New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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Several years ago I had a telephone conversation with a PPH community manager and remarked that I thought many people would be better off without their picture being shown. I stand by that today. It's not about being photogenic but about what image they project.
There's nothing wrong with being grey. My cousin went grey in her thirties. Her hair looked stunning.
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I think the folks at Maven need a better copy editor to fix the spelling mistakes. I think writers should deliver the good*s* Deb.
I won't join Maven. I don't like the vibe (the about us is mostly gripes about a certain freelancing site) and I don't know what would attract clients to it
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Well, I did tell the Maven people so, and got told to give them a chance. I think Geoff and I are inclined to say ""I told you so".
it is a good sign that we finally have a response from someone at PPH, and I hope this is going to mean they are listening now. PPH, you filtering/matching algorithms do not work and are annoying. If you must select me for jobs, please select me by actual skills I have listed in my profile.
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@Deb I am a software developer, mostly iPad/iPhone apps these days. On a good day I do the design work as well, but I don't push myself as a "real" designer. It's taken me a long time to come to realise that the technology behind an app is mostly irrelevant, it's the human factors that determine how good it is. I have sold custom artwork on PPH. These days I would be forbidden from making a proposal, probably.
I'm not a copy writer, but I think I have a good eye for bad copy!
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@Paul, was just curious as everyone else always talks about their skills but I can't remember you ever doing so :) I AM a copywriter so how do you think I feel lol :/ I unfortunately also know the reason behind it which is why I asked Geoff how to contact him. I am easy to find, just look for a level 5 with a web surfing kitty :P
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Aha, another new broom! Heavy duty this time, I hope?
Michael is a brave man to take on the job because there's many months of dissatisfaction to sweep away, and so much under the carpet already - how much dirt can you heap up under one carpet? I wish him well.
I think an interesting experiment would be, if Michael picked one of the issues that's been raised on this forum, and contacted support about it himself, anonymously, to ask for urgent help. A sort of secret shopper if you like. And bearing in mind that most online support services respond to queries within a matter of hours if not minutes. Then he might start to understand how truly appalling PPH support is.
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@Pie - to be honest, whilst your mystery shopper idea is a very valid one, unless he really wants to, I really don't think he needs to. Would all of us have been complaining over the course of several months for nothing? I think not! I am sure that most of you here (I certainly do), have better things to do than sit and complain for several months for no reason.
Michael has already admitted to monitoring these posts pretty much since day one, so all that time, he has been aware of every single complaint/issue.
I'm not really sure about the "brave man to take on the job" bit, because, as I understand it, he's been aware since day one, so really, in my eyes, he's just as guilty as others at PPH for seemingly not doing anything about it, and definitely guilty of a complete lack of communication, which he himself has admitted to.
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I think the skills thing is regarded as 'teething troubles', but I think they'll be forced to ditch it eventually. It must be hurting. Unfortunately they also introduced other radical things at the same time (seller vetting and they expanded the payment options), so they have no baseline to compare the effect of skills matching in isolation.
PPH have always dismissed the complaints here as inconsequential given the size of the seller community and the number of complainants here. When people here have warned of impending doom, Xenios has been very positive in expounding the success of PPH as a result of new measures.
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From a quick look at Maven, unfortunately Paul and the others are correct about the copywriting, it doesn't give a good first impression.
"we have worked with freelancers every step of the way to include **features that you wanted and, even more importantly, what you didn't want"
**made me laugh. We already have a site that includes a great deal of what we didn't want. LOL -
Hello PPHers,
Ill try to answer as many questions based on the comments here.
I have been monitoring the forums since the last 2 weeks as i have taken over the moderation and support for this. I had left a message back in July when i was asked by one of our users. I will be monitoring the forums daily from now on and will be passing on as much feedback as possible to our management team and i will try to participate whenever possible with comments.
I am not sure what occurred with the previous forum structure as for the past year that i have been with PPH, this is the system that has been in place. We do want to make this a better place for our users and i will be looking to improve the way the forums work. Meaning more support, ambassadors and easier to use. I will be making an announcement for this in the next few weeks.
Regarding multiple features that have been implemented on the site, such as filtering(curation) and the trending hourlies, on which i have seen numerous complaints, I understand that there is a large frustration on why these were introduced and how they work. I have asked that our social, product and developer managers become more involved with answering these questions directly as to explain all sides of why we introduce certain products. There is a definite gap of communication here and we are looking to improve this as best possible. There are 2 fixes being made for the curation feature and 1 for the trending hourlies which should improve user experience with them and make them more functional for everyone. These are listed as high priority although I am not able to provide a definite date of when they will be ready.
Wish you all a great day.
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Thank you Michael for a very positive post.
But we will have to wait and see whether anything happens. Well-intentioned go-betweens have popped up and talked the talk before and I'm sure they've really believed it but they haven't been the decision-makers so nothing has changed. I for one find it hard to believe that it is purely a communication problem. History suggests that the decision-makers at PPH are very well aware of the issues but don't choose to do anything about them. If they'd wanted to fix them they'd have done it long ago, and the complaints would have stopped. The very fact that they've given you this job suggests they know all about the discontent but they are not going to take away the source of the complaints, so as an alternative let's put a nice likeable person such as Michael there to try and calm everything down. So you'll carefully pass on feedback that they've had passed on to them a hundred times before and it won't have any result. Same old same old because there's none so deaf and blind as those who don't want to hear or see.
Cynical and disillusioned? Yep. Are you surprised?
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will be passing on as much feedback as possible to our management team
Which means, you will mention it (which to be completely fair to you is all you can do), and they might discuss it, they might even tell us some corporate reasoning behind the decisions, but nothing will change. And they'll still make decisions they think are better for the community, rather than making changes FOR the community which are suggested BY the community. And judging by previous features they thought were going to be good, I don't have ANY confidence for any future changes or new features!
Regarding multiple features .. I understand that there is a large frustration
Yes, however, having been manager of a large tech department in a large tech company, and involved in various meetings, the worrying thing for me is why your management team's discussions didn't reveal the crucial and very real pit falls in these features, not even how they badly affect users - one of them stopped your customers using your services (it stopped buyers from being able to buy from a lot of sellers..).It should never take consumers to point out to management such obvious reasons why a feature is so poor, and how highly detrimental the affects are to the consumers, and most certainly not time after time for various features! More thought and discussion time is needed!
I have asked that our managers become more involved with answering these questions directly as to explain all sides of why we introduce certain products
There are no valid "reasons" to introduce features such as blocking me until I update my profile.
Sure, sometimes corporate make decisions on rules/services/products which cannot be avoided, even though they greatly and negatively affect staff and/or the consumers. There is always "a reason", usually not what the people want to hear, sometimes not valid or logicial, but it's usually in order for the business model to survive, it was unavoidable.
Most of PPHs poor features are not to allow the business to survive. Take the "no proposals until profile updated" - all that did was anger a lot of your consumers, and delay them from making money, and stop buyers getting all potential sellers so they can decide on the best one for them!
So whatever your "reasons" are I'm sure you can make them sound justifiable within the realms of business requirements, rather than show it for what is is - a set of incompetent mistakes where forethought and consumer's core requirements were completely missing (or ignored..).
Regardless of the situation the company is in, or how great an idea you think something may be, never stop consumers from buying/using your services! Especially as stopping me placing bids was essentially just to get me to add some pointless things to my profile. I could add anyone's name, profile picture, etc. Was that discussed in your meetings? That essentially the profile updates does nothing so let's at least give users a few months to update before blocking them, with reminders in their accounts.
None of what you introduced adds any real level of security or protection to anyone, in fact, it will give some buyers a false sense of security, believing that because PPH has made sellers do XYZ it all must now be more secure.
It's like Amazon allowing all their sellers to continue listing goods, but stopping all their users from buying anything at all until they added some info in their profile. They just wouldn't do it - ever!
Why do you FORCE me to have a profile picture? What management thought this would be good, for what reason?
Do they think someone unsavoury trying to rip people off is going to say "dam, thwarted again. I'll have to show them my face and can be tracked...". Or, maybe they just go to google images....
You have some very VERY weird ideas here, and as a new user who has not had any work yet, all I can say so far is all I see are illogical things, silly ideas and notions which wastes your staff time, our time, and stops consumers getting a good service.
There is a definite gap of communication here
No, there's a entire missing explanation as to why these features were rolled out when they stop your consumers using the services you need them to use in order for the business model to work and said consumers to earn money.
This in turn means less proposals, which means buyers go elsewhere, which means sellers have no-one to sell to and go elsewhere... It's pretty simple.Plus the other features which just (I cannot state this strongly enough) "don't make any logical sense whatsoever!".
Anyway, thanks for your reply - I mean that sincerely. I've been in your shoes, handling major public and consumer feedback for very poor services and multiple complaints for things you didn't implement, and potentially didn't even agree with!
I too wish you a great day.
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@Michael - I pretty much agree with what James has said here, but I'd like to highlight a couple of points:
It's like Amazon allowing all their sellers to continue listing goods, but stopping all their users from buying anything at all until they added some info in their profile. They just wouldn't do it - ever!
I suspect people would potentially be sacked for this.
show it for what is is - a set of incompetent mistakes where forethought and consumer's core requirements were completely missing (or ignored..)
I'll end by saying this:
If the person at the top won't listen and take advice, then Michael, you might as well be p*ssing in the wind.
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Might as well add my tuppence worth!! I get sent matched jobs to my inbox that ARE NOT a match to me! Then I can't bid on jobs that are perfect for me ...PPH, what is going on?!!! Stop trying to look after the Buyers, it's US SELLERS that make this site a success, the fact that we are the ones who get charged is one thing, stopping us for applying for suitable jobs is another. Work harder in sifting out the no-gooders on this site and stop penalising those who are trying to earn a crust and build a business! SIMPLE!
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Malcolm, I should think several thousand of us are getting those emails.
Today I was supposed to be excited because the hourlies were being discounted, yet again.
I am so delighted as a seller to find job values being continually eroded with sellers being co-erced by PPH to drop hourlie values in return for publicity.
Whatever happened to a quality market?
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