Starbucks
Well-known member
Ohhhhh the first thing I’d have done if I would have bought the company, is to implement a mandatory “customer communication” workshop for certain staff members. Or probably just hire a digital marketer.
Current state of XF and the participation of the XF Team
- Thread starter sbj
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Starbucks
Well-known member
Just found this thread from 2019:
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/is-it-possible-to-authenticate-from-outside.162226/
Potential customer asks a pre-sales question about external authentication.
No staff member replied at all to this thread, just XF customers doing the support job for them.
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/is-it-possible-to-authenticate-from-outside.162226/
Potential customer asks a pre-sales question about external authentication.
No staff member replied at all to this thread, just XF customers doing the support job for them.
You seem to have misunderstood the purpose of this forum, where community members support each other. If you want a guaranteed response from the XenForo team, use the support ticket system.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
While I agree that the forum is for community support, and the ticket system is the best place for guaranteed (and always excellent) tech support from the team, I have often wondered that people don’t realise that.
It could be very unfortunate if somebody actually buys xenForo purely due to an answer on the presales forum by a member, that actually turns out to be erroneous.
It has happened once or twice, but either we have assisted the customer through it or given them a refund, fortunately the high quality community replies means erroneous information is often rapidly corrected.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Which is great, even though probably not legally binding in the case of info from outside the company.
PaulB
Well-known member
Rather than spending a great deal of time collecting data about the post frequency of various XenForo staff members, it would be more productive to point out any specific issues you feel aren't being addressed. Post frequency just isn't a useful metric.
I report bugs, they get fixed. That's a better metric.
It would be more helpful if you pointed out situations in which you feel that have been deficiencies in communication rather than using aggregate metrics. There are several issues with the data you collected and its presentation--for example, you omitted the account that replies to bug reports and hand-waved away @Brogan's activity--but it doesn't really matter unless you have a specific concern.
I report bugs, they get fixed. That's a better metric.
It would be more helpful if you pointed out situations in which you feel that have been deficiencies in communication rather than using aggregate metrics. There are several issues with the data you collected and its presentation--for example, you omitted the account that replies to bug reports and hand-waved away @Brogan's activity--but it doesn't really matter unless you have a specific concern.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
I agree, although it may be useful for the future of xenForo and customer faith if we got more post from Kier and Chris showing us their cats, ducks, breakfasts, wags etc.
Starbucks
Well-known member
While I agree that the community forum is here to support each other, it’s also the job of the staff members to take over questions that remain unanswered, especially if it’s back from 2019.
As several posts here have mentioned that whenever they contact you guys through the ticket system, it’s often been mentioned the request is out of scope, and that they're being forwarded to the community. This feels kind of... lazy.
To me, it seems you guys are comfortable with the fact that most add-on developers are handling the support requests. Wouldn't it be fair if you just hired some extra customer support agents to be a little more active on this community and handling these requests? You can cost-effectively get some very talented guys from the Philippines or wherever they're from, and let them handle these technical questions. This will also boost your customer engagement, and might even lead to more sales. Which you, can invest in an even bigger XF team of whatever resources you need (communication workshop?).
Now, in your previous (well-written) post you’ve stated why this is the communication style of XF. But it did took quite an amount of threads and replies to make you run to the keyboard and write a statement to keep the crowd happy and informative.
From my understanding, the XF team is great at fixing bugs, security patches and all kinds of stuff, and I completely understand you can't develop that single feature that customer X wants so badly, but you might really want to have a look at that customer experience.
XF is definitely great product, and the communication style doesn't stop me from using it at all, but I am just raising my voice about these things, just like anyone else would do with any other company.
However, the fact that Brogan laid off a customer of yours publicly as stalker (who's intentions were clearly to show the bigger picture of the current situation), that's just disrespectful. Both towards the customer, but also to your future-customers that see these threads and see how a staff (employee) of XenForo calls out a customer. Imagine if a T-mobile agent during a chat with a customer calls out a customer, or if an Apple Genius at the Apple Store does this... the average company would act right away because they want to avoid bad press, whether it is a big or small company. Think about your brand and its marketing. You have a strong position in the forum community software branch, so avoid the bad marketing.
Rather than reigniting the debate we just concluded about the usefulness of this conversation, rejoice to have some fresh news from the development team. Reporting bugs? Thank you ! Know that you are not the only one. Personally I thank @sbj for having initiated this discussion which made it possible to burst an abscess and that satisfied some here. Besides, did the XenForo staff get annoyed? No. Was he upset? No. We just communicated and that was the point.
Shoot man, I didn't mean any disrespectWell at least it seems ive been promoted to human anti spam bot
I didn't realize you did tickets too.
sbj
Well-known member
One can always address other issues. This thread was about the participation of the XF team. That was the issue. I can of course open other threads for other issues, but that is up to me? Do I need your permission of what issues I want to raise or not? More productive or not, I think the post frequency shows how engaged they were and are with the community. And it shows a lack of communication at least.
To be more specific, I already said that we have 0 communication channels about the development of XF. Like our inputs are not heard or considered.
It is not like I have written a script or have access to the database. I simply used the profiles to get that information. I can't just snap my fingers and get the data about replies to bug reports. And if you are unhappy with the presentation, just do it yourself then and let us know?
About Brogan, again, I don't have a tool to miraculously give me any data I want. I had to spend hours counting the dates. Brogan has too many replies to count and it needs no data to see that he is and was always active. I also mentioned it, too. But feel free to count it yourself and I can add it to the table if you are unhappy about it.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
Although they often do, I don’t think it’s actually documented in any T&C that it’s their job. Especially when there is a ticket system and this is labelled community not support.
Starbucks
Well-known member
Bueno, that's true. I am not sure what the T&C says. But I do think that @Kier should stand up a bit more towards the things I have said in my previous post. He might not reply at all tho as it wouldn't make him run back to his keyboard like this thread did, but I just hope he takes some things into account.
PaulB
Well-known member
That's not a feeling anyone enjoys, and it can certainly be frustrating. What sort of input were you hoping to have? I've had the opposite experience: I feel like the XenForo team has taken my input into consideration far more than they need to, and I greatly appreciate that. It's unfortunate that not everyone feels as though they've had that sort of positive interaction.
Mendalla
Well-known member
I also have 0 communication channels beyond some dubious official marketing documents like alleged roadmaps for most of the MS software I use and I spend tens of thousands of dollars on some of that stuff. MS roadmaps are about selling what they claim is being developed, not what is actually being developed. And they are free to change them midstream and frequently do. I have had features and products announced in splashy keynotes and then never show up or not live up to the splashy announcement. I have had roadmaps completely change course between one year's announcement and the next. So if Xenforo keeps their cards close to their chest, I am fine with that. IME, most so-called "development roadmaps" are actually marketing tools, not development tools. So the lack of one here is a feature, not a bug, IMHO.
sbj
Well-known member
You are also a developer if I am not mistaken. So, your expertise knowledge will be considered with a higher priority than Joe's.
Also, this is not about my person and my wishes. Like I am not that kind of an important figure that everyone or XF needs to hear from.
But, as I am an avid community member, I have witnessed all sorts of things and to me in general people are complaining a lot about not getting heard or how the "suggestions system" works. Look at the suggestions node, filled with thousands of suggestions, dusting away for years.
That is the only way giving an input but that channel is a one-sided one. Nobody gets ever a feedback, nobody ever receives an update, nobody ever knows if their suggestion was seen or talked about or considered or worked on.
There is a laziness going on in the system. "This is currently not possible and open a suggestion about it" is the standard reply to everything. Well, that would be okay if once or twice any kind of suggestion was addressed and implemented or thought about. Anything, not mine, not yours, but Joe's suggestions or Doe's suggestions. And when finally an update is released, for half of the stuff I asked myself "who wanted this or why did this got implemented and not that"?
My prime example is always Xon. If they were half in it as him, this would be a different world.
Look, I already ignored your senile jabs so far but this is too much. Don't accuse me of a such thing.
A minority has also rights, wishes, thoughts, expectations, etc. Being the minority doesn't mean one is wrong.
Also, a lot of people liked my 1st post. Exclude XF team's first posts and try to find other threads with that amount of likes and you will see that this minority is not that minor. It is a considerable amount of people considering the activity we have here. Perhaps you are in the minority and you don't know it?
sbj
Well-known member
Really? Like comparing XF to the biggest giant in the world? With hundreds of products, billions of users? That is your example?
Perhaps, Microsoft just needs an official forum where one can communicate it... like here on XF... wait?
Do you see the irony? We have a community forum for this product and we complain about not having a communication channel. Doesn't this seem wrong or odd to you?
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