[Charmlady]

Although I have had my site up and running for 8 years, I am new to the whole Email Marketing thing, so after talking to Pam at the last boot camp, she convinced me Campaigner was the way to go. I had previously looked at both Campaigner and Constant Contact and found the entire process of getting my list of thousands of email addresses into the system a bit daunting.

This is where the nightmare started. Pam was gracious to help me learn how to create my campaign (many thanks Pam), then I entered all my credit card information in Campaigner to set to send to my contact list. First shot, it gave me an error message - ok maybe I did something wrong (after all it was 10pm my time and my eyes could of been blurred by this time). So I try it a few more times, each with different error messages.

Fast forward to 730am (central time)the next day, so I email Campaigner for help - get the automated email stating someone would get back with me in 24 hours (I had set my campaign to run at 9am this morning). Noticed on their site, their operating hours are 8am - 7pm eastern time, so I think great, I will call them - (830 their time), go through all the voice response system and get an answering machine thanking me for calling OUTSIDE of their normal business hours and leave a message. I left a message. Then realized they had live chat, so I figure, ok maybe I can get assistance this way. By now its 845am eastern time and the chat window says they are not available, hours of operation are 8am -7pm. By this time I so completely frustrated because I can't get a live human being to assist me.

FINALLY after numerous attempts to call back, I finally get a live person on the phone. She asks me what error message I got - so I tell her and she tells me I didn't enter my card correctly, and to hang up and try it again. I do - get a different error message this time. I call her back (same agent, they must only have one employee!!!). Now keep in mind this is a DEBIT card, and I KNOW there is money in the account. I call back and get her again, she tells me its the fault of my bank because my card is bad. Very frustrated I tell her, no thats not possible, as I just used this card at another online merchant within 24 hrs with no issues at all. She is rude to me, tells me to call my bank and she is ending the call.

So I think, ok lets give them the benefit of the doubt, I call my bank and the bank says because they attempted to charge so many times the bank thought it was fraud! They clear everything up, assure me my card is fine, the account # is correct and they will authorize the charge.

I call Campaigner back, and just my luck I get the same agent again... She tells me there is still a problem with my card and the charge won't go through and I need to call my bank. Extremely frustrated at this point I tell her I already did this and finally ask to speak to a manager. Her manager gets on the phone and I explain whats going on, he tells me if I don't like their service I should use another company for Email marketing! I could not believe it! Instead of trying to help me solve the problem they just wanted to get off the phone as quick as they could and just trying to tell me it was all my fault and they were doing me a favor by "helping" me, which of course they didn't have to. I couldn't believe my ears!

Then the manager proceeds to tell me to try it again and it would go through, but I should change my pay plan to "pay as you go" (more expensive) than the monthly rate, and it would be fine. He assures me they won't charge me the full rate, but at this point I don't believe a word out of his mouth. I do this, and of course the screen tells me its about to charge my card $1729 !! I quickly escape and call back again, only to get the very same agent who seemed to feel I was bothering her by asking for help.

They say, "Just wait 24-48 hrs and surely your credit card situation will reverse itself." Even though I had seen from online banking they already charged my card the nite before!!! I tried to explain to them (although I shouldn't have to) about best days/times to send campaigns and so they said, "all you have to do is go in and schedule it, we don't know why you have such an attitude about it all".

Talk about frustrations.....My experience tells me Email Marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your customers, (have already gotten orders from this mornings campaign) HOWEVER I would NOT recommend Campaigner, unless you are one of the few that do not need customer service, as this company (management included) does not know the meaning of the word.

All in all, my account is finally set up, but now that I have additional questions about the reports, I am wondering if I made a wise choice in choosing them, because clearly they do not care if you use their service and they do not offer the assistance they claim to (with Live Chat, phone support and emails). Currently I received 3 emails confirming someone would get back with me, and of course no one did until I hunted them down to get it taken care of this morning.

Does anyone use CONSTANT CONTACT? Is this a better company to use? How is their support?