Support from sponsors - or lack thereof!
 

I'm getting quite often frustrated by the affiliate support from sponsors, and as far as this board goes I have aired that a few times already...
|angry|
The last fortnight has been particularly bad - just 2 examples:

· on the 6th, and again on the 11th of January I sent 2 emails to silvercash pointing out mistakes in their stats. NO answer to this date! Then last week they had a thread on the other board (gfy) that they took on new staff, so I jumped in and mentioned it again with my account number, thinking somebody might follow it up - NO! In this case I have actually being credited some 3 or 4 sign-ups which are obviously not mine... I don't mind the extra few buck$, but it also shows that there's a serious flaw in their entire stat system, which can affect hundreds of webmasters...

· then on the 17th I wrote a long-ish email to Karup, in which I basically complained about lack of support. E.g. only by chance did I find out that they actually have hosted galleries - you think they would send a newsletter telling you about it? And I also need some more content if I want to continue advertising their sites... Status up to today: SILENCE!
The same day I sent a shorter message to MetArt regarding content, and - - - I had a positive reply the next morning! |thumb
Guess which site I will be advertising more?

I know I'm not one of the big guns, many probably make in a day more than me in a week, but then emails like that take me some time to write (as most here know: I'm not a native English speaker) - if I wouldn't waste time on correspondence like this who knows how much more productive I could be?
|angry|

Since I'm at it: I'm still waiting on replies from important emails to MaxCash in 2000, PrimeCash in 2002, and TrafficCash in 2003... |satan|

great post george - I agree with you and understand where you are coming from 100%

I can understand support not having time to answer stupid shit but when you have a proven track record and are simply askign about soemthign that will make both of you more money it is simply amazing that SOME sponsors never even answer the emails we write.


anyways like you say you simply will promote the ones with good support - same here hehe

all the best man

cya

nice post George! i understand your point here.

And yes, only promote those that provide good webmaster support.

I agree also, but if they dont answer my emails i try to get them thru icq or on their own webmaster forums or by calling them by phone, i have alot of contact with sponsors on icq, always an answer there. I can imaging they get tons of emails a day. What happend with sunnydollars last time was that my email ended in their spamthing (and i only send one email....realy i did) they found it and answer me. i think mybe is that a problem too, alot of emails end in their spamthing.

yeah absolutely stuv!!! spam is a real pain and im sure tonnes of email does end up in peoples spam filters. Trying to contact sponsors by all means possible, as you say, is the best way for sure :)

I'm sorry but I hate most things 'instant communication', like phones and icq!

They have the habit of demanding your full attention in the most inconvenient moments. I'm certainly a bad customer for telcos: way over 50% my monthly phone bill is connection fee, I have a pre-paid mobile which is mostly turned off, and I never manage to use up the annual credit on the pre-paid card, my icq is constantly on invisible...
This has been always with me like that: when I owned a wholesale business I hardly ever answered the phone, my staff had to, and as soon as they were out I bought a fax machine (for over $3,000 at the time!) to cut down on phone calls...
I simply hate that ring, gets me into a bad mood before I even answer, and the icq noise is exactly the same!

I know this makes me rather un-fashionable...

lol i have always the sound off of my puter, so i dont hear icq messages and yes i am invisible too, but strange is i leave the sponsors a message and they leave one for me, now i am not a phonehero either, i have to speak english while that isnt my mother language, still it are some ways to contact them, i think those ways are better then email.

I remember when I started that you would never get support from anyone - even if you were sending volume. These days -- a lot of sponsors consider support assigning a sales guy to your account to beg for more traffic.

I know what you're saying, but the few times that I've encountered a problem like this, they were emailing me back, but my spam filters were catching them :(

It'd be nice if all sponsors had a board or message tracking system so that you'd know for sure your problem would be addressed.

Please Constact Me
 

keeping on top of your clients is only one way to keep them happy. Id contact Hugo if you are looking for a response to your Silvercash questions. Often you mnight just be contacting the wrong people within a company.

Some are doers and some dont do squat.

If you need help with your account try contacting a few people within the company. CC them as you go from one to the other, they will fall over themselves to be the first to answer you. |clown|

You guys need to read your own forum once in a blue moon.

Now, Hugo also sent an email to my email account; I almost deleted it because it didn't show obviously as being from SilverCash, and the subject line "account question" made me think is was one of these "your home finance is approved" kinda spam...

But I didn't, and communication is finally flowing; I sent him the previous emails and he has replied already |thumb

Now I'm still waiting for somebody from KARUP < to come around...

...and I actually didn't feel like posting the entire story on their board,
first: because last time I did I had to wait for ages (as Crazy-Sy mentioned)
second: I thought it to be a rather sensitive issue and didn't want to send every other webmaster into a panic spin about missing/wrong payments

Ya know, its not just sponsors, it seems to be a thing that plagues this industry. The other day I bought some design work that was supposed to be pre-done and ready to go...and over a week later I am still missing about 1/3 of the stuff they were supposed to supply. That's why with my hosting clients and affiliates I always go out of my way to make sure I give them 110%, even if I can't get something done immediately I always make sure I write back to say "I am working on it and will get back to you by (insert date/time)".

cheers,
Luke

Yeah - like when I have a question about Adult Paymaster, I send 3 ICQ's off right away & watch Timbo, DJ & Phoenix scamble to reply to me 1st :D

Sometimes its good to look if there's an ICQ contact on the sponsor's page. Once I lost password to silvercash and then lost password to my old email they were suppose to send it |bananna| so I added YoAdrian from Silvercash and got the pass within minutes...
Of course sponsors should still reply quickly to the mails.

beeing ignored sucks, Its like 4'th email I sent to elephantlist's owner and no reply...

Cowboybucks/ Max Hardcore is absolutely worst
 

Cowboybucks is the affiliateprogram for the real Maxhardcore.com site. With tons of his real movies, chat forum and much more, the rebills should be great. I made 37 trial signups and only got 1 rebill. After I got the first around 10 signups and the one rebill ever, I received a check on 225 USD. This was april last year. In the letter they excused because they had problems in tracking rebills so the USD 225 was estimated so far and their problems would soon be over they promised. Since then I made around 27 trial signups more with still no rebills at all (which is very very strange) So far I have never seen a check except the first. They have replied to my mails several times, that the checks are soon ready. On jan 3rd this year they replied this:
"I thought we had taken care of this, but I have not gotten communication
back from the 'check cutter'.
I'll check with him and see where it is at."
Its the same reply I get everytime. I know other webmasters have had same problems with them.
I also asked them if they had some never content than the old content from 2003. This also seem to much to ask.
Its strange that Max Hardcore will let his affiliate"guys" behave like this.

About Karups, I don't understand why they haven't replied. Jeff has normally been very helpfull with content. They allowed me to access the membersarea and pic what I needed. Then again, it was 1½ year ago and things change. I got a bit pissed when they uploaded addes for their new site Karups amateurs in the Karups private collection membersarea. When they did that, I lost a lot of rebills.

The only sponsor I've had problems with getting a reply is fetishbucks.com and it's always about checks not being sent. I don't promote them nowadays for this reason except on old links where I still get the occasional signup. Plus they short paid me back in 2003. I've sent them 3 or 4 emails dating back to November 2004 about them not sending me a check and not a single one has been answered to-date! It doesn't matter which of their emails I use, all my messages are ignored!

Other than fetishbucks.com, everyone else replies promptly to my emails.

Peter

There is so much of this going on now. Like Luke mentioned, it's not only in the sponsor's area, but designers, programmers, and hosting companies are doing it too. I really think it's because they don't have to see you (the webmaster) face to face. To the big guys, you’re an account # saved in an sql database. Which is to bad because if they would simply offer their webmasters help and work with them they would most likely increase their over all sales and bring in way more webmasters too.

When you look for programs now, do you guys find yourself looking for one that gives you a direct line to your account rep? Do you look for a company that actively supports the business on boards, icq, ECT?

I'm asking because we do those things and we are supplying webmasters with an 800# to reach our support team by phone 24/7. So just wanted to check.
|king|

seems hard to believe you would send 27 more trials to any sponsor after sending 10 and only getting one rebill

it kinda sounds like you are still sending traffic to them? eeeek

|peace|

I've been looking for new hosted galleries for my TGP's recently and have had some great service from Steve at Spanking Dollars. Similar from Dan at Nasty Dollars too.

While we have a modest affiliate program ourselves, it's always an education to see how some of the bigger players treat their channel partners!

I'll be adding a new thread in the approp place about our current campaign but feel free to contact me for more info.

btw - I also understand that lightspeedcash are superb too!

Alot of reps consider support to be that exactly but there are some great reps out there who are there for you when you need them. I offer my phone # to my affiliates and check in w/ them just to make sure that they don't need anything whether it be a creative or just to chat. Begging for traffic is not going to get us anywhere. Regardless of the amount of traffic, each affiliate should be taken care of personally and efficiently. The longer someone waits to respond to problems the longer they have to wait for traffic.

|headbang|

BlueQuartz>
Looking back now I behaved crazy
I kept sending them traffic because they did send the first check on 225 USD where they estimated my rebills and promised problems would soon be over. They used this MPA system.
Most of the rest of the 27 signups I got in a period on the following months from AVS and some SE traffic. The thing is the real Max Hardcore could be a awsome program if it was handled well. I also see they now switched back to the old ccbill.

Lately I've been hearing a lot of negative talk about sponsor support. As a new kid on the block, I know I can't compete yet with the prizes and rewards that the older, established programs have, so I'm focusing heavily on support. All my affiliates have my icq and unless I'm away from my computer, I answer all emails immediately. Maybe it's the Jewish mother in me that makes me want to take care of "my kids." All I know is that affiliates are a sponsor's salesforce and it would be stupid to lose even one for no other reason than you couldn't be bothered to help them when they need it.