“Press one to reach our customer service department. Press two for our sales department…For all other inquiries, press star. Press the pound key to return to the previous menu.”
Surely you’ve heard this one too many times: calling to complain about a T-Mobile phone bill after being charged with hidden fees, scheduling a doctor’s appointment, or getting in touch with Yahoo! in regard to your local listing. Whichever the case may be, it’s a headache, a vicious cycle, and you end up not resolving anything!
There is hope. As opposed to Yahoo! and Google, Bing offers a live chat to ease your worries. It’s no automated machine, nor is it a person ready to direct you to the wrong department. It is a real person, real conversation and chatting with you – real time.
No more dealing with phone calls you dread making, as you try to get past the automated machine. Bing Business Portal Support offers a virtual chat session and will assist you with any Bing related issues. The chats are personalized and tailored to your immediate request and they are super friendly, too! Bing’s support chat is dedicated to their Microsoft and Bing users. Their reps provide answers and discover solutions to Bing business listing issues you may be experiencing. A few problems may include:
- Previously claimed listings
- Removing duplicate, competing listings
- PIN numbers not registering when verifying your listings
- General questions
- Log in issues
- Any other issues you’re struggling with
Get What’s Yours
So you’ve claimed, prepared, and optimized the listing you wish, but arrive at a verification screen that displays this message: “This listing has been claimed and verified by another user.” Hey, it happens. But there is an easy fix.
Bing’s support chat will help release the claim on the listing you want. To expedite this, the Bing representative will request a verification email from the email associated with your business. For example, if your business is Panera Bread, Bing will request an email from *****@panerabread.com, verifying that you are connected to the business. This is so not just anyone can claim your business listing.
Once Bing receives an email from your business’ email address, the listing will be approved under your ownership. Bing representatives also will verify your listing after releasing the claim from the previous owner. No need to endure the long days of having your listing screened as you wait impatiently, unaware of what is going on behind the scenes. The listing is now yours and it is verified.
Duplicates: Say Bye-Bye to PIN-Verify
With Bing, there are several ways to remove duplicate listings. One of the most common ways is to claim, PIN verify, and then hide them on Bing Maps. This tactic works and may take 2-6 weeks for Bing to remove the duplicate off Bing Maps; in some instances it may take longer. Google offered the same strategy for removing dupes before they released Map Maker.
Another way to deal with duplicates – although it may not be the ideal practice – is running a community edit on the listing itself by clicking “Report a Problem.” There is an option to mark the business as closed. This may or may not remove the business from Bing Maps.
Using Bing’s support chat is a viable process for removing your duplicates. It’s simple. Once you’ve gathered all your duplicate listings, save the URLs until you meet a Bing rep on chat and instant message them those URLs. A Bing rep will take it from there, verifying and ensuring the URLs you’ve sent are legitimate duplicates – and that you are not some pretentious, first page-invested business owner who wants to wipe out all competing listings conflicting with yours. To verify true competing listings, Bing reps require an email from your business verifying that the business is active and located at the address provided. Other times, Bing reps call the phone number on the duplicate listing you want removed. The help is flexible. If you prefer one method over the other, discuss with them and determine which process is better for you.
Bing Support chat may not make up for its search engines’ struggling popularity – proven by the majority of internet users, consumers, entrepreneurs and the remaining Google-elitists – but they aren’t the least favored either.
According to a recent statistic by eBiz (April 2013), Bing trails Google by over 700 million users, with an Alexa rank of 22 versus Google’s Alexa rank of one. (Alexa is a well-known ranking system that audits and retrieves a website’s rank depending on its page visits. Webmasters and advertisers may use Alexa to measure their website’s efforts and that of their competitors). Bing does exceed Yahoo by 5 million users compared to past years, when Yahoo held the lead.
No machine-operated calls, unattended forum posts and headaches over your questions and concerns! Bing Live Chat is committed to taking the initiative in providing solutions that best fit your situation. It’s free. It’s easy! All you need is a contact email and name to start the conversation. No more waiting. Help is a keyboard and mouse click away!
*Bing Business Portal has recently migrated to Bing Places for Business. Updates and changes (due to the new interface) has taken effect and few things mentioned in this article are subject to change.