Marsello: Omnichannel Loyalty

Caution: Unreliable Service and Unresponsive Support

We had a very disappointing experience with this company. After dedicating three months to testing their platform, we encountered numerous bugs and technical issues. Despite this, we were charged in full during that entire period.

In the first month, we were billed for an API and an additional site, despite not having any additional sites. We raised this issue multiple times but received little to no support. Our main point of contact, Jason McLean, was dismissive of our concerns, repeatedly stating that their company is exceptional and without faults.

Unfortunately, their loyalty program was completely unusable due to persistent bugs, and their customer service was slow to respond. When we requested a refund for the services we couldn’t use, we were told that they do not offer refunds, citing their terms and conditions.

There is alot more to say about it, but we will leave it here.

We strongly advise caution if considering this company.

I was an early adopter of this app on the free plan. They decided to do away with that plan and are asking a min of $1,500 a year to unlock my data (that's a pretty big jump from free!)

It's unfortunate that an app that's supposed to help me build loyalty with my customers would treat their loyal users with such disrespect! I am scared to trust them again even if I did start paying. I don't know how to get my data out so I can keep my promises to my customers.

Customer service is absolutely terrible. The experience has been disheartening and only foreshadows what is to come if we stay with them. We just signed up with Marsello and as soon as we became a paying customer, we couldn't get a hold of anyone. BEFORE signing up, I met with several staff members and they all seemed quite eager to help. Support does reply to our emails but the response time is usually about 6 or more hours. Even then, you reply and they don't get back to you for another few hours with a very generic response. How do you expect a business owner to sit tight while being kept in the dark? Customers have already signed up and waiting to use our loyalty program, only to be told it isn't working. This has a negative impact and only serves to discredit our business in the eyes of our customers. 'Ghosting us' speaks to their lack of professionalism as a whole. Their point system is buggy and it is evident. They haven't ironed out all the kinks.

We were with MARSELLO for a few years and then suddenly we had been charged hundreds more as they charge per customer with their new pricing structure. It is a complete scam and not worth it.

3 Aug: We do offer gift cards on our store and it was only last week we realised the purchase of gift cards would automatically be rewarded with points, which customers use the same gift cards to purchase items on our store and get rewarded with points again. That's duplication of points. We raised this to the customer support team, and Abby responded in exact words. "This wouldn't be considered a duplicate by the system." Abby also said. "We appreciate the feedback as we haven't had any similar opinions on gift card purchases being awarded points".

By principle, gift cards should be seen as currencies, not a SKU in your inventory. When someone purchase a gift card worth $1000, who use it to purchase $1,000 worth of goods, merchants are now obliged to give $2000 worth of points which they could have just given $1,000 worth of points. If this is not duplication, what is it?

Points should not be given to gift cards by default. If merchants decide to do so, they may have the option to opt in. Reward points are currencies and we ought to be careful with how it's being managed. Marcello's decision to make the opt-in as a default feature is a careless and inconsiderate one.

We have made quite a significant loss due to the duplication of points. I'm sharing here so merchants are informed and can do the necessary to opt-out reward points from gift card purchases.

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28 May: Issue was rectified on 24 May. Matt did his best to rectify the problem and offered compensation for the loss and technical glitch which I appreciate. Although the glitch is taking a toll on our customer service's time (and we have no idea when the queries would end), we're pleased that Matt asked for thorough feedback so that preventive measures could be implemented. We had a constructive discussion and I believe the Marsello team would do their best to work on the enhancements.

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24 May: All loyalty points were erroneously deposited / duplicated twice on 10 May and to our dismay, we only found out 2 days ago. 38 hours have passed - the problem hasn't been rectified and our questions not addressed yet. We're crossing over the weekend (we're in SGT) and another 48 hours will be lost.

We're going into a full blown crisis mode now and are forced to switch off the program. We have customers rushing to claim the vouchers and many of them have already used the vouchers from 10 May to 22 May. A huge loss is incurred and we're still waiting for the Marsello team to rectify and issue an official response.

The matter has been escalated to Shopify and has expressed their full support towards our demand of compensation from Marsello. But first, the problem needs to be rectified and we're still waiting.

Price hike is insanity for small online shops. $125/month being the smallest loyalty option after having been on a free plan for years is way too high.

We've been loyal customer with Marsello for over 5 years. We initially singed up for their unlimited plan for $199/month. Out of no where, during the busy black Friday season, they paused our account demanding over $3,000+/mo. The recent change took our store from $199 per month to $3,000+ per month with no benefits. I signed up for unlimited contacts and unlimited emails from the beginning. The price suggested is outrageous as there are many other alternatives available for better prices. This is a shame given our continued business relationship for almost 5 years. It is crazy Marsello would do this to a loyal customer and demand us to pay 15x what we have been paying. I am hugely disappointed. It is extremely frustrating that I have such little time to make changes to a 5 year system, especially with the busy holiday season. Would never recommend this to anyone.

$100+ a month....what? LOL. Bye Marsello! You were great when you were great. I'm not sure what the heck warrants 9.99 to $130/month but I'll gladly find another rewards program for my customers.

Also revised 5 star review to 1 star. I've had the exact same experience as the person below - Mountain Madness Soap Co. Marsello is clearly being run by new owners. Also on a grandfather plan, my fees went up without warning. Even worse is they paused my loyalty app without telling me! I had to wait until a customer contacted me asking when our loyalty app will be back online! In contacting support they were unapologetic, didn't care why I was on the old plan and pretty much said this is the new plan, pay up if you want your loyalty app to go back online. In the process of changing apps now

Revised 5 star review to 1 star. I do not know what has happened with Marsello and am honestly dismayed by our recent experience with them. We have been a customer for 3 years and have had a good relationship with them, have been beta testers, and have even been a success story for their marketing department. Yesterday I needed to do some manual account maintenance and discovered that we were locked out of the admin interface because we had exceeded 10,000 customers. In addition, the customer facing rewards interface was no longer working on our web site. We were apparently on some grandfathered plan at $59/month and they randomly decided to do away with that and wanted us to switch to their new "pro" plan based on number of customers. Sure, no problem UNTIL they said our pricing would go from $59 to $559 PER MONTH. An 800% price increase and the hobbling of our installed (and paid for) software is absolutely inexcusable. At this point we were essentially being held hostage until we paid. After getting the same "I know this is a bit of a shock" circular run-around from the support chat person, I asked them to have someone contact me ASAP. Well, I have not heard back from anyone at Marsello and we have customers emailing, calling and messaging about their rewards account. So, today we made the decision to simply dump them and switch to a different rewards application. On the plus side, Marsello made it easy for me to export our customer data along with point balances and I was able to import that into a different reward app that I had up and running in a few hours. Marsello has seemingly gotten too big for their britches. When we first signed up, it was just a loyalty program and did a good job at it. Then, over time, they made it into a customer relationship management software and email and SMS marketing software. Some of their automations are good, such as abandoned cart emails, but for the most part we continued to use it only for loyalty purposes since we have other applications that handle those aspects of our business. Bottom-line: growing eCommerce businesses, watch out for the bait and switch. Despite their response here indicating that there was a resolution, there was not one.