Want my identity throughout the customer's experience

GJMPhoto

I was following the Support thread regarding the system outage yesterday. One of the complaints was that those of us with Pro accounts were not notified that there was a significant outage and performance degradation which was customer perceptable. Several people threatened to leave Smugmug, etc... I'd rather try to change things than abandon them...so here's my perspective:

There is a difference in intent between a pro and a non-pro account. We're running a business...many of us have had our businesses for quite a while (19 years for me) and are now going to the web. The root problem is that for a large part of the customer experience, the actual face of our businesses to our customers is Smugmug...uncustomizable...and completely out of our hands. Sometimes that's a good thing...but sometimes it's not and Smugmug should go out of their way to understand and cater to that fact.

Yes, we can customize our sites to give our own unique look and feel (I've even seen posts complaining about the selection process, but let's face it, Smugmug provides lots of alternatives and good JS coders will get around things).

But:
1) We have no control of the cart page / purchase process - where our customers are actually spending money
2) We cannot have Google show OUR name without the Smugmug slogan - which doesn't represent our approach to our business
3) We have no control of the look and feel of the emails that contact our customer (nor can we even SEE the content of the actual emails being sent)
4) The pictures are shipped without any indication of our business - and frankly, while the Smug symbol is "cute", it doesn't represent the approach of my business
5) We cannot hide our costs from our customers - this because we cannot stop the Smugmug marketing link we have to have on our sites (which, in turn, links to the costs page)
6) We have no notification system for problems such as those in the downtime thread
7) We have no visibility into the pipeline of changes that will effect our sites (we can put in requests and wait...but no indication of what features will be available, when)

I'm sure this list can grow...and I welcome your thoughts.

My main thought is, for a PRO account: aside from a "Powered by SmugMug" symbol at the bottom of my homepage (to let other photographers know about Smugmug), I ought be be able to make Smugmug invisible to my customers...I should have the ability to override with my brand on EVERY aspect of the customer experience...from ordering/paying, to web searches, to packaging and correspondence. That would mean I would need the option to create email templates, logos for packaging, branding on the cart, etc.

I would also need to be able to specify contact information to be notified in case of customer-perceptable outages and performance hits.

If this cost me more per year, I'd gladly pay it.

- Gary.

HarrisPhotographicArts

GJMPhoto wrote:

I was following the Support thread regarding the system outage yesterday. One of the complaints was that those of us with Pro accounts were not notified that there was a significant outage and performance degradation which was customer perceptable. Several people threatened to leave Smugmug, etc... I'd rather try to change things than abandon them...so here's my perspective:

There is a difference in intent between a pro and a non-pro account. We're running a business...many of us have had our businesses for quite a while (19 years for me) and are now going to the web. The root problem is that for a large part of the customer experience, the actual face of our businesses to our customers is Smugmug...uncustomizable...and completely out of our hands. Sometimes that's a good thing...but sometimes it's not and Smugmug should go out of their way to understand and cater to that fact.

Yes, we can customize our sites to give our own unique look and feel (I've even seen posts complaining about the selection process, but let's face it, Smugmug provides lots of alternatives and good JS coders will get around things).

But:
1) We have no control of the cart page / purchase process - where our customers are actually spending money
2) We cannot have Google show OUR name without the Smugmug slogan - which doesn't represent our approach to our business
3) We have no control of the look and feel of the emails that contact our customer (nor can we even SEE the content of the actual emails being sent)
4) The pictures are shipped without any indication of our business - and frankly, while the Smug symbol is "cute", it doesn't represent the approach of my business
5) We cannot hide our costs from our customers - this because we cannot stop the Smugmug marketing link we have to have on our sites (which, in turn, links to the costs page)
6) We have no notification system for problems such as those in the downtime thread
7) We have no visibility into the pipeline of changes that will effect our sites (we can put in requests and wait...but no indication of what features will be available, when)

I'm sure this list can grow...and I welcome your thoughts.

My main thought is, for a PRO account: aside from a "Powered by SmugMug" symbol at the bottom of my homepage (to let other photographers know about Smugmug), I ought be be able to make Smugmug invisible to my customers...I should have the ability to override with my brand on EVERY aspect of the customer experience...from ordering/paying, to web searches, to packaging and correspondence. That would mean I would need the option to create email templates, logos for packaging, branding on the cart, etc.

I would also need to be able to specify contact information to be notified in case of customer-perceptable outages and performance hits.

If this cost me more per year, I'd gladly pay it.

- Gary.

Gary,

I'm very new around here, but I agree wholeheartedly. I believe the answer will be that this is an image hosting site, not a website provider. Now with that said, if SmugMug is going to offer all of these services, they should make them point everything we do to our business not to SmugMug. I've been thrilled with SmugMug up to this point and have told many people about it. But, from a professional standpoint there is much work to do.

All the things you listed are huge issues when you are trying to market your company and services. Perhaps the most detrimental is the ability for the customer to see our costs. Artwork is priced/valued not by the cost of paper and ink but by many other factors. The average buyer is going to think we are cheating them by asking $50 for a print that costs $11.00 to print.

There should never be ANYTHING sent out to our customer that doesn't get our approval first. This is about our company. It should be from us and approved by us. Perception is reality.

The thing about Google seeing us without Smugmug.com is a tough one. That can be done but it means owning a domain name first. Once again, this is not a website provider. They are an image hosting company that provide some very nice "Pro" options.

I guess for me, the bottom line is I would like to be more in the loop with my customers. It's very nice that SmugMug wants to handle all of that for us but we need to be included in that process - visible at the very least.

That's my $1.25 worth. And by the way, I've been here two weeks and haven't made a sale yet. I'm giving my opinions based on common sense business practices.

Don Harris
www.harrisphotographicarts.smugmug.com

brandofamily

Well I've been here over 18 mnths... not all that long, and in business just slightly longer than that, but I have to agree w/ everything Gary mentioned... as my business grows I would like to take more control of some of these aspects...
I love the service Sm provides and gladly pay for them handling the order process (I've done it all on my own, and it's not easy), but I too would like it to be more about me and less about SM on the sales end...

Andy

We'd love to be able to some branding in the cart. But we're not there yet, sorry. Also in the packaging.

As to "visibility" I think we've been incredibly transparent: SmugIslands; cart changes; SmugMug Ajax Beta Site; SmugMungous (in the works); Stock Photos. Quite simply put, we're not going to announce things firm&solid with delivery dates in advance. We don't do that. But you can see lots of things that are in the works here on Dgrin - and we have actively sought your input on them. I wish I had a better answer for you on this. Our record of listening to our customers - I'll stack that up agains anybody out there - bar none - but some things just take longer than others.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

GJMPhoto

Boil it down...

Andy wrote:

I wish I had a better answer for you.

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Andy...

Don't get me wrong...I like it here...I'm new to the web, but I'm making money and I intend to continue to do so. I'm trying to raise an awareness on the smugmug staff in hopes they will make design decisions to help us get what we would like. You guys have a good reputation...If you weren't listening, I wouldnt' bother posting!

Boil it down:

Should I be running the web portion of my business on SM or is this an incorrect usage of Smugmug?
If I should, then please consider these points (as well as anyone elses who adds to this list) in your design of the Pro account features going forward.
If not...just say so!

Thanks!
- Gary.