Review Voice123

[Grant Holmes]

The last time I sent an email to customer service was late last week. Still no response. It was about.... (surprise coming here...) LEADS! You didn't guess did you???

dang.

I seldom open my daily summaries, but I did this time and among female only or location specific leads (that I DO understand why I didn't get), was a lead PERFECT for me. The system would NOT allow me to audition, as I was never invited in any way, AND the lead was still looking for auditions.

As far as I'm concerned that amounts to keeping me OUT of the market place, NOT giving me an entry into it (which is what I thought I was paying for). I have been contemplating asking for a refund, but in another reply, I said I'd been looking at it as "pay to practice".

Today, I'll tell voices.com to let me practice at a cheaper rate and am canceling VO123.

[KaraEdwards]

Just for the sake of helping someone decide whether to join...

On a few occasions I've had a lead come into my e-mail, clicked on it, and find it is closed. I work from home full-time, so my response is immediate to these lead e-mails. Still no go.

I e-mailed customer service to alert them to the problem, and received a reply stating I was wrong, and this does not happen.

It said- "Actually Voice123 only sends invitations for projects that are still open and taking auditions." Hopefully, they really are working on the problem, and are just defending their product...we'll see.

I have also noticed in the weekly summary there are several leads that never reach me. I know for a fact a fellow talent with very similar vocal qualities to me booked a job I had never recieved a lead for. So the system obviously does not choose all appopriate talent for a job posting.

I've been told they will soon fix this, but if you try to search for a young sounding non-union voice talent with a home studio who does character and commercial voice over- you will not find me.

So far, I have not made enough money from the site to justify a $300 annual fee. In a few months, I will be letting my subscription run out unless there is a major change between now and then.

[Grant Holmes]

Two things come to mind...
1-Paraphrasing Dr. Phil.... You can't fix what you don't acknowledge.

2-old Microsoft joke about a new Army recruit that had worked in MS tech Support. It is his first day on the target range...

Recruit Picks up rifle, empties magazine and hits nothing.

Gunnery Sargent verbally abuses him for not hitting anything and an argument ensues about Recruit insisting that there is something wrong with the TARGETS and Gunnery Sargentinsisting that Recruit has a problem with shooting the gun.

Finally the Recruit gets so upset that he picks up his rifle, slams home a new clip, and chambers a round. Then he puts his finger over the end of the barrel and pulls the trigger, blowing off the finger.

"SEE!!!!!" he yells at the Gunnery Sargent, "The problem's on YOUR end!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[bobbin beam]

I view V123 as just one of the many compmoonents in my marketing approach. As for me, I am finally seeing more quality leads, and now finally getting back private leads (mine disappeared when "Smartcast" debuted) and just booked a decent narration. I've recently emailed them some suggestions, and they implemented one of them. I feel they've been responsive to me. I've made my investment back and then some.

[KRMDjames]

I hated voice 123. the audio demo's were low quality mp3's...I would upload audio for a lead within minutes, yet my auditon's were always buried beneath the 100-175 members in front of me. How could a client ever get to my audio...focus on getting more clients, instead of recruiting new members.

[Julie Williams]

Bobbin,
What suggestion did they implement?

I do make some money from them now, but a LOT less than before. Voices.com is now getting me some pretty good leads, as is VO Planet.

I wish V123 would stop requiring custom demos on bottom feeder jobs! On occasion, I'll submit on a low paying job for a number of reasons... but then to have v123 write back that I'm unprofessional because I submitted two demos instead of a custom and a demo is an insult. I'm sorry, but sometimes we're:
Out of the office, busy, sick, not willing to bother with custom if budget is too low...
It should be OUR business what we submit.

I also resent their "warning" about how it's unprofessional to contact a customer outside of the service. Onine casting is relatively new, and voice123 is not going to dictate my business practices.

I respect my clients. I do not assualt, nor do I spam them. But I will gather names of prospects from anywhere and everywhere... including from agents, online services, the internet, Adweek's directory, the yellow pges, etc. And v123 has no right to tell me who I can and can't market myself to.

When I hire talent, I don't mind if they contact me directly with a question... or send me postcards or emails. The only thing I mind is unsolicited demos. (And I don't send unsolicted demos via email, either!)

[michelleann]

I don't want to go into it in detail, but I just had a transaction with voice123 that left me a bit hurt and very offended. I was emailed by them personally to ask for my opinion on their system since I've been a member for awhile. I wrote back what I felt honestly. It may have been a bit TOO honest, but it was truly how I felt and I did apologize if the tone came off as rude at the end of the email, telling them how much I appreciated them asking me for my feedback. The reply I received was very rude, basically making me into a bad guy and advising me that I should not be telling people out here in my classes that I prefer voices.com to voice123 when asked because "it's a small world after all". (I had mentioned that when asked, I do say I prefer voices.com and gave them the reasons why so that they knew! I was trying to be helpful on how they could improve their systems.)

The e-mail goes into other issues they apparently have with me over a forum post on their board awhile back when I was unhappy with their customer service, saying I started a toxic thread with a false accusation. I still do not feel I was wrong, but that's besides the point. Again, their reply today made me feel hurt and as if they were threatening me.

Anyways, I just had to add, their customer service is horrendous. As mentioned by a few others in this thread, if you email them about an issue, they will turn around and tell you that you are the one that is wrong. This time, I didn't even email them - they emailed me asking for my opinion!

I know this post is probably going to come back to haunt me, but I wanted to let people know of my experience.

[JoeActor]

michelleann - thanks so much for posting, and I'm sorry to hear about the rude reply you got.

I've stopped participating in Voice123 surveys. I suspect they are just cherry picking responses they like for their marketing materials. Based on my own experiences with them I would not assume that any negative feedback given would make much of a difference in the way they operate. The V123 car is on fire, and the staff is busy polishing the hubcaps.

Unfortunately, this kind of reply from them is not at all surprising.

Here's one of my own for the record:
Back when SmartCast was first introduced, I started an honest survey on SAVVY to see if it was being well recieved by the customers (VO's... not seekers!) The majority of replies indicated that SmartCast was a bad idea and should be removed. One exception was a post by "TJ BarBee" which was very caustic and insulting. We later found out he was the step-son of a contract employee for Voice123... AND that contract employee was also a VO! (can you say cherry-picking?) An apology was posted by the contract employee for his step-son's message, but no further action was taken by V123 staff. How do I know this? I still get emails from the contractor (Steven Lowell).

Again, I'm sorry you had to go thru such a nasty experience. I know how you feel, believe me.

Most of my use of V123 has become deleting low-pay, bad-match, or SmartCast expired leads. I only occasionally audition there, and unless things take a drastic turn for the better, I won't be renewing.

Your honest opinion is always welcome here - take care,
Joe J Thomas
Joe J. Thomas Acting Portfolio

[michelleann]

Joe - Steven Lowell is the one who sent me the terribly rude and offensive reply today. The survey e-mail wasn't a generic please fill out this form, but an email from STEVEN asking me as a long time member about my opinion on how to improve the service and what kind of work I've received. I replied in a professional, yet honest manner and was told that I made false accusations and essentially I should watch my back because the VO world is small.

I'm still just so flabbergasted. I've never received such poor customer service before!

[chrisrice]

I've been debating whether to sign up for any of the pay-for-play sites... reading about experiences like these makes the decision easier for me. Thank you for sharing!