Meltwater

Ever heard the term "Gaslighting?" Well, that seems to be the mantra when it comes to Meltwater's customer service. We have used their social media tool "Engage" for over 3 years, and while the product has it's flaws (i.e. occasional disconnection, missing data, etc.) - the PEOPLE you'll work with are so much worse. Since Meltwater is a sales-based company, you will be pushed for their additional product and upgrades even after expressing there's not a need or the budget for it in your business. Additionally, you'll get a new account service rep every 3 months wanting to hop on a "quick intro call," asking you to re-explain your business needs over and over again. But the worst thing is, when you have an actual issue with the platform - GOOD LUCK GETTING IT FIXED IN A TIMELY MANNER. Instead, prepare for emails explaining why the problem "must" be on your end, needing to refresh your browser or "we're still waiting to hear back from the tech team." For example, we just got a social account hooked up after 1 month of follow-up emails, and might we add, the first time a rep actually went into the account themselves. Save yourself the drama of manipulative sales-tactics - and look for a different tool.

We did business with Sysomos (a social media monitoring service) for two or three years before they were acquired by Meltwater, and were very satisfied. When we renewed the contract with Meltwater, it contained the auto-renew clause that everyone is complaining about. The clause was not seen by anyone in our organization - lead user, purchasing, legal team. A year later, we wanted to renew but with fewer seats. But we missed the 60 day renewal date and Meltwater claimed that we were on the hook for the full amount, whatever services we purchased. Now Meltwater is dunning us and the matter is in the hands of our legal department. Please note that we are a university and we have exposed many hundreds of students to the Sysomos/Meltwater product. Now when students ask to use the service, we tell them about Meltwater's autorenewal scam and why we will never do business with them. My advice to anyone thinking of using Meltwater is: don't go near them. Customer goodwill and reputational equity don't seem to matter to them. A one-star rating is generous for Meltwater.

The interface is easy to use and easy to learn. There were no issues rolling this out to multiple users in our firm for basic searches and tracking media mentions of the firm and our projects. Overall when compared to using simple Google alerts for topics and media related to my firm, Meltwater was outperformed by the free service. When we let Meltwater know that we were interested in cancelled because of this, they deceptively asked that we wait to cancel implying our renewal date was several months away. In fact, in was much closer and we passed the deadline to opt out of renewal. However, this policy was not published anywhere that was easy to access but rather, is buried in a page on the internet, reachable by a link deep in our contract in fine print. We missed the official cancellation date because we were issued a final invoice the day after that deadline - when I challenged the invoice explaining it should have been clear we were cancelling the response was that we hadn't stated that clearly in writing before the 60 day window in advance of our renewal date. The 60-day window was another detail not shared with us when we called and emailed several times to complain about the service and express out intent to cancel. After weeks of "negotiation" we were threatened with legal action if we didn't compromise and spend an additional $2000 (as opposed to the $8000 they wanted us to pay) to extend our contract partially through the end of the year. I inherited this system as i joined a firm. I was aware of Meltwater and had never previously found a need for its services which are less successful than my experience using a PR person or team, Google alerts and/or reaching out on my own to find publication opportunities.

Lackluster. The company claims that their algorithm picks up more coverage than Google alerts. This is far from the truth. Major problems include (1) missing coverage: the service does not flag anything that is behind a paywall even if the mention is in the title (2) coverage reports are never in real time and can come in at most 2x per day. (3) missing vast lists of publications, especially trade pubs (even well known ones). (4) Do not support Bloomberg, and occasionally Dow Jones monitoring (5) disorganized staff that has no follow through. (6) coverage is often incomplete and clips are broken - don't respond on time which means we have to go through other routes to get everything in a timely manner. For the money this "service" is worth, Google provides a better news monitoring tool. Overall, they over promise and severely under deliver.

If I could give negative stars, I would. Meltwater is the shadiest organization I've ever had the displeasure of "doing business" with, if you could call it that. After numerous emails stating that we have no interest extending or renewing our contract with them, even after writing in a clause in our contract that stated "we will not renew and we have no interest in renewing," I've received several badgering emails from a "manager, client success," a "client success consultant," and an "area director, north america." This is the email I received from them today: "I just realized I never heard back from you on this and your account is set to expire soon - can you talk tomorrow at 11am or 1pm? Or this afternoon at 3pm? Please let me know, we can't close out your account without doing this. Best, Malin S On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 2:47 PM Malin S wrote: Hi Xxxx, My name is Malin and I'm Meltwater's Area Director overseeing our key accounts team in the East Coast. Gui filled me in on your conversations so thought I'd personally reach out to see how I can help. From my understanding, it looks like XY has decided to not renew with Meltwater to Marketing/PR/Comms spend to re-allocate resources to other business functions. While I totally understand the need to do so, I did want to note that you're using this tool daily to keep up with all of the news and social buzz happening around XY. That said, the tools you currently have are only about 10% of our suite of services. For example, I noticed that you're sending out Wire Releases via XYZ - we also have a comparable partnership with West (formerly Globe Newswire). Since Meltwater and XY has had a business relationship since 2015, I want to make sure we can find a mutually beneficial next step to potentially continuing our partnership. Do you have a few minutes to connect next week? Perhaps Wednesday morning around 10am? Looking forward to it! Malin" Really? They "can't close out" my account without "doing this?" Doing what? Sitting through another badgering, harassing phone call? Absolutely not! Don't make the mistake of wasting your time with this company.

The broadcast monitoring does not pick up the majority of alerts even when they include the keywords. In addition, when alerts are picked up, the interviews are 99% of the time incomplete and it could take days for the account rep to find the rest of the clip, which when working in a time sensitive industry is completely unacceptable. I require timely transcripts and clips, and I do not receive that from Meltwater. I was advertised a product that could replace my current media monitoring, yet Meltwater is so incredibly unreliable that I have not been able to cancel my other service. I am therefore paying for two services due to false advertising from Meltwater. Once they have your money, they do not care about providing good customer service.

Meltwater is a deceptive company: 1. They don't tell you this, but there is a 60 day cancellation policy, buried in their terms of use, which - by the way - is not included in the contract you sign. The terms of use are linked to, within the contract, but not attached to the contract. 2. The terms of use require you to email / write them 60 days prior to the end of your subscription term if you wish to cancel. After 60 days they lock you in for another entire year of overpriced 'service'. 3. They send an automated email a week after the 60 day renewal period has begun, "reminding" you that you will be using their service for another year, whether you like it or not. If they were an above-board company, they would send you an auto reminder email a week before they lock you in, letting you know that you are nearing your 60 day window. The fact that this 60 day policy is buried within the terms of use, not present in the contract, and not communicated by the sales people is evidence that Meltwater is an extremely shady company. Stay away from them.

Extremely poor service. Misleading contract that automatically renews 60 days before it expires and misleading payment terms: 14 days stated in the contract, not on the invoice. Contacted weekly for product up-sells but not a single notification e-mail or phone call when it was time to renew. Even though we had not been using the platform for months already and had discussed numerous times that we would end the contract as it was not delivering the service we were after. To then receive an invoice for another year, was quite a shock. Suddenly we had a new account manager and even after extensive discussions they were unwilling to terminate the contract, or even meet halfway. Very unpleasant.

I'm going on ten months of harassment from these people. Initially got a message from someone essentially pretending to be a news reporter with a question about a recent story. Called back to find myself on the receiving end of a very aggressive hard-sell solicitation. In an effort to be polite and open-minded, I did check out the demo product and found that it was just not something we were interested at the time. A few months later, they contacted me again and I did give them another look because we were actively researching social media monitoring products. It was then that I discovered how incredibly expensive they are. Perhaps the cost is worth it for companies who are the subject of widespread news media coverage. However, that is not true of my company despite their sales person's vigorous claims to the contrary. When I informed them that I'd be going with a different service - one that covered just what we were initially hoping to accomplish and only required a monthly commitment - I received an email with disparaging information about my choice and a desperate offer to knock $10,000 off of the previously quoted price for Meltwater's services. All of this leads me to believe this company is sketchy as all get-out and I won't be doing business with them even if we need services like theirs in the future. Despite the fact that I clearly and politely declined their services, my company is still in some kind of sales rotation because they drop of for a few months, then come back with a vengance. They leave voicemails that are misleading and use false caller ID (my favorite is the jewelry store). Most recently, they've also signed me up for notifications that look similar to Google alerts.

Not worth the high ticket price, especially for a smaller company. The website is not user friendly. It is difficult to self-navigate. What was offered to be a $6,000 “value” package, was then discounted to “$3200”, and then settled on $2,300, which is still outrageously priced for what you receive. The outreach distributions are not reliable, as there are many bounce backs from failed email addresses, which the sales reps claim they update and remove on a regular basis. Not true! And the filtering tool is beyond useless as it doesn't allow you to select multiple filters to yield any results. The customer service agent tells you to create your blast in a separate Word document, then copy it over to the site for publication and distribution since the site is unreliable to save the document as draft if written directly onto the news blast page. (I had the pleasure of losing the document TWICE, after spending an hour each time writing it.) if you don't read the fine print in the “Terms & Conditions” link (that no one reads since it shouldn't contain “important” information ie. you will be tied to an automatic auto-renewal if you do not email your cancellation 60 days prior to the renewal period). Very shady practices not to be transparent and put that IMPORTANT tidbit of information directly into the simple 1.5 page contract. There's PLENTY of room to include that one sentence on the half blank page so that you can catch it and read it easily. Unfortunately, it is like a hidden Trojan horse since it is placed in a separate link under Terms & Conditions. Definitely dishonest, but legal to do. Truth be told, you can strike that sentence from the contract agreement if caught ahead of time, as the agent told me AFTER the fact of the renewal! And of course, the sales rep reached out to see if everything is going well 45 days prior to renewal, instead of > 60 days of my renewal period. I would recommend looking elsewhere for a marketing platform that is easier and more reliable to use, and offers better search capabilities, along with better business practices.

Meltwater as a service platform isn't bad. I subscribed to Meltwater News for a full year at about $5,000. This gave me access to their media database which was relatively accurate. Some records were either out of date or not listed at all. But that wasn't my main complaint. No database can be 100% current or accurate. My main complaint is with the fact that your annual account is renewed automatically for $5,000 unless you give official notification 60 days before your current agreement is up. Yes, they include this language in the small print of the agreement, and bad on me for not carefully reading every line. But in this day and age to force clients to stay for another year at such a high rate is unthinkable. Stay far, far FAR away from Meltwater.

I knew my contract was coming up for renewal and requested a copy for review. By the time my account manager responded, (said she didn't see my request because she was on vacation) we were inside the 60 day written requirement for auto renewal. The result, since my account manager was unresponsive, their claim is that my company is on the hook for another year. I have paid to implement Meltwater at 3 different companies but this shady business practice has opened my eyes and I will never recommend them again. Despicable people and practices.

Meltwater talks the talks but does not walk the walk. They promise you the world but don't delver. They are very pushy to get you to sign and will work a great deal for you, but once signed you will realize that what they promised you is not what you get. Be sure to get everything in writing in an email from you sales person if you opt to deal with them. But my advice is to just STAY AWAY.

Meltwater is not transparent to the point of almost untruthful. They scam you into renewing business. If this is how they retain customers and work with the communication community, I expect other players in the market to takeover. They are unethical and value zero partnership. Wherever I go in my career I will never go with them again.

As all other reviews stated... shady, shady, shady. Stay away. They will promise you the world and offer no services that are anywhere near their claims. Their contracts are shady and almost impossible to get out of, even with clear communication. Stay far, far away.

Watch the Evergreen automatic renewal clause 8 of your contract. You will be automatically renewed unless you cancel 60 days before the contract date. And Meltwater increases its prices 10% a year, with no notification. You're on the hook to pay the invoice. A nasty shock all round.

Insanely poor service. DO NOT USE! I was two days late to cancel our service--which I was canceling because I received zero value from. They would not let me out of my contract--for being two days late to cancel!

I'm very disappointed in the service and their tactics. If you use this service, make sure to read every word of the contract. You will be automatically renewed if you don't cancel 60 days in advance.

After purchasing Meltware software it really failed to deliver. Overpriced and severely underwhelming.

Poor customer service, and intimidation/bullying used extensively by their teams.