In response to the many changes that Google has made of late in Maps, Google is once again surveying some Map users (Survey URL) with questions as to speed of the service, quality of data and customer service level satisfaction. If the survey is unavailable at the link above you can view this PDF of the survey.
When Google upgraded Maps with the blueline upgrade in late July, they temporarily lost the abililty to allow easy rerouting of their directions. That loss led to an avalanche of small business complaints from companies that were using Google for daily routing of their vehicles. The most recent change to using TeleAtlas has led to a new series of complaints from SMB’s using Google’s routing noting that whole locations (not just the functionality) have been lost.
Has anyone seen Union County NC? That’s the question a small business owner outside of Charlotte, NC is asking of Google after their recent change to using TeleAtlas mapping data.
In this posting to Google Groups, this small business person, using Google Map’s routing, is complaining that the data necessary for his daily routing task is either missing or unusable due to its age. I wonder how he would answer the survey?:
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TOPIC: Totally lost - Tele Atlas disaster
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== 1 of 4 ==
Date: Mon, Sep 22 2008 7:54 am
From: “cbrente@gmail.com”
I’ve used google maps for almost four years to provide routing instructions for the drivers at my small business. It was always wonderful. Now, with this change in data providers, the maps for my local area are so outdated that they are unusable. I’m talking data that is in some cases 50 YEARS out of date. Roads that no longer exist or have been extensively re-routed, place names appearing that I had to ask my grandmother about, etc. Of course, the satellite overlay and the road map overlay are now utterly dissimilar.
I’ve tried reporting this to Tele Atlas but their error reporting system is designed to report ONE place incorrectly labeled or ONE street wrong. There is no way to report to them that a map for entire county (some 10 zip codes) has data from the 1940’s all over it. I have tried multiple times.
This is for Union County, NC (zips including but not limited to 28110 28112 28111 28174 28103 28104 28105. This is the eastern ‘burbs of Charlotte, NC, the 19th largest city in the freaking country. It isn’t like this was some backwoods locale.
Navteq was dead-on accurate. Tele Atlas is completely unusable. I’m going to have to migrate my entire system to maps.live.com as a result. They still use Navteq.
== 2 of 4 ==
Date: Mon, Sep 22 2008 12:48 pm
From: Maps Guide Adam
Thanks for letting us know about this issue. We’ve reported it to the data provider. As we mentioned in the following post you can report data errors directly to Tele Atlas using the link provided here:
Thread to report TeleAtlas problems
Thanks for your feedback.
Maps Guide Adam
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The take away is the many small businesses have grown to rely on Maps and are not afraid to let Google know of their dismay. I guess that one could say that “hell hath no fury like a small business person scorned”.
Hey Mike,
The problems are mounting, indeed!
I spent quite a bit of time filling out the survey. Thought you might like to see my response.
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=320
I’d like to know what you said…hint, hint.
Miriam
Comment by MiriamEllis — September 23, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Hi Mike,
People love Google Maps, but the recent switch from Navteq to TeleAtlas was not perceived positively by some members of our forum. Link to thread: http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/laptop-gps-software/945-google-maps-navteq-out-tele-atlas.html
Comment by Laptop GPS World — September 24, 2008 @ 7:15 am
Hi Laptop
Thanks for stopping by. Your members are not the only one. It will be interesting to see how long it is for TeleAtlas to get this squared away for Google. Certainly, the pressure is on both them and Google to do so given how high of a profile Google Map’s plays.
I would love to hear from someone who tracks a specific TeleAtlas/Google Map failing to see how long it does take. If it is the standard 6 months Google’s rep will suffer a great deal in that timeframe.
It was general wisdom in the industry that Navteq had better data in the US and TeleAtlas had better data in Europe. If that is the case, one has to think that in this transition Google negotiated for TeleAtlas to provide a speedier response than 6 months to the bad data.
Mike
Comment by Mike — September 24, 2008 @ 8:01 am
@Miriam
What about doing our own survey? I have been thinking about doing that for a while. Perhaps you could help me construct the questions?
All comers welcome!
Mike
Comment by Mike — September 24, 2008 @ 8:30 am
Hey Mike,
I’d be more than happy to do whatever I can to help. Just let me know.
Miriam
Comment by MiriamEllis — September 24, 2008 @ 8:38 pm
Who should we target with the survey? Search folks? Try to compare them with “civilians”? How would we get folks not in the industry?
Should we attempt to measure perceived quality?
Mike
Comment by Mike Blumenthal — September 24, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
Reported this Spam to Google.
Result ?
Nothing done.
This spammer uses a word press blog loaded with keywords repeated over and over, and over http://www.peerlesspressurewashing.com/roofcleaningtampa/
SEE if you can guess what the Keywords are
Comment by Steve Malinko — September 24, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
How to get civilians?
That’s tough. Honestly, Mike, of all the civilians I speak to, I’d say that 1 in 10 has any idea what the LBC is. I’m always so thrilled when a potential client starts talking about Maps.
What could we do? If there was some way to contact Yelp users or some group like that, you’d have a chance of getting non-SE folks, but still have a good chance that they would know what the survey was about.
I just had a funny idea…post it in Google’s Maps help group. I’m imagining the replies would be rather disgruntled.
Let’s see…Craigslist? But would that generate any response? I have my doubts. Hmm…
Miriam
Comment by MiriamEllis — September 26, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Yes getting a good cross section of non seo folks to respond would be key. We could email our clients, I suppose. But then how many of them would have used Google Maps but even that might be of interest.
I had thought of the Google Groups as it is a good section of relatively motivted users.
Mike
Comment by Mike — September 26, 2008 @ 2:52 pm