Its embarrassing when
Its emarassing when you have customer on phone and he wants to see the photos and you tell him to go to album and he says he can't view it. DOH!
embarassing is having hard working people pay you for a service and when the service goes down all you can say is "Well it's Amazon, not us."
Does not mater if it's 10 seconds or 10 hours take ownership Smugmug!
Did we ever not take ownership? I realize you may not have read this whole thread but look for any post by "Andy" and you'll see that it's OUR responsibility.
We just talked about Amazon a lot today because we couldn't go back online till they were up. That's not passing any buck, it's just stating facts.
It's OUR responsibility to serve you your photos.
I can't state more strongly than I have been that it's OUR responsibiity.
We're sorry this happened and we will report on it when we have news.
the SmugMug guarantee?
From what I have seen in my 4+ years with SmugMug... they can't guarantee a percentage of uptime, nobody can. But, when there is a problem, they are on it, doing all they can, as fast as they can. And, they provide dgrin to find answers, updates... and a place to vent, unedited.
imo, there is one thing we can believe/expect of SmugMug... it is guaranteed that they put 100% effort, 100% of the time, any time there is a problem big or small. Whether they answer our questions or problems in posts on dgrin, or in emails... they are there any and every time I have written to them, responding quickly... unlike most sites.
The SMug "heros" may not be able to provide the exact info we want, when we want it... but they do a very good job with what info they have... and, when they have concrete info... we are the first to know it.
thanks for getting us back up quickly SM team!
I just spent the last hour reading every post in this thread. Was kinda annoyed at some of the impatience that I saw professionals acting like...but thats ok. No skin off my nose. I have had some setbacks with this too...but thats ok too...because there is always tomorrow...and if tomorrow isn't what I expect it to be...then I change my expectations. Life just can't be all this seriousness when it comes to internet. All of my sales so far that I have made from smugmug have been personal sales made by the customer having contact with me. But first they have to see the site. SM has been really faithful about making sure that happens even when its the customers computer problem...they have helps me with helping them. That is well worth the money I have put out to have a pro account.
Andy I am amazed at your coolness....although I am sure you had your moments today where you would have liked to thrash a few heads together. Thank you for all the updates and the professional way that you handled things. I do not think you should appologies for not giving an exact times seeing that you said it clearly the first time.... about sm will get it going as soon as amazon gets their part done. You did a wonderful job. I hope you can get a little rest tonight. Thanks again to the smugmug tech team!
I have been with smugmug for over 2 years and LOVE IT, THE SERVICE,
AND THE RELIABILITY. I work in IT! Thank You Andy and all behind the
scenes! YOU GUYS ROCK!
Glad it is up, I was getting the shakes!
My site is www.longislandwallpapers.com and have had nothing but good
reviews until now. One guy was pissed and I told him to get me a pc that
would never crash and then my site reliability would go up.... He
recommended Compaq
I actually laughed at him....he got upset and I told him I was HP, Compaq,
IBM, Toshiba, and certified in about another 6 computer lines and it was a
loaded question.
ANDY, the people who are upset DO NOT HAVE A CLUE! They do not work
with Computers other than a being a simple user and can not understand
what you are trying to drill into them. Your Cool, Calm replies are only more
so proving the class of you and Smugmug. Thank You.
For those of you who really wanted a time frame....ask Andy to pull 3
numbers out of his butt and pick one. (this is what you are asking him to
do!) then you get mad when he does not BS you.
Does not have a timeframe means HE IS NOT THE ONE FIXING IT and any
timeframe would be BS. It is up when the job is done, and if you think the
guy doing the job is going to talk to Andy You really do not work in
this type of work.
I just wanted to you to know that most of us will read this forum and keep
their mouths shut. If an outage is happening every now and then, I will be
pissed... but the first time? Hats off on your Customer Service Skills.
Thanks for not BSing us! We deserve to know the truth, even if we do not
know the truth and wait for it without a timeframe. If you would have said
2 hours at the start....I would have been pissed! REAL CLASS ANDY!!!! Your well worth my hard earned money. Thanks -Fred
PS...sorry about being long winded....I was a little wound up after the service I got!
Obviously Smuggie customers were frustrated and frustration easily turns to anger.
I respect the way you haven't ducked any of the issues folks have raised, the way you've stayed active in this thread, and your willingness to give your customers a human with whom to communicate.
A service interruption sucks, especially on your busiest day of the week. What a nightmare. You handled the rotten tomatoes with class.
The SmugMug Tech Team have done nothing for me.....
The SmugMug Tech Team have done nothing for me for several years - not a thing.
This is because I got a ton of help when I set up my site and customized a few years ago. Since then, everything has just worked and I've had no need of support.
Obviously "just working" for me means that people have been busy on my behalf behind the scenes making sure things stay that way.
This is the only time I can remember SM being down for any length of time. Not a good time since it's right in our early summer wedding season, but what can you do?
SmugMug has been a really good solution for me and I'm sure that is going to continue. I'll be quite happy for those tech guys to not have to do anything for me.
To clarify.... I define this as the first real outage.... it was not qurks or
hicups in the system. A few hours is to be expected...this was down for
almost 10 hours unplanned. We will ALL have a different idea on what makes
an outage.
I too wish all my services were as reliable... My internet, power, phone and water and Cell phone all had more service issues in the last 2 years....I do not call 911 from this website!
For those of you who really wanted a time frame....ask Andy to pull 3
numbers out of his butt and pick one. (this is what you are asking him to
do!) then you get mad when he does not BS you.
this made me chuckle, thanks
Thanks for not BSing us! We deserve to know the truth, even if we do not
know the truth and wait for it without a timeframe. If you would have said
2 hours at the start....I would have been pissed! REAL CLASS ANDY!!!! Your well worth my hard earned money. Thanks -Fred
Thank YOU for posting, we have the best customers, thanks so much for the kind words!
A service interruption sucks, especially on your busiest day of the week. What a nightmare. You handled the rotten tomatoes with class.
Big fat ditto. I was just coming to say the same thing. I love you guys, and you handled the situation as best you could. Crap happens... and we move on! Thanks for the great service.
Obviously Smuggie customers were frustrated and frustration easily turns to anger.
I respect the way you haven't ducked any of the issues folks have raised, the way you've stayed active in this thread, and your willingness to give your customers a human with whom to communicate.
A service interruption sucks, especially on your busiest day of the week. What a nightmare. You handled the rotten tomatoes with class.
Thanks Sid, really appreciate it! I'm glad we're back to normal
Thank you.
Andy,
You are the (un?)lucky one who gets to be the front man on this thread and I am sure the reast of the board. I want to commend you on how well you have kept yourself together. It is not easy.
More then that I want the rest of the people behind SmugMug to know that there efforts were not lost on me. Sometimes the world can be a rough and unforgiving place. Sometimes I think it is so much easier to make something someone else's problem - to pass the buck so to say. You took the time to say that you were having downtime and that it was unplanned. This downtime was the result of one of your service providers having trouble. Interestingly there was not much said by Andy regarding other site's that were having trouble (maybe a mention of wordpress - I don't remember or care to look). In other words their responsibility was very clear, once their service provider was back online they would get their system back up and going as fast as they could - and they did in minutes. The site came up much faster then I expected after amazon s3 came up. I would not have expected amazon s3 to ever go down, and as a result handling that failure point would have been at the bottom of the list for me and likely not have been as smooth as these guys made it happen.
If I were near by any of the SmugMug heroes I would buy them a drink for a job well done and maybe if I ever do meet any of you I will. I am impressed at how fast you got your systems back and going after your service provider went live.
Engineers are looking at the site again right now, not sure what's going on. More as we know it!
I'm getting the following:
Safari can’t open the page “http://www.shopdaylightimages.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection, which sometimes occurs when the server is busy. You might be able to open the page later.
Maybe your servers are overloaded with everyone jumping back on all at once?
Its maybe because i am not finished retouching my Ferrari shots....
Whatever happens i am sure they will figure it out and learn from it. If i am not mistaken Smugmug is fairly "young" on the internet.
I stuck with easynews for years and in their humble beginning they were down for an entire week :uhoh
I stuck trough tick and thin with them and now its paying off. Its not a bump on the road that will make me change anything.
It'a odd... I can't get to smugmug or my smugmug site, but pictures that I have linked from smugmug on my blog at www.erewhon.us are coming up just fine.
Did we ever not take ownership? I realize you may not have read this whole thread but look for any post by "Andy" and you'll see that it's OUR responsibility.
We just talked about Amazon a lot today because we couldn't go back online till they were up. That's not passing any buck, it's just stating facts.
It's OUR responsibility to serve you your photos.
I can't state more strongly than I have been that it's OUR responsibiity.
For you to say we don't take ownership is a just a complete untruth, I'm so sorry.
We're sorry this happened and we will report on it when we have news.
Saying your sorry and saying “it IS our fault” is only half the battle, taking ownership means making it right as well. Look I lost nothing today not even time. I did not have any clients barking down my throat. I did not loose customers or revenue either. I just don’t like the “Spin”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The “What do you mean we don’t take ownership” tactic is week when you have yet to say how you will make it right. Are you going to cancel your Amazon deal? Are you going to demand any retribution from Amazon to your company? Have you explained what steps you will take to try and tighten the screws on the ship to make sure it does not start to leak again? <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Saying “We take Ownership” and doing something about it are two different things.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> How about this; post here how you will be talking with your Amazon rep tomorrow morning about a monetary value to this issue today. Once you have had that meeting post on this forum how much money that smugmug well be getting in a refund from Amazon. Then explain how you will will match that amount you’re your (smugmug) money and distribute it back to your customers. It will probably work out to a few cents for each of us, BUT that is ownership. You can even leave me out of the deal as I am looking for nothing out of this.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Not “We are at Fault but can do nothing about it” You CAN do something you just have not thought outside your cubical on how this problem is YOURS and how fighting with us (the customer) to make it right will strengthen you even more amongst us. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> You right I have not read the whole thread and I don’t have to because I see your Spin unlike the others here that are just Jolly that your back up and running. Show me a Post where you were taking the fight to Amazon with us by your side. At least show me a thread that says “We are sorry, it is our fault, and we will do everything we can to get some type of retribution from Amazon and pass it back to all of you in full and then some.” Even if that means 3 years from now all I get out of this is a Amazon t-shirt well at least you took ownership…<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Thanks for getting my site back up in a timely manner.<o:p></o:p>
Yep, definitely not out of the woods. My site and SmugMug in general is very slow or page does not load. I do appreciate all the work though and the updates.
Comments
Its emarassing when you have customer on phone and he wants to see the photos and you tell him to go to album and he says he can't view it. DOH!
embarassing is having hard working people pay you for a service and when the service goes down all you can say is "Well it's Amazon, not us."
Does not mater if it's 10 seconds or 10 hours take ownership Smugmug!
www.SaraPiazza.com - Edgartown News - Trad Diary - Facebook
Well done, Andy and crew. SM's communication beats that of just about every other company I've ever dealt with on-line.
We just talked about Amazon a lot today because we couldn't go back online till they were up. That's not passing any buck, it's just stating facts.
It's OUR responsibility to serve you your photos.
I can't state more strongly than I have been that it's OUR responsibiity.
We're sorry this happened and we will report on it when we have news.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
From what I have seen in my 4+ years with SmugMug... they can't guarantee a percentage of uptime, nobody can. But, when there is a problem, they are on it, doing all they can, as fast as they can. And, they provide dgrin to find answers, updates... and a place to vent, unedited.
imo, there is one thing we can believe/expect of SmugMug... it is guaranteed that they put 100% effort, 100% of the time, any time there is a problem big or small. Whether they answer our questions or problems in posts on dgrin, or in emails... they are there any and every time I have written to them, responding quickly... unlike most sites.
The SMug "heros" may not be able to provide the exact info we want, when we want it... but they do a very good job with what info they have... and, when they have concrete info... we are the first to know it.
Thanks SMug
I just spent the last hour reading every post in this thread. Was kinda annoyed at some of the impatience that I saw professionals acting like...but thats ok. No skin off my nose. I have had some setbacks with this too...but thats ok too...because there is always tomorrow...and if tomorrow isn't what I expect it to be...then I change my expectations.
Andy I am amazed at your coolness....although I am sure you had your moments today where you would have liked to thrash a few heads together. Thank you for all the updates and the professional way that you handled things. I do not think you should appologies for not giving an exact times seeing that you said it clearly the first time.... about sm will get it going as soon as amazon gets their part done.
I have been with smugmug for over 2 years and LOVE IT, THE SERVICE,
AND THE RELIABILITY. I work in IT! Thank You Andy and all behind the
scenes! YOU GUYS ROCK!
Glad it is up, I was getting the shakes!
My site is www.longislandwallpapers.com and have had nothing but good
reviews until now. One guy was pissed and I told him to get me a pc that
would never crash and then my site reliability would go up.... He
recommended Compaq
I actually laughed at him....he got upset and I told him I was HP, Compaq,
IBM, Toshiba, and certified in about another 6 computer lines and it was a
loaded question.
ANDY, the people who are upset DO NOT HAVE A CLUE! They do not work
with Computers other than a being a simple user and can not understand
what you are trying to drill into them. Your Cool, Calm replies are only more
so proving the class of you and Smugmug. Thank You.
For those of you who really wanted a time frame....ask Andy to pull 3
numbers out of his butt and pick one. (this is what you are asking him to
do!) then you get mad when he does not BS you.
Does not have a timeframe means HE IS NOT THE ONE FIXING IT and any
timeframe would be BS. It is up when the job is done, and if you think the
guy doing the job is going to talk to Andy
this type of work.
I just wanted to you to know that most of us will read this forum and keep
their mouths shut. If an outage is happening every now and then, I will be
pissed... but the first time? Hats off on your Customer Service Skills.
Thanks for not BSing us! We deserve to know the truth, even if we do not
know the truth and wait for it without a timeframe. If you would have said
2 hours at the start....I would have been pissed! REAL CLASS ANDY!!!! Your well worth my hard earned money. Thanks -Fred
PS...sorry about being long winded....I was a little wound up after the service I got!
Obviously Smuggie customers were frustrated and frustration easily turns to anger.
I respect the way you haven't ducked any of the issues folks have raised, the way you've stayed active in this thread, and your willingness to give your customers a human with whom to communicate.
A service interruption sucks, especially on your busiest day of the week. What a nightmare. You handled the rotten tomatoes with class.
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
The SmugMug Tech Team have done nothing for me for several years - not a thing.
This is because I got a ton of help when I set up my site and customized a few years ago. Since then, everything has just worked and I've had no need of support.
Obviously "just working" for me means that people have been busy on my behalf behind the scenes making sure things stay that way.
This is the only time I can remember SM being down for any length of time. Not a good time since it's right in our early summer wedding season, but what can you do?
SmugMug has been a really good solution for me and I'm sure that is going to continue. I'll be quite happy for those tech guys to not have to do anything for me.
Cheers!
David
www.uniqueday.com
hicups in the system. A few hours is to be expected...this was down for
almost 10 hours unplanned. We will ALL have a different idea on what makes
an outage.
I too wish all my services were as reliable... My internet, power, phone and water and Cell phone all had more service issues in the last 2 years....I do not call 911 from this website!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Big fat ditto. I was just coming to say the same thing. I love you guys, and you handled the situation as best you could.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Andy,
You are the (un?)lucky one who gets to be the front man on this thread and I am sure the reast of the board. I want to commend you on how well you have kept yourself together. It is not easy.
More then that I want the rest of the people behind SmugMug to know that there efforts were not lost on me. Sometimes the world can be a rough and unforgiving place. Sometimes I think it is so much easier to make something someone else's problem - to pass the buck so to say. You took the time to say that you were having downtime and that it was unplanned. This downtime was the result of one of your service providers having trouble. Interestingly there was not much said by Andy regarding other site's that were having trouble (maybe a mention of wordpress - I don't remember or care to look). In other words their responsibility was very clear, once their service provider was back online they would get their system back up and going as fast as they could - and they did in minutes. The site came up much faster then I expected after amazon s3 came up. I would not have expected amazon s3 to ever go down, and as a result handling that failure point would have been at the bottom of the list for me and likely not have been as smooth as these guys made it happen.
If I were near by any of the SmugMug heroes I would buy them a drink for a job well done and maybe if I ever do meet any of you I will. I am impressed at how fast you got your systems back and going after your service provider went live.
Brian
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
We're not out of the woods, yet. Getting the following message on my Smugmug site: The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
I could connect for about an hour, but now at 9:37EDT, can no longer connect. Other sites are working fine.
It's back up again Andy. Looks like someone forgot which was the defective component??
EDIT: OOPS, I spoke too soon. I think I'll just stick my head in the sand and hope no one kicks me in the butt.
www.sunglophoto.com
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Same issue here.
galleries.imprintphoto.com
Personal: D2x | D70s | Canon AE1 | Nikkor: 18-70 3.5-4.5 | 28-105 3.5-4.5 | 50 1.8 | 70-300 4.5-5.6 VR II | SB600 w/ diffuser | AB B1600 w/ stand & umbrella | Jenis Grip | DAKINE backpack | Manfrotto 055X PROB tripod & Manfrotto 486RC2 ball head | Bogen 3231
Work: 2 Hasselblad's w/ glass | D300 | Fuji S2 Pro w/ Nikon mount | Nikkor 18-200 VR | Broncs | Norms | Dyna heads | Chimera boxes | stands | & much more
|My Photos|
I'm getting the following:
Safari can’t open the page “http://www.shopdaylightimages.com/” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection, which sometimes occurs when the server is busy. You might be able to open the page later.
Maybe your servers are overloaded with everyone jumping back on all at once?
Hmmmmmm.
The Railroad Photographer
www.railroadphotographer.com
all i can say is smug happens
just got home from a vacation and my family reunion wanted to upload a ton of photos but no smugmug, and my site wont load or smugmug.com
Canon 60D
Canon Rebel XTi (400)
Canon 10-22mm, Canon 50mm f/1.8 II
MacBook, MacPro
Whatever happens i am sure they will figure it out and learn from it. If i am not mistaken Smugmug is fairly "young" on the internet.
I stuck with easynews for years and in their humble beginning they were down for an entire week :uhoh
I stuck trough tick and thin with them and now its paying off. Its not a bump on the road that will make me change anything.
and it says " Huh? doesn't look like a site on the interwho." Yikes!
Saying your sorry and saying “it IS our fault” is only half the battle, taking ownership means making it right as well. Look I lost nothing today not even time. I did not have any clients barking down my throat. I did not loose customers or revenue either. I just don’t like the “Spin”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
The “What do you mean we don’t take ownership” tactic is week when you have yet to say how you will make it right. Are you going to cancel your Amazon deal? Are you going to demand any retribution from Amazon to your company? Have you explained what steps you will take to try and tighten the screws on the ship to make sure it does not start to leak again? <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Saying “We take Ownership” and doing something about it are two different things.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
How about this; post here how you will be talking with your Amazon rep tomorrow morning about a monetary value to this issue today. Once you have had that meeting post on this forum how much money that smugmug well be getting in a refund from Amazon. Then explain how you will will match that amount you’re your (smugmug) money and distribute it back to your customers. It will probably work out to a few cents for each of us, BUT that is ownership. You can even leave me out of the deal as I am looking for nothing out of this.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Not “We are at Fault but can do nothing about it” You CAN do something you just have not thought outside your cubical on how this problem is YOURS and how fighting with us (the customer) to make it right will strengthen you even more amongst us. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
You right I have not read the whole thread and I don’t have to because I see your Spin unlike the others here that are just Jolly that your back up and running. Show me a Post where you were taking the fight to Amazon with us by your side. At least show me a thread that says “We are sorry, it is our fault, and we will do everything we can to get some type of retribution from Amazon and pass it back to all of you in full and then some.” Even if that means 3 years from now all I get out of this is a Amazon t-shirt well at least you took ownership…<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
Thanks for getting my site back up in a timely manner.<o:p></o:p>
www.capture-the-pixel.com