Offer an Instant Messaging or Chat feature between Buyers and Sellers
Sort of like the "facebook" style, allowing people to contact those online, and leave messages for those who aren't!
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*REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION IS CRITICAL CAPABILITY FOR BOTH BUYERS AND SELLERS. *
INTEGRATE IT IMMEDIATELY - IF NOT SOONER!!!
I can't count the number of issues that became devastating but avoidable disasters, simply due to delayed or miscommunication with clients and 3rd party content vendors. In fact, I've even LOST work on more occasions than I care to recall simply due to being left out of the loop.
If project specs must adjust due to new or unforeseen developments, service providers need to know sooner, rather than later. Much effort is easily wasted to render services no longer needed or require changes. Although email and workstream messages may provide basic communications forum, there's no opportunity for immediate clarification of unclear issues or receiving answers to questions that must come before work commences or continues.
Moreover, from buyer viewpoint, ability to observe personal demeanor via live video or even on-screen text responses of prospective sellers makes a big difference. For instance, if someone claims to provide "excellent" content with "fast turnaround time," constant grammatical errors and 5 minutes to complete 1 sentence of online chat speaks for itself. Also, portfolios and work samples are easy to fake with prior assembly of plagiarized content or paid work of others to misrepresent actual talent or capabilities. Even if all portfolio contents are entirely of the seller's own efforts and accurately reflect skill, indefinite time limit and lack of customized probing questions largely negate its value.
I'm all for it, so GO FOR LIVE SUPPORT AND CHAT ASAP, PPH!!!
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I do not think pph will bring any instant com link faster. So, I use gtalk, skype as ways to keep my client updated of every bit of my work progress and keeping a live conversation. If it gives pph pain, then my advice is do something that is worth of us to keep each and every conversion on streams. I can not allow my valuable time to be wasted with continuous page refreshing to get updates from my client.
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Hey guys, just thought Id throw my 10 pence in....It would be a fundamental flaw to convert the workstream entirely to instant chat form as this is relied upon for so many reasons by so many including us freelancers and no doubt the legal dispute teams at PPH. VIP for us all.
I think a similar to Skypes contacts/people column layout with the online status visible and the ability to dive into each contact to access the IM would be a good addition to the site as a add on yes, in addition to the workstreams.
Just looking at the site, I cant see why PPH couldnt move the social placeholder to the other side where its closer to the profiles of the people you are wanting to like and use the now empty left column to add this feature for all your online clients and prospects. Perhaps a further improvement would be the ability to select your favourite or best clients to list at the top of the column, so that you can prioritise based on demand.
Even in the inbox would be a simple helpful addition in the interim.
This isnt hard to do as PPH have the status on the job posters profile already functioning.
the FB chat box is not as advanced as Skypes, so I would use this for reference. Im sure most of you agree, so if you are going to do this PPH, please just add it as a temporary inclusive measure, not replacement therapy, dont fix what isnt broken, too many features can spoil the broth as it were and constantly having to tediously explore for certain features to access the data and edit/update it is already painful enough, so the best features are the clearest to see and easiest to use and relevantly viewable on the right pages of the site.
PPH should have some kind of voting system in the forums if its regarding new ideas for the site, especially if we have varied opinions, then reviewed after a short period to see if it will remain or go. Keep it simple.
I do agree with the McHon on the fact that ideas are simply put into action without any notice of the communities opinion, I dont think this has done any community any good in the past. So, lets try and help PPH find the solution, I am sure if we can all voice our opinions in a casting vote system, at least its for the majority, then we can all absorb the new issues that are found and tweak to hopefully make it a welcome idea, rather than potentially push folk like McHon who has multiple orders, it would just become completely unusable for many successful PPHers thus drive away good quality freelancers from the site which isnt good for us freelancers if we think about it, they offer a lot of insights into us, so having a system that makes you unreliable, which wont do the sites quality reputation any good which wont bring the great clients I have found here so far.
Sorry, that was around £3.60s worth !
Hopefully its not too late !
Happy hunting PPHers
M
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Of course this is a good idea. At times you need to work with someone and discuss things in a live way. It is different and much better to IM then emailing back and forth, specifically with detailed projects such as web projects where there are lots of details and room for misunderstanding.
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What an utterly ridiculous comment! Just because a person doesn't logout, leaving a little green dot next to their name, does not mean they are online!
Personally, I never logout, but that does not mean that I'm on the site 24/7. It means I don't want the inconvenience of logging in every time I return.
This feature would only interest people who are trying to agree to take work outside of PPH. -
Hi Jessica,
It is a very good idea as there is no contacts now. You can ask only one question about a job and the button "Contact" on the profiles instead of connecting you to the owner of the profile asks you to place a new job for everybody.
I look forward to having this option as soon as possible.
Regards,
Ian
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I voted + for this idea as I think it is a good idea to keep all communication on records and make that easier to get in touch! The way we use it, whether as a 'social gathering' or anything non-professional, depends completely on us. How we end up using that feature!
I read that it was a 'bad idea'. I could not think of any reason for that. I know I am new to this freelancing but still, could some please help me in understanding why this could be a 'bad idea'? It seems I may be missing some big concern it may present later.
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I think it can not be good or bad idea.
I think it should not be any restrictions on communications between buyer and seller. If you do not want to ask or answer questions it is your right. The issue is the discrimination of other people rights who wants to ask and answer questions.
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I give you recent example of the advertised project where I want to ask questions and I have no chance to do it:
“We are looking for someone to set up a excel spreadsheet to cover a 12 month period starting from the 01/04/2014 - 31/03/2015.
This will need to let us input our daily sales , stock amount , postage amount ,customer refunds , fees , supplier refunds , profit.
From this information we want it to be able to plot on a separate graph each of these values for the month to date & year to date .”
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the buyer wants year to date value for each of 7 inputs. The question: Is it calendar or fiscal year? If I have not received proper answer to tis question I will do my job twice.
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The buyer wants that the application let him input daily sales, stock amount etc. The question: It will be single or multiple inputs. If he plans multiple input it means more job and further questions regarding separate graphs.
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Another question: Whether he plans direct input into the spread sheet or asks for the form that simplifies his job, makes the input more consistent, reduces mistakes and increases the data security. But it means more work for me.
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Also, the question what he means by “…we want it to be able to plot on a separate graph each of these values”.
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He wants me to provide him with MTD and YTD data for each of inputs where he will take the values from for his graphics.
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Or he wants me to create all 7*2 =12 graphics (if single input) or much more if it is multiple.
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Values for my reports should I take from the master spread sheet and calculate MTD and YTD inside the graphics
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Or I need to create another 2 spread sheets with calculated MTD and YTD for each input and take values from there. (It means that I should do both tasks 4a and 4b)
Other questions could appear during the clarification of the details.
Until I get the answers it is difficult to decide whether this project worth doing it for 25 pounds.
Even it is easy for me to do this job I cannot send my proposal.
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That's what the clarification board is supposed to be for. But that doesn't work because too many people decided to scam that. We all know who they are but PPH won't put a stop to it - 'report user' function or not.
I can't think of anything that isn't detrimental about an instant messaging feature on PPH - please don't. There are far more sophisticated ways of doing this designed by people who know what they're talking about.
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No please! They do this at freelancer.com and it is HORRIBLE! People will spam IM you non stop. Email notification works just as fast and fine for the times someone sends you a message here. Also the IM system opens it up to A LOT of creeps. Very strange men start trying to act like this is a dating site and it is awful!
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It is very important and very urgent improvement that is needed to be done.
For instance, today the buyer writes in his proposal (#488316) that he has attached an example of his requests but there is no example in the list. Unfortunately, I cannot send a question about the example as I have already used my 3 questions per month.
It means that limit of 3 questions negatively impact the quality of jobs on PPH.
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No....To simply not integrate Instant Messaging, reducing the likeliness of creeps contacting serious workers or buyers, but this is obviously not the case.
Lets keep the conversation serious. Is instant messaging really necessary? As a freelancer, will you be able to handle the load of messages coming from different ends at an instant. This is just an easier way for clients to lose faith in you, INSTANTLY. The minute you don't answer , due to personal circumstances, the more they would think you aren't interested in their project....
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Hi Ian,
But what some Buyers do is accept your proposal straight away without any further discussion, which leads to the some people not being able to complete projects meaning we have to outsource or take a bad rating.
Just for the interim, regarding the clarification board, if the Buyer hasn't replied within say 3 working days, can you not nullify/remove that Sellers post?
If I ask a question about a project and the Buyer can't even be bothered to answer some further questions to allow me to put a more accurate proposal together (which the Buyer should want) then I wouldn't want to work for that person anyway.
I'm still unable to ask a question on the clarification board and it doesn't look like the Buyers are coming back as the last question I asked was over a week ago, so while they've probably gone to some other site to get the work done, I'm stuck here unable to ask any further questions.
This is beyond a joke to be honest, whoever thought about doing that - and moreso the person who approved it should be sacked.
Kind regards,
Tom
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