GJMPhoto
Jul-16-2007, 06:09 AM
I was following the Support thread regarding the system outage yesterday. One of the complaints was that those of us with Pro accounts were not notified that there was a significant outage and performance degradation which was customer perceptable. Several people threatened to leave Smugmug, etc... I'd rather try to change things than abandon them...so here's my perspective:
There is a difference in intent between a pro and a non-pro account. We're running a business...many of us have had our businesses for quite a while (19 years for me) and are now going to the web. The root problem is that for a large part of the customer experience, the actual face of our businesses to our customers is Smugmug...uncustomizable...and completely out of our hands. Sometimes that's a good thing...but sometimes it's not and Smugmug should go out of their way to understand and cater to that fact.
Yes, we can customize our sites to give our own unique look and feel (I've even seen posts complaining about the selection process, but let's face it, Smugmug provides lots of alternatives and good JS coders will get around things).
But:
1) We have no control of the cart page / purchase process - where our customers are actually spending money
2) We cannot have Google show OUR name without the Smugmug slogan - which doesn't represent our approach to our business
3) We have no control of the look and feel of the emails that contact our customer (nor can we even SEE the content of the actual emails being sent)
4) The pictures are shipped without any indication of our business - and frankly, while the Smug symbol is "cute", it doesn't represent the approach of my business
5) We cannot hide our costs from our customers - this because we cannot stop the Smugmug marketing link we have to have on our sites (which, in turn, links to the costs page)
6) We have no notification system for problems such as those in the downtime thread
7) We have no visibility into the pipeline of changes that will effect our sites (we can put in requests and wait...but no indication of what features will be available, when)
I'm sure this list can grow...and I welcome your thoughts.
My main thought is, for a PRO account: aside from a "Powered by SmugMug" symbol at the bottom of my homepage (to let other photographers know about Smugmug), I ought be be able to make Smugmug invisible to my customers...I should have the ability to override with my brand on EVERY aspect of the customer experience...from ordering/paying, to web searches, to packaging and correspondence. That would mean I would need the option to create email templates, logos for packaging, branding on the cart, etc.
I would also need to be able to specify contact information to be notified in case of customer-perceptable outages and performance hits.
If this cost me more per year, I'd gladly pay it.
- Gary.
There is a difference in intent between a pro and a non-pro account. We're running a business...many of us have had our businesses for quite a while (19 years for me) and are now going to the web. The root problem is that for a large part of the customer experience, the actual face of our businesses to our customers is Smugmug...uncustomizable...and completely out of our hands. Sometimes that's a good thing...but sometimes it's not and Smugmug should go out of their way to understand and cater to that fact.
Yes, we can customize our sites to give our own unique look and feel (I've even seen posts complaining about the selection process, but let's face it, Smugmug provides lots of alternatives and good JS coders will get around things).
But:
1) We have no control of the cart page / purchase process - where our customers are actually spending money
2) We cannot have Google show OUR name without the Smugmug slogan - which doesn't represent our approach to our business
3) We have no control of the look and feel of the emails that contact our customer (nor can we even SEE the content of the actual emails being sent)
4) The pictures are shipped without any indication of our business - and frankly, while the Smug symbol is "cute", it doesn't represent the approach of my business
5) We cannot hide our costs from our customers - this because we cannot stop the Smugmug marketing link we have to have on our sites (which, in turn, links to the costs page)
6) We have no notification system for problems such as those in the downtime thread
7) We have no visibility into the pipeline of changes that will effect our sites (we can put in requests and wait...but no indication of what features will be available, when)
I'm sure this list can grow...and I welcome your thoughts.
My main thought is, for a PRO account: aside from a "Powered by SmugMug" symbol at the bottom of my homepage (to let other photographers know about Smugmug), I ought be be able to make Smugmug invisible to my customers...I should have the ability to override with my brand on EVERY aspect of the customer experience...from ordering/paying, to web searches, to packaging and correspondence. That would mean I would need the option to create email templates, logos for packaging, branding on the cart, etc.
I would also need to be able to specify contact information to be notified in case of customer-perceptable outages and performance hits.
If this cost me more per year, I'd gladly pay it.
- Gary.