And another vote for the forum.

The ‘problem’ with email support is that if for whatever reason you cannot reply within, let’s say a day, people will start to complain. And this could hurt your sales. If you have a forum, there is visible evidence that your question was submitted, and the additional advantage that other users can reply as well.

It’s a terrible shame that such a good product is constantly being kicked by bad decisions, poor management and useless communication. I don’t doubt your technical expertise or passion for the project, but my god, you guys seriously need some management consultation.

Relying on Twitter for support? Multiplying your work load by limiting support to email? You’re putting MacRabbit into reverse! As your product grows and develops, so should your support, along with your business. At the moment you have a rapidly developing (and brilliant) product, but your support has just been flung in the opposite direction. If you think managing a small forum of users was stopping you from developing, then wait until you have thousands of emails that need to be replied to, quickly.

I’ll be moving jobs soon and the question “what software preferences do you have?” was asked. Will I be saying Espresso? I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can stop Coda from just splurging out.

Examinus - 29 July 2011 05:59 AM

It’s a terrible shame that such a good product is constantly being kicked by bad decisions, poor management and useless communication. I don’t doubt your technical expertise or passion for the project, but my god, you guys seriously need some management consultation.

Relying on Twitter for support? Multiplying your work load by limiting support to email? You’re putting MacRabbit into reverse! As your product grows and develops, so should your support, along with your business. At the moment you have a rapidly developing (and brilliant) product, but your support has just been flung in the opposite direction. If you think managing a small forum of users was stopping you from developing, then wait until you have thousands of emails that need to be replied to, quickly.

I’ll be moving jobs soon and the question “what software preferences do you have?” was asked. Will I be saying Espresso? I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can stop Coda from just splurging out.

+1, Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Examinus, I would like to remind you that Panic also does email support exclusively. Their Google Groups (which they rarely interact with) has degenerated into a “when is my feature being added” +1 party like so many forums before it. Meanwhile, we often get replies from people who are completely surprised about the speed of (email) support replies.

Let’s go over the different kinds of support someone might need.

1) Bugs: it’s simply not practical to do any kind of technical investigation through a forum, and that investigation is necessary to fix bugs users encounter. Even when we had a forum, the actual discussion always had to be done over email.

2) Orders: clearly not something that belongs on a forum.

3) Tips and tricks: since everyone googles anyway, we feel it’s better to leave that to personal web spaces. Having unsupported or outdated tricks on a MacRabbit forum implicitly condones them, and that only hurts our ability to provide a stable product.

4) Feature requests: I think this is what most of the posters in this thread are really talking about. As I’ve explained before, we love feedback but don’t treat it as our bible. It’s nice to get the feeling that you’re not alone with your requests, but ultimately it’s an empty feeling if the feature doesn’t actually get prioritized according to how many people +1 the idea. Over email, we can have a constructive discussion with each individual user to try and figure out what solution serves the most people in the best way.

It also helps to keep discussion open so that others can see what has or has not been reported already, as a user I can’t even quickly find what bugs I’ve reported. If you’re worried about having an open bug tracker having a negative impact on your business, then I think you should worry more about people starting Espresso and finding it buggy and not being able to find any information about it.

I do feel slightly ripped off - not for the price of Espresso - but for the year I spent hoping those bugs would be fixed tomorrow only to discover it was being replaced at my expense.

The Wolf has a very good point: one of my main uses of a forum for a piece of software is to see if other people are experiencing an issue, and if there are any workarounds. A public issue tracker could provide for that use case without degenerating into feature request mania or a complaint sounding room.

It is definitely worth pointing out that the email support from MacRabbit has always been, at least for me, prompt, intelligent, and helpful.

Though +1 for more blogging! :D

Jan - 02 August 2011 06:35 PM

Examinus, I would like to remind you that Panic also does email support exclusively. Their Google Groups (which they rarely interact with) has degenerated into a “when is my feature being added” +1 party like so many forums before it. Meanwhile, we often get replies from people who are completely surprised about the speed of (email) support replies.

Let’s go over the different kinds of support someone might need.

1) Bugs: it’s simply not practical to do any kind of technical investigation through a forum, and that investigation is necessary to fix bugs users encounter. Even when we had a forum, the actual discussion always had to be done over email.

2) Orders: clearly not something that belongs on a forum.

3) Tips and tricks: since everyone googles anyway, we feel it’s better to leave that to personal web spaces. Having unsupported or outdated tricks on a MacRabbit forum implicitly condones them, and that only hurts our ability to provide a stable product.

4) Feature requests: I think this is what most of the posters in this thread are really talking about. As I’ve explained before, we love feedback but don’t treat it as our bible. It’s nice to get the feeling that you’re not alone with your requests, but ultimately it’s an empty feeling if the feature doesn’t actually get prioritized according to how many people +1 the idea. Over email, we can have a constructive discussion with each individual user to try and figure out what solution serves the most people in the best way.

I agree and we appreciate it!!!  Keep up the good work.  I will keep recommending your products.  I am looking forward to Espresso 2 and many years of involvement with MacRabbit products.

Cheers!

I’ve been involved in enough forums to know that Jan is right here, it’s really not like there are a huge number of 3rd party commercial developers attached to Espresso like some other platforms where the forum is more important for that reason.

Spam is a time consuming issue, regardless of attempts to prevent it. That’s just how it is.

With best regards,
Karn.

I do not buy software that I can’t find sufficient activity for on the net. Visible and vibrant public communication is a significant marketing factor. With all due respect, resorting to email only seems like a nerd’s perspective on this matter (“don’t disturb me coding”). IMO it’s a big mistake, business wise. Product quality is only 50% of the pie.

I agree that a forum is not optimal for “official” support and I would also not use it for that purpose. I agree with Jan in that regard. For my own software business, I also do encourage our customers to contact us directly in case they have serious issues.

However, we are also running a Drupal-driven community site that allows our current and prospect users to get in touch with each other, share examples, post tutorials, run their own blogs, upload videos, etc. It is a big relief to see users helping out each other without us being required to attend the conversation all the time. And regarding spam, I have enabled admin approval for new accounts, which eliminated it reliably.

Rethink your communication strategy. You are likely going to loose a lot of $$$ over the time.