LinkedIN #Fail ? Part 1

Call it a "partial fail".

Big Companies are used to forcing you to go thru the proper channels to get your questions answered and problems solved.

Big Internet companies do this all the time.

Due to the volume of inquiries we ask that you first search our F.A.Q. and if you still need help, submit via our Q & A form, blah, blah, blah is what often happens.

Those that do it differently are often rewarded substantially.

Zappos for example.

Here's my LinkedIN story:

We are a small company, but larger than most in our field.

30+ employees. 5 on the sales side. We want to upgrade our 5 basic (free) LinkedIn accounts to the top paid level. 5 Executive accounts would currently cost $4500 using the annual membership option.

We want more.

We want a free 30 day trial. In other words, we'll pay the $4500, but we want 13 months, not 12.

We may do some LinkedIn advertising too.

I wanted to talk to a live person about this.

But you can't.

Unless you are clever.

First I asked the LinkedIn Twitter account for help.

3 days later, absolutely no response.

So I searched for the phone number, thanks Google, and called the LinkedIn office in California.

It's 650-687-3600.

The female voice recording told me that for customer service I need to go online.

I decide to "hack into their phone system".

Option 2 when I called was to use their company directory. I decided to see if they had a Scott working for them, punched the appropriate keys, and found several. I picked one and he answered.

Scott told me he was not in customer service, but he would try and help by connecting me.

After 10 minutes on hold, he came back and apologized for it taking so long but he was still looking for the number.

I figured if this was an endurance test, I had 45 minutes since I was multi-tasking.

The next time he comes back on the line, Scott tells me customer service will be calling me directly, since they have my number from caller id.

Sure enough, someone from customer support calls 4 minutes later, wanting to know how I got through their phone system.

I told him.

He laughed.

Then he told me that I really did need to use the proper channels which involves, scrolling down to the bottom of my LinkedIn page, finding the little HELP CENTER link, and clicking on it.

Told him I had already discovered that and if my question wasn't on the F.A.Q. list, there was no live link to contact sales or customer service, or Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIN.

Then he told me how to make the contact us link live and fill out a ticket to get response to my questions.

On one hand, I understand why they want to keep my crazy Aunt Sally from calling to fix something that is in their F.A.Q. But come on now...

This story will continue tomorrow, but why is a social media company being so unsocial?

ScLoHo is Scott Howard, a Solutions Consultant with Cirrus ABS.

You can contact him here:

image from http://arabcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Linkedin-blocking.jpg