As many of you already know, we are smack in the middle of the automated content provider era. What many of you also know, is that the automated content provider era sucks. Are we biased? Hell, yes we are biased…but we also hear what many of our new clients are saying after using this kind of service.
As with many new technologies, the automated content provider is supposed to simplify the process and make it more convenient, but it only mucks everything up. Here are five issues with using an automated system to get your content, as told by real-life agencies and users just like you.
Say what you like about the time-consuming element of speaking to real people; most of the time I wholeheartedly agree. However, when it comes to content providers, not being able to get in touch with a real person when you need one is a real pain in the ass. It could be something as simple as giving a minor instruction you forgot to mention in the initial order, or something as important as talking over a new strategy.
People like to feel like they are being taken care of, especially in a service industry. Being able to get in touch with a real person when you need to provides incredible peace of mind, and it’s something most automated systems lack.
Automated content providers often end up creating the very problem they are trying to prevent, which is making you wait. If it’s late Friday afternoon and you need to place a quick order with special instructions or check on the status of a current project, you may be able to “submit a form” but you will end up waiting…and waiting….and, you get the picture.
Many automated content providers boast of having “thousands” of writers ready to take on your projects. It’s meant to reassure you that there will always be someone available to write your content, but more often than not it results in poor quality. When you’re unsure of the consistency you’ll get from project to project, it makes it increasingly difficult to meet deadlines with your clients, and does nothing for your peace of mind. You shouldn’t have to pay to cross your fingers and hope the content you get back is of sufficient quality.
Having a massive roster of writers also leads to another problem, which is accountability. We manage a small, high skilled group of writers and if you ever have an issue, you can contact us, and we can contact the writer personally to discuss what went wrong. Being accountable means the same issues won’t pop up in the future. So tell me, how in the hell can you effectively manage a group of thousands of writers, and maintain full accountability throughout the process? That’s right; it’s not possible.
And many of you have found out the accountability factor is non-existent when you had to edit and fix your own content every month. We’ve had clients tell us they needed in-house employees just to go through the content they received from an automated provider and fix all the mistakes. They paid for content to be produced, then had to pay again to have it fixed and made into something acceptable for their website.
Obviously, this type of model has too many glitches to be effective, especially if you need higher volumes of content on an on-going basis. That’s why we insist on having real humans available to speak to; we have smaller teams of writers who are held accountable for the work they produce, and we submit projects that don’t need a bunch of editing. We may be biased when it comes to automated content providers, but there’s a good reason for it. Give us a call today at 888.221.5041 to find out what we can do for you.
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