Hellopeter does not practise what it preaches - MUST READ!

<div>We run a SME and after several weeks of speaking to a Hellopeter Salesperson, on 10 November 2022, we decided to sign up as we were promised a host of functions and features that would help us manage and grow our online reviews.

We were also promised that we would be allocated a "Customer Success Manager" who would show and assist us with regards to setting everything up and assisting us on a month to month basis to ensure that we got the best out of our Hellopeter Subscription.

We settled on a package that cost just under R10 000.00 for 12 months and 4 days after making payment, we were contacted by the "Customer Success Manager". She assisted us with some basic information and we then tried to setup a follow up meeting thereafter to track progress and clarify a bunch of other questions that we had.

The last correspondence we have in this regard was on 14 December 2022, when we mailed the "Customer Success Manager" and asked:

"Hi ***,

I hope you are well.

I have meetings this morning and 11:00 today might be a little tight.

Any chance we can move it to Monday?

Thanks and regards, ***x"

We never received a response to this email and request and then never heard anything from anyone at Hellopeter again until 21 November 2023 after our Subscription had expired and we did not renew the Subscription. (Yes, we never heard from anyone from Hellopeter for more than 11 months.)

The email read as follows:

"Hi ***

I hope you are well and having a wonderful week!

I noticed that you did not renew your Hellopeter subscription for and I wanted to take this opportunity to ask if you have any feedback on your experience with Hellopeter and why you have decided not to renew your subscription

Alternatively, if you need any assistance doing so then please let me know.

We value what you have to say and are always looking for ways to enhance the platform and our offering.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards, ***"

We responded on the same day as follows:

"Good afternoon,

We were promised that we would have someone overseeing our account and assisting us every step of the way in order to manage and create a positive HelloPeter experience. That did not happen, not even once after the initial discussion after we signed up.

Hellopeter is, as I suspected, but was assured was not the case by HelloPeter Staff, nothing short of ***. You incentivise individuals to post about their experiences with Businesses within a culture where 99.9% of people who would be inclined to do so have either had or will find a reason to speak of a negative experience. You then use that experience and the person’s information to force Businesses to pay You money in order to be able to properly respond to the forced posts/reviews. Then, on top of that, You try to sell the details of the Customers who post about the Businesses back to those Businesses to make even more money.

Then, when a Business does sign up and try to embrace what You are purporting to sell/offer, You take their money and do absolutely nothing.

All of the great and amazing features and support that we were promise by the Salesperson did not materialise and we literally did not hear from another HelloPeter Employee until it was time to cough up more money.

You claim to be all about Customer Service, but You are anything but. What You do should is absolutely deplorable.

Instead of doing something positive, or at the VERY LEAST, honouring the commitment that You have made to paying Customers, You instead chose to promote, encourage and incentivise negativity and toxicity towards SME’s in South Africa.

HelloPeter is the antithesis of Customer Service, yet it uses the veil of “Customer Service” to trick consumers and *** businesses for it’s own financial gain while not offering a drop of it to it’s paying Customers.

Sincerely, ***"

Unsurprisingly, we never received a response from the "Customer Success Manager" or anyone else from Hellopeter for that matter.

Then, on 17 January 2024, we emailed her again as follows:

"Good afternoon ***,

Please advise if we can expect a response to the email that I sent to You on 21 November 2023, below.

Many thanks, *** "

And as you can guess, no one at Hellopeter has bothered to respond.

The contents of our emails to them speak for themselves. I urge all parties, both businesses and individuals considering to sign up and/or post reviews to consider the above when deciding whether to do so.

Hellopeter, you should be ashamed of yourself. How can you run a business model where you encourage members of the public to write reviews about businesses and then use that information to force those business to have to a.) pay you to be able to respond to those reviews and b.) even when they do pay you, not only do you limit their access to those reviews, but you do not even provide the services that you undertook to provide. And then, when that business calls you out on it, you do not even bother to respond to their emails, let alone acknowledge and address the issues.

I urge anyone reading this to go and look at Hellopeter's rates and packages to businesses. For around R1000.00 per month, a business can only respond to 10 reviews and ask for contact information on 10 reviews. (And request 100 x Customers do post a review.)

R1000.00 per month is a lot of money to a SME and for it to only allow the above and then for Hellopeter to not even provide the services that it promises is, well... You can decide.

On top of all of this, if we log in to our profile on Hellopeter now, we do not have access to ANY of our reviews and data. We cannot see what reviews have been written, we cannot see the replies that we did previously, or the information requested (And paid for previously.)

There is a message at the top of the screen that says something along the lines of: "Renew your subscription to get access to your profile and data."

In other words, we can't even get access to our old reviews, replies and data that we paid for under our subscription.

Again, I urge you to take the above facts into account and make up your own mind in terms of the Hellopeter business model and how it operates.

It makes one wonder who is benefitting and who and what is the real product (puppet) here?

I am sure that I will get some sort of a response from Hellopeter after this apologising and saying it was an oversight or something along those lines. But why should it take something like this for it to happen? (If it happens.)

How many other business has and is this happening to as we speak?

Surely a company that is supposedly built on promoting Customer Service and Satisfaction should first get it's house in order before having the audacity to have a business model and operate in the manner that it does.

Please let our experience guide you in your decision making process.</div>