread evenly every month, BT manage the whole solution so we can run our business. They email us every month telling us how the campaign is working.

Our second business is in a Tier 1 campaign and we pay a 1200 contacts package, so 100 contacts a month in the Yacht industry sector. This is not a huge part of our business as the profit is not very high, unlike the Mobile phone shops.

Packages start from £1400 and go upto £72k – If you want to know more or you want a consultation you should contact our sales consultant to learn more.

Many thanks for reading, listening and allowing us to offer our opinions.

BigBalls.

By: eva

eva — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:56:02 +0000

BT has some cheek.

By: Rich Webb

Rich Webb — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:15:36 +0000

Just had a visit from a BT Rep – went well. Typically no specifics, but pushed the guarantee a lot. When I asked for a 3 mth trial – was told that they no longer do it! So he upped and left. Reading this blog – I am glad I did not commit to anything. I found Google pay per click to be very poor on the quality of leads generated -sounds as if BT is even worse.