Reacting to Hootsuite’s monumentally bad customer service — Reaction Time 005

Martin Henley
4 min readJun 17, 2022

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The indefatigable Andy Gwynn and I reacting to Hoostsuite’s monumentally bad customer service.

It’s true what Andy says, the fish stinks from the head down and Hootsuite’s leadership absolutely reek!

00:00 Introductions.

2:19 What’s happening in this video.

6:10 Hootsuite helping themselves to customers money.

15:38 Hootsuite’s complete lack of respect for their customers.

24:42 The worst possible way to increase your prices.

33:15 Hootsuite’s leadership setting the example of how not to do their job.

38:18 What can business owners learn from this.

Martin Henley 2:19

So we’re making another one of our reaction videos. So this is good. So for those who haven’t been here before, I think we only did one before, but I got upset about Gary Vaynerchuk And we watched some of his content and you calmed me down and I felt better. I haven’t really been thinking about going to war with Gary Vaynerchuk since so this is part reaction video part counselling for me.

Martin Henley 2:40

Now, I don’t know if you are going to approve of what I want you to react to today but I’ve thought long and hard about this. This happened like three and a half months ago, what happened three and a half months ago and I still think I want to make this video, it’s not as if I’m going off. You know, I do have a bit of a celtic temper but this isn’t temper. I tell you what it is, what I know about digital marketing, I teach digital marketing, I’ve done digital marketing forever. What I know about digital marketing is that somewhere between 60 and 70% of the difficulty is in dealing with the platforms, it’s in dealing with Facebook, in dealing with YouTube, with Google, with Twitter with whatever.

Martin Henley 3:31

I’m just getting back into things, I’m starting to work hard again and I’ve already got three or four of these issues going on where things aren’t working, I’m not getting a response, they’re still taking money from me. I’ve just started a guy that guys came on board and I’m like, this is essentially digital marketing, this thing doesn’t work, it could cost you a day or two to try and get it fixed and get it working again.

Martin Henley 3:53

It feels like if I am serious about supporting people to be successful in their business and be more proactive in their marketing, I can’t not tell them that 60% of the challenge is dealing with these want to say arsehole organisations. Your not disagreeing with me so far?

Martin Henley 4:15

So about three months ago, I had a an incident with one of these companies, not me 1000s of people around the world, I think maybe millions of people around the world had a run in with this particular company or and maybe they don’t know, so I don’t know what it is. So today, what I want you to react to is my experience and the appalling customer service of a company called HootSuite. Are you familiar with Hootsuite?

Andy Gwyn 4:42

I don’t know other than Mary uses them, or has used them. So yeah, and you’re right you didn’t mention LinkedIn in that platform, which is my predominant, predominant sole focus. That’s rubbish, among other things, but LinkedIn is core to my business and they are huge and LinkedIn just changes stuff. Their help centres are useless. I remember my nephew getting blocked for something, actually nothing, nothing. It’s just random, it was algorithmic, I’m sure. He had to send in proof of ID in the UK this kids at university, and it’s going to cost him money. Recently I was messaging them to fix our system. I noticed they’ve changed that because a client of mine got the same, but he could just send something off. You can’t change them in my my view, they are what they are. You got to get over it, around it, let it go and just focus on it serving us; what do I need to do to get value from this service?

Andy Gwyn 5:38

But yeah, when when you get onto that I’ve been dealing with banks lately, for a different reason. It’s frustrating, it’s happening, I can, I’m sure, I can share something that’s just gone on with another organisation. It’s frustrating, because I think the bigger it is, the harder it is to control. I’ve run SME businesses. I’ve been involved with corporates, and there’s no way I’d want to run a bigger business now. No way, I’d rather not be involved in a corporate, definitely not running a country because it’s just even more bonkers.

Andy Gwyn 6:06

So go on, shoot, let’s have a look at some of the good shots.

Martin Henley 6:10

Okay, so let’s go. So I, I think I think I want to be the small businesses marketing champion, I want small businesses to be successful.

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Martin Henley
Martin Henley

Written by Martin Henley

Martin has built a reputation for having a no nonsense approach to sales and marketing and for motivating audiences with his wit, energy, and enthusiasm.