There is no amount of SEO, Marketing and Advertising that can help a business that has poor customer service, unless they are willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

 

 

A recent personal interaction with Firebox demonstrates this perfectly. I love Firebox, they have wonderful products and I love the brand. So there I was cruising the web (as you do) and their re marketing ads are all over me like a rash, in a good way. Until their Sky Planter was too good to pass up and I had to click through.

I mean these are so cool, who would not want a couple of these? I still want these !

 

 

Brilliant images, hanging gardens of Babylon … SOLD, or not as it turns out. Being a little bit of a green fingered SEO, I was a little concncerned about what type of plants prefer to be hanging upside down. Firebox seems to think all plants love it, me not so sure.

Doing the only sensible thing, I send them across a quick email about the product and could they tell me which plants in particular seem to thrive upside down?

 

 

As you can guess, two weeks later I’m still waiting for my reply. I still want them, of course I do, but I’ll wait to find them from someone else that can or will answer my question.

 

Another Elephant in the Room

 

As an SEO, my job is to market your business, increase traffic and sales, but if a business is unwilling to acknowledge there is a problem, then its time to part company.

I recently parted ways with a great Hotel brand for this very reason. There comes a point when you need to acknowledge something is not quite right. This boutique hotel has 23 rooms, thats 8,096 available rooms over the course of a year. When the total traffic in a 12 month period could fill the hotel for the next 72yrs, something is up ?

 

 

Your concern grows when the contact page specifically could have filled the hotel for 3yrs.

 

 

Of course hotels are unique, there are seasons, popular days, months, but when occupancy rates remain low, the business refuses to acknowledge critical reviews, then something has gone wrong. An SEO can only do so much, and you need to know when to call it a day.