Maureen T.
Horrible experience
That gurgling sound you hear is the sound of me flushing $30K down the toilet on Neil Pate's SEO services. They may be very competent in some fields, but for a small business in the wedding niche, they were a disaster. Their copy-writing was so sub-par that I had to take that task back over less than three months into the process. Of course, there was no corresponding reduction in fee. I'm no SEO expert (hence my need to hire a supposed professional in the first place), but I know enough to grasp the basics. Their naming of page titles, meta descriptions and image alt tags was substandard and every time I asked about it, I was told they were "running a test to see how it works." Everything came to head when I realized that they'd misspelled the name of my business and the services I provide on several of my web pages - and that it had been out there for several months before I caught it. The whole thing was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. Rather than putting my trust in them and letting them run with it, they became another entity I had to supervise and watch over to ensure they didn't screw up. For a small business owner that already wears a number of hats, it was just too much. Seven months and $30K into my $50K annual contract, my search engine results were worse than when I started. I was told to be patient and that "results come over time." Yet the sales consultant initially told us we would see results within 6 months. And while I certainly wasn't expecting a dramatic spike in website hits, I think it was reasonable to expect that my website hits would go DOWN after contracting with them. Extricating myself from Neil Patel was excruciating. They attempt to hold you to a contract that demands full payment regardless of results. I had to fight tooth and nail to get out of my contract without penalty--including challenging credit card payments made to them--which my bank ultimately upheld in my favor. During the exit process, they also attempted to force me to sign a disclosure saying I would not write any negative reviews about their services. I refused to sign because if I can prevent just one small business owner from going through the debacle that I went through with Neil Patel, it'll be worth it. Very expensive lesson learned. I would have been better off investing that money into broadening my own knowledge of SEO rather than trusting Neil Patel with my website (and ultimately my livelihood).
Response from Neil PatelMar 16, 2022
Hi Maureen. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with some feedback. My name is Sarah, I’m Chief Client Officer at NP Digital, and I'm here to make sure we can handle this situation together — but my main purpose is to make sure you're happy. I would like to make sure that we have done everything in our power to make things right. To better resolve your situation - since we will need your personal and business information - we would like to invite you to contact me or any member of our team directly at [email protected], so we can solve this as fast as possible. We would love an opportunity to discuss your experience further with you. We want to make your experience the best it can be — as with more than 5,000 customers around the world, our reputation is built on a high level of service and customer experience. In addition to solving your problem, or at least having a friendly conversation to find a compromise acceptable to both parties (that I'm sure we can) I want to add something here. I want to say: thank you. Every time we receive feedback, positive or negative, we extract from this situation something positive for the future of our company. So, you're helping us to be better. We have an internal process of identifying necessary improvements in our products and services. At the same time, we bring relevant information to our sales team, in case any misalignment happened at the time of closing the contract. Also, we use this material as a way to train our Account Management team to better serve our customers. Now is the time to talk and find a way to resolve this in practical and acceptable terms together. Thank you for your trust, and we look forward to your direct contact at [email protected] — keep in mind this is our fastest problem-solving channel available. Sarah Chief Customer Officer at NP Digital