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Time to start treating us like business partners
johng
Registered Users Posts: 1,658 Major grins
OK,
I'm going to officially vent here. The loss of stats yet again for the 2nd time in 3 months is disturbing but doesn't affect the bottom line so to speak. But, 2 things do quite honestly have the potential to impact my bottom line:
1. You had a known, planned outage of servers and failed to contact me. I'm running my business off your servers and as a business partner I expect to be notified when you have a planned outage. And, I'm talking about YOU notifying ME - not me having to read up on a message board about it. I work in the IT industry and planned outages are a necessary evil - I understand that. But, if servers are going to be down then the people using those servers are notified. It's not just a PR issue it's a business issue.
2. My site still is not working properly - pages won't load - I've been trying for the last several hours to get to some photographs - some times it works and some times it doesn't. More often than not I simply can't get good response navigating within my photo galleries.
Why am I venting? Because, I shot a soccer game for some potential new clients this weekend and promised them the photos would be available on my site Midnight Tuesday - and I swear I'm not lying. Now, these new clients may or may not have tried to access the site yet - I don't know - I can't tell because there are no stats available. I hope they haven't because the horrible response with navigating the site would certainly leave a bad taste in their mouth.
We're not talking about an inconvenience of not being able to view some photos for entertainment purposes here. We're talking about the loss of current and future money to a business.
As a pro user I expect to be treated like a business partner just like I would from any other vendor. I've got a business hanging by a thread and these snafus affect MY business as well as yours. Again, I understand the need to do what you did - I've been in IT for 15 years and gone through plenty of upgrades. But, like any other user of a system if I know there is an outage I can plan accordingly. If it's a major deal - like this was then I would have never promised availability for today - I'm too well aquainted with Murphy's Law.
Now, it's fine if non-pro users don't want email notifications. Great. But I would be amazed if there were any PRO users who are relying on their websites for the livelihood of their business who would not want to be notified of something like this so they could plan accordingly.
Now, given all that - I'd like an ETA of when you expect navigation functionality to return to normal - to me this is critical functionality and any tech analyst worth his pay should be able to know after this much time what the order of magnitude is - 2 hours, 12 hours, 3 days, whatever. It will take what it will take - I understand that. But, as a business partner I would expect a better response than:
"We're working on it and will let you know when it's fixed" without any indication of how long that will take.
Again, a different level of expectation then when I was a basic client just sharing photos with family and friends. As a start-up company every lost sale is critical to me. And, unfortunately, because of the types of clients I have - sports parents mostly - I'll never know why I lost sales. I don't get the chance to send each parent a questionaire as to why they didn't buy my work or why they never contacted me to shoot another event. So, potential lost sales at worst and bad PR at best for MY CLIENTS could have been completely avoided if you had communicated with your business partners so we could plan accordingly. I Know you all work very hard and for the most part Smugmug is an excellent photo sharing site - but if you want to have professional co-branded business relationships the bar is higher than that. Why is that level of communication even up for debate? In my experience in IT, it's simple common practice.
I'm going to officially vent here. The loss of stats yet again for the 2nd time in 3 months is disturbing but doesn't affect the bottom line so to speak. But, 2 things do quite honestly have the potential to impact my bottom line:
1. You had a known, planned outage of servers and failed to contact me. I'm running my business off your servers and as a business partner I expect to be notified when you have a planned outage. And, I'm talking about YOU notifying ME - not me having to read up on a message board about it. I work in the IT industry and planned outages are a necessary evil - I understand that. But, if servers are going to be down then the people using those servers are notified. It's not just a PR issue it's a business issue.
2. My site still is not working properly - pages won't load - I've been trying for the last several hours to get to some photographs - some times it works and some times it doesn't. More often than not I simply can't get good response navigating within my photo galleries.
Why am I venting? Because, I shot a soccer game for some potential new clients this weekend and promised them the photos would be available on my site Midnight Tuesday - and I swear I'm not lying. Now, these new clients may or may not have tried to access the site yet - I don't know - I can't tell because there are no stats available. I hope they haven't because the horrible response with navigating the site would certainly leave a bad taste in their mouth.
We're not talking about an inconvenience of not being able to view some photos for entertainment purposes here. We're talking about the loss of current and future money to a business.
As a pro user I expect to be treated like a business partner just like I would from any other vendor. I've got a business hanging by a thread and these snafus affect MY business as well as yours. Again, I understand the need to do what you did - I've been in IT for 15 years and gone through plenty of upgrades. But, like any other user of a system if I know there is an outage I can plan accordingly. If it's a major deal - like this was then I would have never promised availability for today - I'm too well aquainted with Murphy's Law.
Now, it's fine if non-pro users don't want email notifications. Great. But I would be amazed if there were any PRO users who are relying on their websites for the livelihood of their business who would not want to be notified of something like this so they could plan accordingly.
Now, given all that - I'd like an ETA of when you expect navigation functionality to return to normal - to me this is critical functionality and any tech analyst worth his pay should be able to know after this much time what the order of magnitude is - 2 hours, 12 hours, 3 days, whatever. It will take what it will take - I understand that. But, as a business partner I would expect a better response than:
"We're working on it and will let you know when it's fixed" without any indication of how long that will take.
Again, a different level of expectation then when I was a basic client just sharing photos with family and friends. As a start-up company every lost sale is critical to me. And, unfortunately, because of the types of clients I have - sports parents mostly - I'll never know why I lost sales. I don't get the chance to send each parent a questionaire as to why they didn't buy my work or why they never contacted me to shoot another event. So, potential lost sales at worst and bad PR at best for MY CLIENTS could have been completely avoided if you had communicated with your business partners so we could plan accordingly. I Know you all work very hard and for the most part Smugmug is an excellent photo sharing site - but if you want to have professional co-branded business relationships the bar is higher than that. Why is that level of communication even up for debate? In my experience in IT, it's simple common practice.
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Thanks for taking the time to post this - it's really important stuff, and we'll take it all to heart. I agree with you completely, we could do a better job of advance notification, and I'm trying my best to ensure that we do this.
I don't have an ETA to "normalcy" but I know that the crew is working hard to get everything fixed up as fast as humanly possible.
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Andy - I appreciate your response. Your customer service is one of the main reasons why I chose Smugmug as my partner for my on-line business. It really is top-notch. Having said that, I must be blatantly honest - the first statement I quoted just isn't acceptable. This subject has been tossed around on DGRIN for at least several weeks. And, while I understand comments like the above with regards to new feature requests I don't find it acceptable to hear "we're going to try our best to ensure communication" but Smugmug still has not committed to an open communication strategy. This is a completely different category than "I want backprinting" or "I want coupons" - we're talking about notifying business partners that a known risk exists to their business. I would propose the only acceptable answer is: Yes, we need to redefine our communications strategy - especially with our Pro users who depend on us for their livelihood. And, like any other vendor - a deadline for the delivery of that strategy should be communicated. The simple use of mass communication to approving business partners to notify them of business critical outages is not a $30,000 project. Mass emails are an ungodly simple technical thing to accomplish.
So, I'm going to put you on the spot since you are in the unfortunate place of answering us irate users
So, which of these obstacles is keeping Smugmug from telling us that "yes we will change our communications strategy and we believe the new strategy should be ready for roll-out by XX/YY/ZZ"
Again, please understand - I'm not knocking the staff or faulting the outage - only pointing out my perception that Smugmug does not seem to view us as business PARTNERS. I appreciate your quick responses and the overall customer service of Smugmug I just expect more honest and forthrite communication between business partners.
I have to agree. I've only been with Smugmug for a little over a week and so far:
- stats have been down twice;
- one night, my photos wouldn't process.
I am not encouraged. I spent a lot of time reviewing sites to join in order to post my photography, and I was assured by many that Smugmug was the place to be.Planned outages should be announced through e-mails to members. I often do not have time to check the "boards" for this kind of thing.
The server that contained the stats was down, no data has been lost. I just checked mine and they are back up with all the numbers as before. Now if you want really meaningful stats sign up to Google Analytics through
http://www.google.com/analytics/home paste some code into your footer and look at all the data start to stream about your site, and it's free
Just take the picture
Pictures are at available at:http://www.ballentphoto.com
My Blog: http://ballentphoto.blogspot.com
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1092794
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I don't think you understand. Smugmug is more expensive than many other sites, so I am paying a premium for features and service. Having stats down twice and a problem with photo processing in approx a weeks time is not what I'm paying for.
I have worked in the Quality Assurance field for over 20 years, and I certainly couldn't treat my customers this way.
If you do not feel this way, just write to me, care of the help desk, and we'll issue you a full refund, no questions asked.
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Stats from smugmug are only usefull if you are tracking sales of images in my opinion. There are a lot of free statistics services avalable that will give you information about geographical location, user path and other features.
I am not trying to protect smugmug, if they offer statistics it should be up and running. But if statistics is really important to you, it is as simple as adding a script to your header and you will have much more detailed statistics.
http://www.artq.com
http://artq.smugmug.com
As a user of the service, I can only tell you that your timing sucked with regards to the trial period
I'd say give it a try for a month. If you don't like the service, send an e-mail to Andy and he'll give you a refund.
If you have any questions that I might be able to answer, please let me know. Good luck in whatever you decide to do.
Thanks for the info I signed up and added the code.
Owner/Photographer
Expose The Moment
Had a list of gear, now its to long, so lets say I have 2 bags and 15,000 worth of stuff.
ditto
...pics..
1x Outage (last week)
2x Stats outtage
Thats it. There may have been more but I didnt notice.
Just some things to consider.....take it for what its worth.
Canon 5D Mk.2/Grip || Canon 7D Backup
17-40 f/4L || 70-200 f/2.8L IS || 100mm f/2.8L Macro || 24-70mm f/2.8L
Wedding Photographer
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I think you're missing my point entirely. Yes, every business has growing pains. And every system has outages. However, I can assure you that if my company (my daytime job not photography company) has servers down that our business partners send or receive data from they are notified and kept updated. They don't have to go to a message board to get details. Again, this is the difference between a SERVICE - like a standard user has and a BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP which is how smugmug markets the pro accounts. Business partners do not have to go to message boards - it's not how good business relationships are done. And, as pointed out earlier - there shouldn't be a huge cost hurdle involved in the notification process. It's simple common business practice. And, as long as smugmug is marketing themselves as a business partner (hey those are the words that appear on the sales emails they send me - "partners") they need to act like it and share information with their partners where it affects their partner's bottom line.
I have often wondered why pro account holders don't get notified via e-mail about new features, and outages and such. It seems simple enough. I found out about the recent outage by logging onto my site and getting the message from Smugmug. No prior knowledge here either. It's a good thing I didn't start an upload before I went to bed.
But I must say I have been very pleased with the overall services Smugmug provides.
Why not offer a 'system status' page as well, and keep us in the loop on significant events? This way, if there is a stats issue, we can check the status page, see there is an issue, see that it is expected to be resolved by x, and there are less posts about 'whats up with stats" and others... (heck put it in our control panel if you must protect his info for some reason)
Of course, the posts wont stop, but we customers will feel better about it all, since we know what is going on, understand it, and know when to expect it to get better.
But, in the data communications business there are certain Service Level Agreements (SLAs). SLAs typically include when shared services are to be available and when they can be offline. If they are offline during any of the times covered by the SLA, notification is required. You don't have to look at a site. And, especially if an outage or major install is planned in advance you notify - period. That's how business is done among business partners. In other words it should be Smugmug's responsibility to notify their pro users (their business partners) - not our responsibility to seek answers.
Again, I feel this is a PR issue - Smugmug, like most companies, does not want to bring attention to the fact there is a problem - I get that. But pro users are paying premium price for a price for a business partnership. Funny how Smugmug never fails to take their 15% cut off every sale I make - they have no problem being proactive in that regard.
Again, in general I'm very happy with Smugmug. But, they are trying to grow beyond a photo sharing site to a more professional data services broker (of sorts) - so the standards are raised.
It's especially important with this business model - as the photographer isn't always actively using their site so without notification they have no knowledge there is a problem. If you're at home and your broadband service isn't working as long as your not trying to use it you don't care. But, when you're using Smugmug's services to run a business - a business that doesn't or shouldn't require your constant monitoring - your customers will often find problems before you will. My business is about photography - that's why I pay Smugmug to host my site, provide features and run my order processing. They are getting paid to do systems monitoring - I shouldn't have to. Does that make sense?
You are not the only one who expressed a wish for an advance notification system. You might want to read this post: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=374769#post374769
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug
BUT, there are many cases where there are no explicit SLAs, since a documented SLA tends to increase cost and price significantly. Examples include internal websites, desktop computers, file systems, print, etc. In our case, we do not have an explicit SLA, and frankly, I doubt many of us are interested in the expense one would require. In this case, just knowing what is the issue and when it will be resolved might go miles towards customer sat. I could check the system status, see that there is nothing reported wrong on Smugmug's end, and then investigate my ISP and trace. But if I see an issue at Smugmug, and it is expected to be resolved in 3 hours...I reset my expectations, make customer calls to ensure they are aware of the issue, and in general, handle things properly.
Perhaps Smugmug may consider offering an SLA class subscription, for those who can not afford downtime?
By data services I am referring to the fact they are brokering cash registering between their business partners (pro users) and 3rd party customers - mostly in a blind fashion - that is, the buying customer is unaware Smugmug is involved - they are trying to purchase from the photographer, not smugmug. Smugmug is the 'middle man'. I think there's been an explosion of pro account users over the last year or so and it's likely to grow. In a way, Smugmug is like the landlord leasing retail space to a storefront. Again, when I started using Smugmug it was for sharing photos with family and friends. I send them links, they look at pictures and maybe buy the pictures from smugmug. if there's an issue with the site - they call me (or not) but no real harm is done if they can't get to the photos - they'll simply try again later. Now, Smugmug 'leases' my storefront to my business customers to me and they control my cash register. So, when a potential customer walks by my "door" and the doorway is blocked by a broken sidewalk or the lights aren't on they go away.
If they had already paid me money they'd come back. But, my customers don't prepay for the most part - so if they turn away there's a strong possibility they don't come back.
Now, if I know there is a problem or the likelihood of one I can plan accordingly.
So, Smugmug is now brokering data between me and my business customers - they provide interface for my business customers to view my product, Smugmug accepts payment and provides delivery - all via electronic data transfer of some sort. They are now part of my business supply chain as an electronic broker. When they falter, my business falters.
That's what I meant.
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Hey - the partnership goes both ways. I'm still here - still will renew my plan next month for the upcoming year. So, I try to give both good and bad feedback - that's how you guys know where the opportunities are.
As photographers that's also how we improve our skills. I've grown as a photographer the last few years more because of constructive criticism than by pats on the back or just - "these suck" reviews.
I know you guys are listening and I appreciate it.
Andy
"Hey - the partnership goes both ways. I'm still here."
Johnng
Do we ever stop learning the lesson of the importance of good communication?
http://www.robkeaton.com
I very much agree on this point. If there is a planned outage, or even an outage in general I see no real reason why sending an e-mail explaining the outage ect. would be a problem. I just signed up and noticed a message about an outage and I spent about 20 min trying to find out how I could get these kind of messages e-mailed to me, just like the upload status.
I was planning to set up a special filter that would then text that e-mail to my cell phone. So say there is a planned outage in 2 days and I'm shooting a game I know right away to let anyone I talk to at the game know that there will be some downtime 2 days from now. That makes not only SM look more professional, but the photographer as well.
Just my two cents.
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I echo these sentiments as well....I am in total favor of Pro level notification of planned outages; I just don't have the time to go looking for this info. A simple email would make for an all round better business practice.
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Canon EOS 30D, EOS Rebel XT, (2) Canon 430ex ETTL Flash, Canon 70-200mm IS USM L, 28-135mm IS USM lenses, Canon ST-E2 Wireless transmitter, Stroboframe flash bracket, Off camera shoe, Canon Remote Timer
We're working on it. I have a mail list set up, and at some point, I'll send out notice to all of you, so you can subscribe to it. And then, when we have something to tell you, we can send a notification.
In the meantime, remember, we have Thursday nights scheduled for maintenance, but we don't always use it.
And for the last few times, we've put notices in your control panel messages
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