Technorati: You got a vlog but where's the customer service?

Written by Allen Stern - October 7, 2006

There are a lot of Technorati bashers and I am not one of them. I have enjoyed using the site (mainly to track my blogs). Yesterday I came across the Technorati Daily Vlog. So far they have completed 2 days of posts, both focusing on the Mark Foley scandal. So I have a few questions/comments:

Does Technorati only look at blogs in the USA? Because I am guessing there is important news from outside the USA as well that bloggers are reporting on.
Is the purpose of this video to be "funny" or be a news reporter type video? I sure am confused by the first two episodes.
The text they show in the video may look good on a 25" monitor but in a 640 window, looks like garbage.
Provide text that is readable within the video.
Either report on the news, or do commentary - but when you mix the two, your viewers will be confused.

And so you might ask, what does all of this have to do with customer service? I will tell you. I have sent 4 emails to Technorati over the past month asking for some clarification and some help. Each time I am friendly and cordial and guess what. I have received no reply. Nothing at all. Not even an auto-reply. I am really disappointed that they would come out and do shameless self-promotion (the vlog) when so many bloggers believe they have no customer service.

And here is the IRONIC part - this week I received an email from Technorati - I was so excited to open it as maybe they have answered my questions! Alas, no. It was yet another promotion piece - this time, somehow I subscribed to their new newsletter. Which by the way they state will ship on Friday - it's now Saturday and there is no newsletter.

I am disappointed.

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COMMENTS - Add New Comment

Submitted by till on October 8, 2006 - 1:28pm.

Technorati also has their own blog - one that is updated every two weeks or so, which is also very not-so-blog-like since they never talk about the "downs" but just about the "ups" of their business on it.

Sometimes I like the service they provide - if it works.

I use them every other day, but still they could do a much better job with the people who use them. Point taken that it sometimes takes a while to get back to email (I know that myself ;-)), but anyway, it would be nice to hear back from them once.

For example, when their website is down (or not working so well), they could send a newsletter or update their blog and let people know what the problem is and when the service is restored.

But instead you hear nothing from them for two days and that is why I am not using their website every day, it's just a drain to use a unreliable service.

Or some of my blogs have not pinged Technorati in three weeks (so they say) - I don't know why, and even if I manually ping them it does not work, but I have no way to resolve the issue because of zero communcation from their side.

Then there is another issue with claiming a blog where I double-checked my settings, all correct, it works from other sites like Flickr and so on. They have not replied to my support request in probably four months.

Ouch!

If someone starts another Technorati, I will be the first to switch. ;-(

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Submitted by Janice Myint on October 10, 2006 - 7:40pm.

Hello,

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay and for your experience with Technorati support. We've been experiencing a backlog in support and are working hard to address everyone. I am currently looking at your Support Ticket and you should see a reply shortly.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any other questions. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for using Technorati!

Best Regards,
Janice Myint
Customer Support Specialist
Technorati