Dll

No no no. Come on. You weren't minutes late, you're weeks late. You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours), which due to the change to annual pricing and the increase will mean an outlay of more than double what they were expecting. Can you not see how giving a reasonable amount of notice is the least you should have done?

In advance would have been a start. 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

No no no. Come on. You weren't minutes late, you're weeks late. You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours), which due to the change to annual pricing and the increase will mean an outlay of more than double what they were expecting. Can you not see how giving a reasonable amount of notice is the least you should have done?

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

Not my case. This is my only source of income for a couple of years or so (yes, I’m not crazy to have 200 resources for nothing) but honestly, this is becoming a pain more and more at every “new thing” IPS does.
IPS don’t listen. Just read. Try to justify things and that’s it. Nothing will change.
So for the rest (of us) stop wasting your time debating here. That’s how it will be from now on. 

I don't believe that to be the case, Matt.
I do not expect IPS to hold its prices, but this is not just a pricing issue. There are a number of issues:
It's a big price increase (46% for me), in one fell swoop, on an unsuspecting customer. That introduces a shock factor to the equation. That is entirely of IPS's making. Smaller incremental adjustments to pricing, inline with inflation, are easier to absorb and to plan for. This increase is not. It was not communicated. I cannot tell you how furious I was to find a new price on the website, with a changed renewal term, without so much as a word from IPS. I therefore have little time to absorb, reflect or plan for it, and being on the smaller hobbyist side of your userbase, I now have serious doubts about being able to continue to be a customer. That is a shame after a decade of being a loyal customer, but I guess that's part of the game. It benefits your cash flow and hurts ours. You get a chunk of cash in one go, whereas you would have previously accepted it in two. It's stated that this is in part for simplicity, yet I can see no justifable reason for this claim. How hard is it to set 6-monthly renewals? You've done it for years. Bringing it inline with industry standards isn't a compelling reason - IPS is now just as inflexible as other industry players. The communication, when it did arrive, was completely tone-deaf. "Don't worry, it's not bad news"... Yes, it is. It's not only an unexpectedly large price increase with little notice, but it's changing the frequency too. Neither of those things are good news for me. The costs were communicated in monthly terms when the renewal is now collected annually, which screams of smoke and mirrors.

I should have kept my face shut when I was suggesting Invision raise prices.

But, in all seriousness I have no issue with the increase itself. But for a company that's apparently expert in all things communication, it's a bit weird to see it just dropped in there with a site redesign rather than pre-announcing it, emailing customers in advance or whatever else. 
The site does look waaaay better than it did though. 

And between you all, none of you thought that communicating the changes in advance may be the way forward? 

 

1. You chose to update your website and the price that your existing customers pay before emailing them. It's not really about what is posted on here. And you make it sound like emailing 'thousands' of clients is a difficult or time consuming process. Which of course it isn't, beyond writing the email, which could have been done weeks ago, unless you made the prices up on the spot this morning.
2. You're probably going to have to drop the 'barely any clients use this forum' line to justify the lack of reasonable communication on offer, now you're only offering support through it to the majority of your clients.
I'm broadly supportive of the price rise, but can you not just admit that the way it's been communicated has been poor and stop spinning it. It would be so much easier to believe the 'we want to be transparent' pr type guff then.

In advance would have been a start. 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

No no no. Come on. You weren't minutes late, you're weeks late. You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours), which due to the change to annual pricing and the increase will mean an outlay of more than double what they were expecting. Can you not see how giving a reasonable amount of notice is the least you should have done?

1. You chose to update your website and the price that your existing customers pay before emailing them. It's not really about what is posted on here. And you make it sound like emailing 'thousands' of clients is a difficult or time consuming process. Which of course it isn't, beyond writing the email, which could have been done weeks ago, unless you made the prices up on the spot this morning.
2. You're probably going to have to drop the 'barely any clients use this forum' line to justify the lack of reasonable communication on offer, now you're only offering support through it to the majority of your clients.
I'm broadly supportive of the price rise, but can you not just admit that the way it's been communicated has been poor and stop spinning it. It would be so much easier to believe the 'we want to be transparent' pr type guff then.

@Matt
I have been in development for more than 20 years. I remember the story of how Vbulletin died. I was only engaged in forums. One mistake can really cost you a crash. Now you have a choice: leave it as it is or offer a decent solution. As one of the options that I suggested to you.
Please answer in front of everyone - Are you ready to offer us my version? Give the opportunity to renew the license at the old prices for 1 year?
If not, why not?

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

This line from yesterday stood out - I mean who'd have thought that Invision re-made their entire website to coincide with the sudden/zero notice price rise just to show their customers that it was worth it. That is dedication for you.
 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

In all seriousness Matt. If you / the rest of the management at invision think that sort of timescale is acceptable when communicating such a big jump in price, then I really do recommend you hire someone with more knowledge and skills in communication and customer care. You needed to be weeks ahead of this, to give people reasonable notice. 

I'm imagining a parallel universe, where rather than a condescending, pr spun, rushed out email had been sent after the event, instead a clear, honest, professional and concise one was, ahead of time.
If only.
I'd like to assume that Invision's ability to shoot themselves in the foot with bad/lacking communication is due to their focus being on other things within the business. But one part of me starts to wonder if it's just a case of not being bothered enough about their customers. Time will tell, as at some point these lessons are going to have to be learned.

No no no. Come on. You weren't minutes late, you're weeks late. You have clients who have renewals at the new price due in days (maybe hours), which due to the change to annual pricing and the increase will mean an outlay of more than double what they were expecting. Can you not see how giving a reasonable amount of notice is the least you should have done?

1. You chose to update your website and the price that your existing customers pay before emailing them. It's not really about what is posted on here. And you make it sound like emailing 'thousands' of clients is a difficult or time consuming process. Which of course it isn't, beyond writing the email, which could have been done weeks ago, unless you made the prices up on the spot this morning.
2. You're probably going to have to drop the 'barely any clients use this forum' line to justify the lack of reasonable communication on offer, now you're only offering support through it to the majority of your clients.
I'm broadly supportive of the price rise, but can you not just admit that the way it's been communicated has been poor and stop spinning it. It would be so much easier to believe the 'we want to be transparent' pr type guff then.

In advance would have been a start.