Comet – No Longer a Shooting Star
posted in Affiliate Marketing |
This blog entry stems back to Christmas 2005, and is why we feel that Comet is synomonous with Poor Customer Service.
We are, soon to be “were”, affiliated with the program Comet, who today delivered what transscribes to an ultimatum to us. As a customer, we have had two instances of extremely poor customer service which have never been resolved, even when we asked the affiliate manager at Comet, there was no assistance.
A synopsis, an independent review, of the experience is on our website(s) is simply as follows:
“From purchases made Christmas 2005 we have been extremely disappointed with the service received from Comet. With unpackaged items & damaged boxes, despite assurances from customer services & item being resent on several occasions! with the same or similar problems, which ruined a surprise christmas present for someone special, 12 months later Comet still haven’t attended to our concerns.
In addition to this a tumble dryer purchased became faulty after only 13 months, we were expected to pay for the repairs. We are in the process of claiming a full refund on repairs through the Sale of Goods Act”.
Over the years we have delivered millions of £’s in sales to Comet though thick & thin, but are we bothered .. in a word, NO. Their commission & conversion rates are fairly bog standard and I can remember not too long ago there was a reduction in commission which they said they would raise again. Plus the de-duplicating fiasco which is well documented on the A4Uforum together with last referrer problems, where in my personal opinion affiliates got the raw end of the deal. We continued to promote them on a significant lower scale, but still generated sales. This is a program which is now a long way short of the dizzy heights of when Sam Bain was the affiliate manager & the program was a roaring success. Since her departure, the program has gradually slid to oblivion for such a major brand. Which emphasises the importance of a good affiliate manager.
A lot of the traffic was via pay per click on product & generic terms, supplemented by being widely populated through our websites. Comet had an issue with this negative copy being incorporated on our website with a general review, which is now over a year old. Comet didn’t want this from any of their affiliates. Basically the crux of it was, remove it or no longer be part of the program.
The dialogue was via a representative of Affiliate Window, who I don’t apportion any blame to. He handled the dialogue between the two parties just fine, but maybe didn’t appreciate enough it’s our site & our business, though not sure if grasped the fact that if i removed the affiliate link (but not the content) from our site, then it was no longer a matter of concern for the network as the only traffic would have been via pay per click activity. It seemed that the only compromises had to be made by me the affiliate, not the merchant.
Comet only wanted to be profiled in a positive light, not accepting that the truth sometimes hurt, by pleading for pity that because they are a big brand people are more likely to make negative statements, which still doesn’t get past the fact the customer service was appalling, it’s still not been resolved & the affiliate team at Comet didn’t want to know. Wake up smell the coffee & get use to it.
Merchants shouldn’t deliver ultimatums, basically their bluff was called and we didn’t wish to work with them under a false arrangement, we prefer to stick by our principles of free speech, honest opinion & never falsely sugar-coat anything we don’t believe in. Being a syphocant is the last think I would ever want to be.
Anyhow we could quite comfortably earn more via sponsored or price comparison listings or equovalent amounts via other merchants. We have a database of most of the products Comet sell, so we can easily source alternative merchants & compete with them on the sponsored search front by promoting other merchants.
The email response from the network was:
“Further to our MSN conversation, please take this as formal notice of Comet’s request to cease their affiliate relationship with” (our website). “This covers the use of affiliate links to Comet on ” (our website) “and all PPC activity either direct or indirect. All existing cookies will still be honoured.
Comet are aware of the time involved in removing all PPC campaigns and indeed adjusting your site and as such offer you a period of 30 days in which to action this request.
The decision has been made reluctantly as a result of the presence of negative comments about Comet on” (our website). “Comet believe that working with an affiliate that profiles them in a negative light is counter productive.
Should you wish to discuss any aspect of this further, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”
As for the review, well this will remain, even more prominent than before as one of our “soon to come ” projects will be an electrical product website we have spend considerable investment in. We anticipate that maybe a million people will see this review over the coming year. I guess Comet may have miscalculated, the only way to save face was to follow through & dissolve the relationship. We pointed out a few high profile sites with predominantly negative reviews who I can assume has business relationships with Comet, yet nothing will done.
On the whole, no loss, we are now just another competitor with good traffic levels & Comet have shot themselves in the foot. With no fault attributed to the network.
Forget it & Move on.
