Scripted Customer Service from Google Boost
I know my endless ranting about business practices I don’t like might be getting old, but I just want things to be so much better! Here is a transcript of my interaction with the Google Boost team:
I filled out a “keyword feedback” form on the Google Boost dashboard:
Keyword “video camera repair” is not applicable to my business. We work with still cameras only.
I received a response five days later:
Thanks for your email and apologies for this delayed response. I reviewed your campaign and see that the keywords related to ‘video camera repair’are included in the category ‘Camera Repair Shop,’ that you’ve selected for your campaign. I see that this category includes several relevant keywords for your business besides these. Note that the keywords you see in your Google Places account > Boost ad activity section are not the entire list of keywords. While I understand that few of the keywords like these may not be highly relevant to you, they’re included because these could be relevant for advertisers advertising under this category. Since Boost manages your keywords automatically, it chooses the keywords based on the categories you’ve chosen. Therefore it’s not possible to exclude individual keywords at this time. However, I’ll pass on your feedback to the concerned team who consider such feedbacks to make overall improvements to categories.
I wouldn’t suggest you to opt out of this category as you may lose out on other potential relevant keywords. However, you can edit your Boost ad, to make it more relevant and clear about the services you offer. That way, users looking for less relevant keywords will be less likely to click on your ad.
Also, note that your Boost ads will not affect your organic listing ranking.
Sincerely,
Chayanika
The Google Boost Team
I didn’t really like the suggestion that clicks on irrelevant ads is just a cost of doing business with Google Boost. My response:
Thanks for your response. However, I hope you and the Google Boost team takes into consideration the fact that not only do I not want to pay $4 a click, I don’t want to pay that much to advertise a service that I don’t offer. My point in sending you the feedback isn’t to say that some keywords are “less relevant”, but rather that some of them are not relevant at all, which is a deal-breaker for myself, and I’m sure many others.
And then I received this totally irrelevant scripted response, which prompted me to post this publicly:
Hello,
Thanks for your response. With Google Boost, the system automatically bids on your keywords based on your monthly budget, and the system sets the bids to get you the maximum traffic possible. However, please be assured that you’ll never be charged more than your monthly budget in a 30 day period.
As Google Boost manages your campaign automatically for you, it’s not possible to edit the CPC bids at this time. However, you can edit the budget. A lower budget will make the system bid lower on your keywords, but it can also restrict your ad visibility and traffic.
To edit your budget, log in to your Google Places account > find the Boost Ad activity section > click on ‘Edit or deactivate ads’ > against the Monthly Budget, choose one of the recommended budgets or choose your own Custom budget > click on ‘Continue’ and follow the next steps as prompted by the system.
To gain more control like setting your own bids and choosing your own keywords, you may consider using more traditional AdWords campaigns.
Sincerely,
Chayanika
The Google Boost Team
I’m not a fan of scripted responses. I prefer when customer service representatives have the ability to handle customers using their own expertise, compassion, and good judgment. I guess companies hate doing this, because it opens them up to risk. Solution: hire the right people. Instead of just directly responding to my concerns, which I think were pretty straightforward, this person opted to try to find the most relevant scripted response, which ended up not being relevant at all.
