Are the feedback forums, being used more for support then actual feedb

[Tomm]

Tomm, you raise a very good point, however, it's expected that feedback will generally consist of bug reports and similar. People post when they have issues, they generally don't report positive experiences (though we certainly wish they would!) Your point about a pre-sales forum is understood, but as mentioned in another topic, we've tried such things in the past and it's resulted in [potential] customers receiving conflicting information from other well intentioned customers. By the time a sales staff member reaches the topic, the prospect is thoroughly confused or has been given mis-information from others. We could certainly do a moderated forum and we may consider that at some point for commonly asked questions, however, it may be more advantageous to simply place an FAQ section on the website itself.

Thanks for the reply Lindy, Alot of what you have said makes alot of sense. I know you guys have had your 'trial by fire' in terms of how the areas should be setup here and how help and pre-sales are handled. It just seems that this forum has lost an important part when it was redone. I believe that some 'out of the box' thinking may be required to meet the needs of everyone that comes here whether it be new customers, old customers or potential customers. Right now the way things are setup here are confusing for someone who has not been here before, The main site has definatly improved but now the forum here need to follow its lead IMO. I understand that you are working on some things like better Beyond integration etc., Rome was not built in a day. :) Also not only am just thinking about about clarity for new customers but also not to have points that you competition can use against you (such as invision is not very informative in there forums etc..) . A read-only section with nothing but faq is cool, or maybe better a type of wiki knowledgebase were member can 'suggest' thing to be added to it etc..

BTW if you did have a section for customer testimonials i would post something positive there. :thumbsup:

[Lindy]

Thank you for the kind words, Tomm - much appreciated! :)

We'll get with the sales folks and come up with an FAQ/KB section for the site.

[theclub]

People are ignoring IPS Beyond in droves, and one of the reasons is the lack of support.

There are unanswered threads going way back to November 2005, every page has unanswered threads.

Another is the setup of the forum itself, as I don't have Gallery I can't even read the Gallery section, yet I can see it ... talk about confusing!

[Lindy]

Again...... IPSBeyond is currently being revamped. If you have suggestions for improvement as it relates to IPSBeyond, please feel free, by all means, to open a new topic providing your input. We'd love to hear it.

[Mat Barrie]

People are ignoring IPS Beyond in droves, and one of the reasons is the

lack

of support.

There are unanswered threads going way back to November 2005, every page has unanswered threads.

Another is the setup of the forum itself, as I don't have Gallery I can't even read the Gallery section, yet I can see it ... talk about confusing!

I think we both know why there are unanswered threads. After all, look in the modifications forum. Virtually every thread's first reply is "How much are you willing to pay?" usually followed by "I don't think you'll get anyone to help you for that much" - we really don't have all that many benevolent customers, the majority is out for a quick buck off the backs of other customers. Love the software, dislike the user base.

[Lindy]

I think we both know why there are unanswered threads. After all, look in the modifications forum. Virtually every thread's first reply is "How much are you willing to pay?" usually followed by "I don't think you'll get anyone to help you for that much" - we really don't have all that many benevolent customers, the majority is out for a quick buck off the backs of other customers. Love the software, dislike the user base.

It's interesting because literally less than 15% of our user base frequent our corporate forums or IPSBeyond. This is often the reason we're not always able to make blanket changes impacting all customers based on forum posts, because only a small percentage are represented here. We hear from all other customers via the client area and many by telephone. Nearly all of our enterprise customers, for example, converse by telephone or e-mail. Most of our customers on the whole prefer one-on-one interaction with our company and its employees / representatives. Many simply come to us for a community solution, not a community to participate in. With the time constraints many of us face these days, it makes perfect sense to me!

That's the point I was attempting to illustrate earlier - things aren't always as they seem. :)

[VelvetElvis]

A pre-sales forum could allow people to share their positive experience with IPB with potential customers.

Every time someone tries to ask such things on sitepoint or somewhere they are pretty much told to use vB.

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread...0565&page=2

[Luke]

Just thought I might bring a few things to the table that may or may not have been mentioned:

Most of the supports gets handled through the client center, and for good reason. As mentioned you cannot provide login information (FTP, Server/SSH, Database, etc..) over a forum... it's much more secure to do these things through a secure controlled environment where its IPS Staff <-> Customer.... and it saves a lot of time...

There are things that IPS cannot support because it goes outside the scope of support. To give you a few examples: Custom skins and custom modifications, most of which are "this mod isn't working", "this mod broke my forum", or "can you fix my custom skin".... It's not that IPS doesn't have the technical ability to do these type of things, it's that they need to focus on things like "the forum isn't working on my server", or (god forbid) "my forum getting hacked!" (which doesn't happen too often).. And on the non technical side there's sales and billing... As a collective the general things take a good amount of resources....

Think of the name "IPS Beyond", or rather "Beyond IPS". The purpose of that forum is for "customer to customer support" that goes beyond the scope of support. Now I'm not saying that general things that IPS will handle can't be discussed there: It's always good, as a customer, to take advantage of all your resources. But it's there primarily for the end that should always stay in the "customer to customer support".

The issue with having the customer to customer support here is that it was getting confused with official support. Brought up more questions like "why can't you do this for me?", etc... Or customer getting mad because IPS wasn't responding to topics as quickly on the forums as they would in the client center. Thus it was moved to "IPS Beyond" to emphasize "customer to customer support" part. True improvements can be made, but they will improve with time.

[tomek__w]

Ian, I've never heard anyone refer to us as "young" - in Internet age, we're dinosaurs. :D In all seriousness though and with all due respect intended, I'm not sure you can make sweeping claims as to our experience, customer base, demographic or internal business practices and knowledge without having a full picture, which I assure you that you do not. I do know your comments are positive spirited and geared towards improvement based on your own real-world IT experience. Please believe me when I say that we do appreciate it. Nonetheless, I believe we do in fact have a good handle on what we're doing. :) To answer your point about new customers - we recognize the learning curve and have worked very hard with 2.2 specifically to offer an easier start to using the software. Documentation, more intuitive installation/upgrade routines, improved usability from within the AdminCP, etc. Additionally, there's IPSBeyond to aide the beginners and soon, a plethora of tutorials and guides will be posted to the site to further improve the user experience from a beginner angle.

Lindy,

I agree wholeheartedly, especially about not knowing your customer base etc. All I am doing is basing my

[bfarber]

People are ignoring IPS Beyond in droves, and one of the reasons is the

lack

of support.

There are unanswered threads going way back to November 2005, every page has unanswered threads.

Another is the setup of the forum itself, as I don't have Gallery I can't even read the Gallery section, yet I can see it ... talk about confusing!

Realistically, here or there you will end up with the same thing. When it's customer to customer there is no way to control the responses, or lack of on a forum topic.

I try to go through some of the topics (especially gallery and IDM, and occasionally blog, since those sections don't get as much attention as IPB obviously) that don't have any answers....but when you are posting in a customer-to-customer scenario you really can't expect an answer (or that it necessarily be right) - what you get is based on what the poster's knowledge and experience dictates.

Yet one more argument against having those types of forums here. :P New users will see these sorts of topics and posts, and while it's no fault of ours, I would think it would look bad, no?

I think we both know why there are unanswered threads. After all, look in the modifications forum. Virtually every thread's first reply is "How much are you willing to pay?" usually followed by "I don't think you'll get anyone to help you for that much" - we really don't have all that many benevolent customers, the majority is out for a quick buck off the backs of other customers. Love the software, dislike the user base.

Again, this is something hard to control when you are dealing with a customer-to-customer scenario. As a former modder (for hire), I can say that after so long coding for free, sometimes you kind of need to be compensated for all the time you're putting in. :) By and far, though, you see much more free mods than paid mods, and I'd argue there are still a lot of people out there willing to put in their time for free to help others out. :)

[.Ryan]

By and far, though, you see much more free mods than paid mods, and I'd argue there are still a lot of people out there willing to put in their time for free to help others out. :)

Thats me right here. :blush:

I accept donations hands down...

[Michael]

People can complain about the lack of support at IPSBeyond all they want, but they're apparently forgetting it's a customer-to-customer assistance forum, not official IPS support. As customers of IPS, if you think there is a lack of support at IPSBeyond, that would be because of a lack of you helping out. I don't get paid by IPS to be on the staff there, and my primary use of IPB is writing modifications, yet the IPB Assistance forums are the forums I post in most often there, with over 1300 posts.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if you want there to be more support given at IPSBeyond, then maybe you should start giving some yourself. ;)

[Michael P]

Alot of people have no use for IPSBeyond until they want support, personally I don't like IPSBeyond because I don't think it has a mature atmosphere, and the community forums on here are much better.

There needs to be some real incentive for giving support on there I think, I remember we were told of plans to reward people, but that was a year ago and still nothing has come of it - hopefully this will be addressed in the revamp of IPSBeyond.

[Lindy]

Alot of people have no use for IPSBeyond until they want support, personally I don't like IPSBeyond because I don't think it has a mature atmosphere, and the community forums on here are much better.

There needs to be some real incentive for giving support on there I think, I remember we were told of plans to reward people, but that was a year ago and still nothing has come of it - hopefully this will be addressed in the revamp of IPSBeyond.

Both points will be addressed in the revamp. :)

[.Ryan]

Not points maybe something special for being active or contributing to the community or helping others out. Anybody can earn points, by spamming the forums, hire more mods to then enforce the points.

[elj]

Not points maybe something special for being active or contributing to the community or helping others out. Anybody can earn points, by spamming the forums, hire more mods to then enforce the points.

I don't agree with hiring more moderators. >_<

I doubt the points will be based just on posts anyway, from what I remember there was going to be a system in place that dealt with quality of submissions... hopefully, as has been said, the issues raised will be looked at. :D

[stobbo]

Not points maybe something special for being active or contributing to the community or helping others out. Anybody can earn points, by spamming the forums, hire more mods to then enforce the points.

We all behave well enough, so we shouldn't need Moderators.

I think it needs to be more based quality of posts rather than quantity. Maybe even some sort of Reputation system might work?

[C_ind]

For my own point, I stopped really using IPS Beyond some time ago because it seemed (to me) to have a less professional atmosphere, and I didn't think that having non-IPS moderators helped the situation in the slightest.

Less professional atmosphere than what precisely? This forum doesn't offer support at all, and I doubt IZE would be considered more professional. For its intended purpose, offering customer-to-customer support, it seems OK to me.

OK, what about raising a ticket in the client centre that then automatically creates a post/topic within a support forum. This can then be dealt with by both staff and members/customers. You get to track it and, assuming the customer who raised the ticket does not mind 'going public', customers get to see what is going on. I would also suggest that when the ticket is raised a 'tick box' could be checked to confirm that the ticket raiser agrees to the 'problem' being seen by other customers - I do understand that sometimes people want their board problems being kept private.

One possible reason why IPS, or any other company for that matter, would be sceptical about this idea, is that all errors and, not least, all the panic and false assumptions about the software would be communicated to other customers as well as potential customers.

I have to be honest... I'm quite baffled as to what the concern is regarding official support through the client area.

I think some of your customers are afraid to bother you quite simply. Perhaps they don't want to waste any "credit" they might have with you. Or they don't want to embarass themselves by asking professionals and would rather be helped by fellow amateurs. I've seen at IPSB when I or someone else have recommended that the topic starter submit a ticket, that they're reluctant to contact you and say they'd prefer to wait and see if someone else can provide them with an answer. I doubt they actually do contact you in the end.

I'd also have thought you'd favour responses on a forum instead of over email or phone because it would be less costly. I see you've explained now why you think it's actually cheaper for you to deal with tickets, but I don't think people have realized that yet, even though IPS staff seem to encourage people to submit tickets at every opportunity.

People are ignoring IPS Beyond in droves, and one of the reasons is the

lack

of support.

That's a slight exaggeration. I'm not one of the most active contributors at IPSB but I make it a point to look at every thread with 0 replies in the Assistance forum whenever I'm visiting and going back a few pages as well. Many of the threads that end up with zero replies aren't well explained or haven't been placed in the correct forum, as they're really about modifications, modification requests and skins.

After all, look in the modifications forum.

But I feel there's a big difference between getting help with the software and demanding that additional features be added to the software (in the form of modifications). People who ask for modifications often have no idea how long it takes to make one, and therefore how unreasonable it is to keep asking, in particular when what they're asking for often seems more than a little unnecessary.

[Mat Barrie]

StealthAgent, IPSBeyond (behind the scenes) is already amassing "rewards points" for modders and skinners. Now I don't think there's anything for people who regularly provide support for others, but it's a start.

[BBTFPM]

Are the feedback forums, being used more for support then actual feedback ?

I don't know. One reason I'm not sure is that I think there's a fine line between a request for support, and a request for information.