Auctiva Engineering and Support, please keep Auctiva users informed of site changes in a timely manner. By timely manner, please give notice of major site changes a week in advance, not 16 hours notice.
I just read in the main Auctiva News forum a new posting
eBay Announcement
https://community.auctiva.com/e...081020411/m/93510619
I appreciate the notice of direction that this Auctiva announcement gives. Thank you to Tony, Product Manager. I don't know if you regularly announce direct and policy like this in the Auctiva News community forum. But this is appreciated.
I would like Auctiva to extend this openness to your scheduling of maintenance and upgrades. I would appreciate a monthly post in Auctiva News telling Auctiva users the current issues being worked on and any approximate dates for implementing them.
For example, this major site upgrade has been rumored in the works for months in problem reports I submitted to Auctiva Support. It was hinted at in the Community forums. I posted a question asking when this was going to happen and then it happened two days after my post. But then it was implemented on 16 hours notice! You surely had planned for it and knew it was going to be done more than 16 hours before.
What I would have liked to see in the Auctiva News was a posting for at the end of February and every month was an Announcement saying:
Site Upgrades and Changes Planned for March 2009
End of March - Auctiva facelift planned - new menus, new look planned. Some bug fixes. Plan your work accordingly.
Site Upgrades and Changes Planned for April 2009
Middle of April - Auctiva major site upgrade planned - more new look, fix this, improve this, etc. Plan your work accordingly.
And then send out definite times a week in advance when these changes are going to be done.
The last minute changes and lack of notification does not allow Auctiva users to plan their work around these improvements (changes). If I had known that Auctiva was doing a major site upgrade a few days ago, I would have planned for it and worked around it knowing there would be some chaos for that day and the days following it.
As it is, I aborted working on Auctiva that day after a morning and early afternoon of frustration and worked directly in eBay to list my items successfully on 15-cent eBay listing day. The timing of 15-cent day and the Auctiva site upgrade was terrible and I know it is not Auctiva's fault. I am no longer angry and frustrated as I did manage to list items by avoiding the use of the Auctiva website. But I could have saved hours if I had known the site upgrade was planned for that day.
One last point, I take issue with the following statement in the above-mentioned announcement.
Quoted directly from the end of the announcement
Let us know if you have questions or concerns. As always, we strive to maintain open communication with our members and continue to improve our products and services.
-Mike
I am really bothered by the “As always” part, I do not think that is true. The "As always" shows a definite rift between Auctiva Support attitude and views and their Auctiva users. You think you are doing a great job but some Auctiva users disagree (at least me). You think we do not appreciate all your efforts. Well, I do appreciate your efforts. I did IBM mainframe customer support for 15 years and have a very good understanding of the issues keeping a computer site up and running. I just don't like the way things are implemented and the lack of timely communication.
I am also bothered by the “we strive to maintain open communication with our members”, I think you do try to communicate but it is slow, awkward and not in a timely manner.
When there is a problem affecting a significant amount of Auctiva users, it is always 2-3-4 days before it is acknowledged, then a fix is announced, the fix does not work, a new fix is announced and then it is fixed.
The same is true for submitting a problem report to Auctiva Support. It takes 2-3 emails of explaining before they understand that there is an issue. Their first response is always clear your cache which is a time waster.
Thank you.
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