Our company recently reached out to B Public Relations (Boudoir PR) n late December 2014. After an initial discussion they said all the right things, as one would expect from a PR company, such that we decided to have a face-to-face meeting.
The following month was spent trying to get a meeting in the diary. The company would ignore our emails for days and would only respond after we sent a follow up email. Once we got as date confirmed I emailed in the morning to confirm and this email, again was ignored, until an hour before we were supposed to meet when she informed us that her Nanny had broken a tooth and such the meeting would need to be rescheduled. The company suggested that we could reschedule any time that week as they were completely free. But when we proposed the Thursday 12hrs later they were magically no longer available. At this point after so many red flags I wrote them offering her the opportunity to be honest and tell us they werent interested in us as a client. They proceeded to say that wasn't the case and even offered a compliment about our business such that she swayed my mind. We finally agreed a meeting on the 30th January 2015.
At the meeting the company again said all the right things and we ended up having what we thought was a very positive meeting. They said that they would get a proposal over to us and we parted ahead of the weekend. 7 days went by and not so much as a thank you email from the company let alone any feedback on when we could expect the proposal. After a week I emailed asking if I misunderstood about her sending a proposal. They replied that it would be with us the by the end of the day. The end of the day passed and then so did the next and then I finally decided to do some more digging on Boudoir PR/ BPR and then I came across other negative reviews on different websites.
Once I saw this everything became clear. I eventually got a proposal, if you can call it that, 12 days after our meeting. It was a cut and paste proposal that was clearly written for someone else. Our company name was spelled incorrectly and there was not one specific example of how Boudoir PR/ BPR would add value to our company such that it could justify its demand for a £3000+/month retainer plus The proposal looked more like a job description for a PR account executive than a road map to PR success.
After sending the proposal nothing further was ever heard from Boudoir PR/ BPR. Not even so much as an acknowledgement email asking if the proposal had been received OK. It was almost like they were embarrassed for what they send across but in their mind sending this was better then sending nothing at all.
I was exposed to the company's arrogance and that I wasted almost two months of my time trying to engage them in a meaningful dialogue. I was lucky as I saved spending thousands of pounds before by realising that everything they were told in the on boarding process was a lie.
Avoid this agency at all costs. read more
