Before you purchased: what confused you?

[Charles]

For existing customers:

Before you finally purchased our software or one of our services: what confused you? By this I mean things that were not clear on our web site or something you had to email/call us to clarify before purchasing.

We are working on a combination of a pre-sales FAQ and enhancing the web site here and there with better explanations of what we offer.

As you might imagine, it is sometimes hard to separate those items that we know in our heads but others might not. Assumptions that people know what we mean when we say "skin" or talk about PHP requirements can cause people to either not purchase or to purchase and not really know what they are getting.

Anything you can recall not being clear before your purchased (or even after you purchased), please post here. If you have an idea on how we can make that clearer all the better.

And as a personal request: please keep discussion to a minimum in this topic. Someone may post something that seems obvious to you but we don't need a post saying "well that's obvious!" :)

Thanks for your help!

[C_ind]

We wondered whether it would be possible to convert our old Snitz board to IPB. I submitted a ticket for this before we'd bought the software and got a reply saying that you were working on a Snitz -> IPB converter, which would be released shortly. That was six months ago I believe, is it still in Beta mode? :) Finally managed to successfully convert with a pre-conversion (de-archive) script, a Snitz->phpBB converter, the phpBB->IPB converter and finally a post-conversion script.

Through the demo it was possible to learn about IPB beforehand, but the ACP was a little overwhelming at first and if you'd changed a setting it was difficult to find back to it again. I also didn't know what was meant by 'template HTML' or 'template bits' or 'HTML logic' (as opposed to just regular HTML), complete gibberish.

[stobbo]

I think it would be nice to have a Further Questions form, where people could ask Pre Sales Questions.

Maybe have different category's like: Conversions, Billing, Feature Questions and then a category for each piece of software.

Anyway, basically a simpler way to ask pre sales questions, as I didn't find it very easy.

[PolakTom101]

I think it had to be with the lisnceing thing (Yearly, Lifetime) but that is now much more clarifed. But another thing that confused was finding the phone number to call you by but now with the new website it is a lot better but if you needed any PHP mod addons or if the software was encoded with Zend or ionCube or if it was un-coded.

[Midnightmadness]

The only thing that really confused me was the new billing for 2.2 but Debbie was nice enough to explain that to me via e-mail.

Everything else was pretty clear ( to me) I'm a IPS hosting customer as well I wouldn't mind seeing some more FAQ on common issues with Hosting I often read the knowledge base before I put in a ticket.

[Stephen Fleming]

I'm wanting to buy a lisence but I have alot of questions and don't really know what one would be best for me and I don't know if I should by from here or from somone on Invision, because they sell them there also :unsure:

[stobbo]

I'm wanting to buy a lisence but I have alot of questions and don't really know what one would be best for me and I don't know if I should by from here or from somone on Invision, because they sell them there also :unsure:

If you have any questions I'd recommend emailing sales[at]invisionpower.com.

[tomek__w]

Simply put, nothing confused me but bear in mind that I purchased my licences more than 2 years ago.

One area of confusion may be in the prerequisites though

[Charles]

Simply put, nothing confused me but bear in mind that I purchased my licences more than 2 years ago.

One area of confusion may be in the prerequisites though

[Stephen Fleming]

If you have any questions I'd recommend emailing sales[at]invisionpower.com.

I just sent a email :)

[tomek__w]

You would actually be surprised how many buy it and then call us up and say "oh I need a web host?"

:thumbsup: I doubt it - just see my sig (w00t)

[Tomm]

Thanks Charles for doing this :) I see our ranting in the other thread has not been for nothing. Anyway as long as the FAQ has some good structure it should work. Probrobly catagorized similar to this:

- Getting started, this is where the very basic info should go like what is PHP, what is Mysql, what is Hosting, etc.. this is where a person with NO web experience can start.

- Products, overview of products you sell and answers to basic functionalty and purpose type questions like, what would i use Dynamic for? etc.

- IPS hosting and other services, all the info for hosting services you provide as well as other service only related items could go here.

- Requirements, all the requirements for the products you sell, in looking at you site i think this area need alot more elaboration then you give it for certain products, we have to assume a potential customer knows nothing about this stuff.

- Pricing, Another confusing area as of late that really needs to be broken down and be a simplistic as possible, also payment options here also.

- Conversions, as the poster stated above maybe a breakdown of what you can convert to Invision and how much etc..

- Client Support, this part can be to answer questions about the client area and also talk about support and how to get it, what is IBS Beyond etc.. all that good stuff.

- Common Installation Questions, this can link to an installation Q/A type of FAQ that would be broken down by product.

- Common Problem Questions, this can link to an problems Q/A type of FAQ that would be broken down by product.

- Contact Information, break down of who to call, email or link to for various things.

- Customers who use Invision, This is optional but from a marketing perspective good to show major customers that use you products (i know you have some logos on your main page), also good to have customer testimonials I mentioned in the other thread. What you could do is send an email out to all your current customers asking if they would like to sumbit a testomonial (have them submit it to a special email address) maybe you can offer then them an incentive for it like a discount on there renewal or something, or free IPDownload, whatever :). Then you can just pick the best testomonials and publish them in a certain area the new customers can see!


Just some ideas above, some of this you have covered already . :)

[W13]

The most confusing for me is the website. Spent 5 minutes trying to find these forums for the first time... the navigation is split (tabs, and left-nav).

I'd rather see a navigation completely on the left-side. That way, my mind can absorb exactly what's on the site. A nice hierarchal left-side menu will be great.

[stobbo]

The most confusing for me is the website. Spent 5 minutes trying to find these forums for the first time... the navigation is split (tabs, and left-nav).

I'd rather see a navigation completely on the left-side. That way, my mind can absorb exactly what's on the site. A nice hierarchal left-side menu will be great.

We did have this on the old site. However the management decided to go with the new design. I personally prefer it.

[VelvetElvis]

One thing that has frustrated me and continues to do so is the assumption that all users are using shared webhosting. I was looking for detailed info on server specs and configuration and there was none to be found. IMHO IPS could gain a lot of ground with a specialized portion of the website aimed at people with experience as IT professionals and sysadmins. Those of us who want dense and to the point documentation and prefer shell scripts over web installers are a minority, but other people ask us what software to buy all the time. Sometimes we're even paid to make large scale purchasing decisions.

The publication of the developers docs helps a lot with this. They should be renamed btw so sysadmins know to look there as well.

[WalleniuM]

two things:
-the full requirements... for 2.2.0 you need more than 12MB memory to use all features. include a sample php configuration or sth like that
- add a text informing that the ACP is english only ;) would save the non english inofficial support forums some time...

the rest is ok. i remember no other issues...

[Mark]

What you could do is send an email out to all your current customers asking if they would like to sumbit a testomonial (have them submit it to a special email address) maybe you can offer then them an incentive for it like a discount on there renewal or something, or free IPDownload, whatever :) . Then you can just pick the best testomonials and publish them in a certain area the new customers can see!

Or use the feedback section in the client area :thumbsup:
Make sure you get testemonials from the big companies as well as the normal user

-the full requirements... for 2.2.0 you need more than 12MB memory to use all features. include a sample php configuration or sth like that

That would confuse me, let alone a complete newbie.