Thryv

Nobody knew what was going on. Everyone that I spoke to said there was nothing that was in my account to say, "This is why it happened.” When they looked into my account, they were told that it was because my account was deemed high-risk. And no one could figure out why I was high risk. Because all I do is collect payments for a service, which is non-refundable.

A handful of times, I was told that it was rectified but it wasn't. Eventually, we finally got it updated. According to who we finally got in touch with that could figure it out, they said, "We can't have payments and donations, so you have to take the donation portion off of your website." I said, "Okay. If I had known this, it was an easy fix.”

We had to take the stuff off, and then they had to submit it for review and it was during my busy season. I said, "Do whatever you need to do to my pay. Take off whatever you need to take off.” But I was still using Square. I don't even know when it was that I went back to ThryvPay. 'Cause I was afraid to use Thryv because I didn't want my customers going on there and not be able to make payments. But they have great customer service. They were very helpful and eager to make themselves better.

One of the biggest things I needed was a website that was more easily usable by potential customers, and that is definitely what I got. The way that I'm doing my ads is I want people to go to the website, then there are links on there, "Schedule an appointment. To get more information, call me." The website works very nicely and exactly the way it's supposed to. The customers go into the website, schedule an appointment, then I get an immediate email saying, "You have a requested appointment. Please respond and confirm." I go in, and within minutes, I can confirm the appointment, or if I can't confirm it, I can offer to reschedule to a different time.

I have a PayPal account, and I originally linked things to PayPal, and my customers had trouble paying through PayPal. It was very strange, because they would get a message that they still had an outstanding invoice, but I would get a message that it was paid. Thryv needs to be aware that PayPal does not work well with them, and that is on PayPal's end. At any rate, that only has to happen once when one has that kind of a headache with a customer. After that experience, I immediately contacted Thryv and signed up for ThryvPay.

All I do is digital advertising and all of a sudden, I went to send a review to go on to Google to one of my customers through Thryv and they set things up for me so I could easily do it. The link is right there and it comes back saying, “Your Google account has been suspended.” It's a big ordeal and I'm trying to get it back. They suspended the account for a security reason. I was using my UPS box as my address, which they don't like. So, I immediately went on but I didn't know how to do it. It was all set up from the first advertising company that I had. I went in and I changed the address to my home address and just listed it so that customers can't see the address and did it that way. I had to fill out this form and send it to them. And they said it has been submitted. I had to try 10 times before it was submitted correctly, but it was submitted. And I've been waiting two weeks, and I'm still not on Google. I'm still suspended.

I have had some customers that have been able to get ahold of me. A lot of them, when they search in Dade County, they come up with my friend in Broward County who is the franchisee there. And as soon as they call him, he tells them to call me so, I've gotten a few there. But this time last year, I was booked four weeks out. And I'm only booked two weeks out. And most of the bookings I've got are from commercial customers that I've serviced in the past and references. It's not been very much from people searching. And that's the brunt of our business. Because once we do service for people, they don't need us for many years after that.

Thryv is coming on Monday, sending a videographer, which isn't costing me anything, to do some 60-second things to put on to YouTube and different kinds of social media. Nobody's ever offered anything like that before. They also had somebody go over my website. I told the old company who set up the website that I wanted to add a gallery and they said they would be glad to help me with that for $150 an hour. I told them to forget it and to just show me how to do it. But they never did. Thryv came in and said they would help me with that for free. And they've made some excellent changes. All Thryv has done is try to help me every step of the way.

I spoke to my franchisor and told them how much Thryv is giving me and what kind of service they're giving me at what price and that they've been doing everything very well. So, I even expressed on our quarterly conference call amongst the other franchisees that I found this new company if anybody's looking. I've been happy with Thryv so far. I just want my phone to be ringing a lot more.

The paid advertising service is the only thing I don't like, and it's the most expensive thing. I would never recommend anybody for that. I've been paying for Google ads now for over a year, and my phone rings at least 20 calls a day. Out of that, I convert at least 5 to 10, which is good for my business. The way Thryv was going at 59 in a month, I can't do nothing with that. That's not translating to anything. However, thryv does great in other aspects, and I recommend for the stuff that I love, like the website service and social media posts. The $349 a month is worth it.

Thryv offered me a deal and I'm somewhat stuck in there for another three months. It's either that or I was gonna just have somebody recreate the website then go somewhere else. I committed to the six months, but in the past, I wouldn't really care. I would just switch to a different company, regardless. Right now, I'm willing to give it another shot. I'm not that optimistic, but I'm really curious to see if the results will change if I continue. I'm hoping that the results change for me to want to continue the service.

My representative thought it would be a good idea and recommended that every new customer that we get, we're going to ask them to write a Google review for us. So I asked all my previous customers to write a Google review but because my business wasn't set up on Google, anybody that got that email, even if they wanted to leave a review, the link was broken. That was a big disappointment. All Thryv did was give me a credit for a month and a half. I was still quite unhappy. The issue wasn't resolved. It's still an ongoing thing.

The customer comes in as a Square receipt number. So you don't have an email or a text from them, or you don't get the customer's information at the time of the sale. When you want to send them an email, or if you wanted to reach out to them, there is some data in there. If you look through Square, you can actually get the data, but it doesn't tag on to that when you bring them into Thryv. But there is a way. If you go through and click on the sale, and then click into the sale, and then click another part of the transaction, it does have some data there that can be used. So I asked the initial lady that was setting me up before I graduated to the next part, and then she said, “Oh, no, you can't get that information.” So told her, “Well, just delete all those receipt numbers. What’s the point of me having them? I can’t do anything with those customers.” So then she deleted them all.

Five months later, I was speaking to a guy on customer service, and we went through the issue again. We found out that you can actually get the information. It just doesn't appear on Thryv or on the front end. You have to click in through the Square, through the transaction, and then there is some contact information there that didn't get dragged over. I’m happy that we found that out, but now, I’m a bit messed up that I’ve lost all that information on Thryv.

If I use the same CSV file, and I drag it over into Thryv, is it gonna duplicate all the customers that were already there? Is it gonna flag them up? He understood my concern and he worked on it whilst he was at home. He had people helping him as well. They basically cleansed the entire thing. They took all the duplicates out and replaced them. So that was a really great service. He saved Thryv from me complaining again. He completely overserviced me. That was an outstanding way to handle that particular situation.