Is Customer Street any good?

[Indizine]

Some business friends of mine have been approached with a package from Customer Street and asked me for my thoughts.

I dont know how good it really is, to recommend it. I suppose you have to have used it to really know if it's worth it. I wondered if anyone here has used it or knows more about it, and whether any decent results are achievable.

This is the offer:

Google

We provide you with 30 key phrases of your choice, including a website for every ten phrases, eachbeing fully optimized on Google UK . Each phrase must have a service/area within it, e.g. "golden widgets in yorkshire" or "sheffield widget manufacturers" etc. We allow you to change your key phrases upto 4 times throughout the term. (The examples are what I have insereted in place of my friends' examples).


The Websites

This package includes three websites, each registered to your business. Each website includes unlimited pages, free hosting, free domain registration and free software. The software enables you to manage and maintain your websites at your own convenience, checking hits, changing txt/products, layouts, graphics, adding pages etc.

Our Directories

First page positioning on all 3 of our online business systems;
www.smilelocal.com
www.moreuk.com
www.foreignpropertysales.com


Price for 12 months

£299.95 + VAT One Off Fee, £59.95+ VAT per Month

[getnoticed]

Considering each of the main pages offers you the chance to 'get listed for free' I don't see this as being of much use.

If your market is not foreign property what value would that add?

[Indizine]

because that was relevant to their market

[getnoticed]

For £1020 + VAT you could get a nice bespoke website with a CMS, hosting and enough SEO to get noticed, and still have change for paid listings (as well as adding yourself to these sites for free)

For some business the package option might be appealing, but you are limited to the amount of changes you can make and be tied in to a 12 month contract.

[Indizine]

Im specifically asking about Customer Street for them. They have a web developer already.

[getnoticed]

Well, considering I had not heard of their directories and spend a lot of time researching on the net and do not recall coming across them I would be hesitant about recommending them.

It looks like they have been acquired through the purchase of Ufindus Ltd in July 2008 by BT for £20m, which seems an absurd amount of money to have paid for a customer database of 20000 active customers (but a £14m revenue)
http://www.customerstreet.com/about_us.php

The company is sizeable with 300 employees - perhaps we know them as other names?

[Indizine]

Ive never seen them in Google search results either. I have said I wouldnt spend my money there and there are better ways to spend that same amount for better results.

[OldWelshGuy]

I haven't heard anything good about them

[wecando.biz]

You may want to ask this question over on UK Business Forums. I have read posts from people with VERY strong opinions there.

Please forgive the rival plug, I am just trying to help out!

IH

[Indizine]

That forum has nothing I want

would prefer facts based on usage or someone you know who has used it.