Thryv

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 calendar in Thryv is lacking the ability to be able to put an address in there as well. What we do right now is we have a group thread and we send the addresses to each other. We have a schedule, "Okay. Tuesday we're in Ocala and we're going to this job." It's really brief and to the point. They're all three boys, and we need to be able to put the amount of the job and where it is. All the other information do not have to be in it.

We also paid for the SEO package, and I didn't notice a big difference for the first few months. Our phones barely ever rang. They told me that it takes a while for it to happen, but financially, we just couldn't keep affording that. We did it for six months. I talked to Joe, and he did something. Our phones are definitely not ringing off the hook, but they started ringing a little better in the last five weeks. Overall, Thryv has done a great job and I would definitely recommend them.

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.

Thryv had a problem with their Yext also trying to list the two businesses together all the time, even though they're two completely separate businesses. And still, they kept trying to link them together for some reason. But other than that, the service rep that I have has been phenomenal. Even when all this was going on with the one website, she was in there trying to figure it out and get things fixed and done. She wants everybody to be successful, which is awesome.

There's so much that you have to learn as a small business owner about if you're going to try and do your own websites, or your own publications, your own social media. That stuff takes time and effort. The good thing is that Thryv helps with that stuff, and it helps with your listings. Like my training site, because of them adding Yext, Yext puts all my stuff the right way on 70 different search engines and that's huge. As a small business owner, I had no concept that I had to do it. I thought that since I got Google, Bing, and Yahoo, I’m covered.

Tools are easy to use on the website. You can go in there and do a lot of cool stuff with it. The platform’s basic. It does not have a lot of bells and whistles to it, but it works. The other good thing is they actually do the website for you, then all you got to do is just go in there and do some tweaking. They’ll get you set up, it takes about two weeks, and they have you up and running. They take all your feedback and they meet with you.

Their customer service has been great. Charlie will come to the office anytime we need. She's offered to come in and train us but we just don't have the time. The girl that did the website was also fabulous. She was amazing to work with. We had one guy train me on the Thryv dashboard, but then he left and then they assigned another person to us. When she went to train me, she didn't know what the guy had already told me, so she just started over and I learned the same thing twice. There's also always someone to talk to and they are willing to do as many video chats and training as needed.

But so far, Thryv works well for us. It's a good service to have. The level of knowledge is on point. They really sell the product. If we have any questions, they would answer them without hesitation. If they're not able to, they'll get back with us after they asked a question to someone else.