Why is there no easy way to contact product creators?
Cheetahka
Posts: 168
I wish there was either a main page here in the forums you can one click for a contacts list of email (company or other wise), PM link, etc And/Or perhaps add a link on the product page by the creator Name(s). I can understand if they don't want to be bothered/busy and so on, but how hard would it be to send out a form with an opt-in and place links, emails and so on if they like to participate? Many have their own businesses and place that info in their product PDF/Readme files anyway.
While I have posted in the Product suggestions section before, sometimes I'd like to ask/suggest things directly to the creator as well, especially if it's about their product.
The only other method is via the trouble ticket system which is not user friendly in this regard and you have to guess what area to send your question to and hope it might reach them.
But maybe I'm wrong and something like this does exist, if it does I don't know the steps to find/contact and please explain the steps as it is not an intuitive process for me on this forum.
Sincerely,
Jacob G.
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Comments
It is part of the deal between Daz and the PA's that Daz handkes customer notifications.
A number of the PA's are active in the forums and you can then try to send them a PM.
Or some has some actuve threads where you can write.
But that's my point, At least let us know which ones are active and have forum threads etc...They are literally doing it already, so why hamper the process of finding them? Thus my "opt-in" idea. It's anti consumer and hurts productivity in my eyes.
OOOH maybe make a forum section for the creators (other than PA Commercial product release forums) to have a separate chat section. Just ...SOMETHING... to try and reach them.
beachlegs said:
I agree I would also like to deal with the Vendor direct..If I buy a product and need to ask a question I want to talk with them direct, I do not want to go through a third party. I have been put off from buying items in the past because I have to wait such a long time for replies to a question.
Because this allows the creators to get on with creating instead of having to answer all those inane "How do I use this?", "This product doesn't work because I didn't bother to read the requirements?", "I have a great idea for another product that you can make and then we share the profits." customer requests.
Agreed. That is the one perk I see of being a DAZ PA, letting DAZ deal with customer service
While this statement is a valid argument, Your leaving out the fact that my suggestion leaves the creator a space to control and decide wether to filter, view, respond, etc of their own choice (opt-in). Should they wish to avoid said statements but have correspondence then leave only a chat forum open with "Rules" ie...do's don'ts it's very common on artists webpages/forums, no PM/email options. That is just one example of how to go about it. I mean they basically do this to a degree on the Daz PA Commercial Products page. On a side note: Have you viewed some of these forum posts about how broken some products are?! Yet customers either really like the artists work or that particular product and would like the issue addressed. (I've sent trouble tickets before for situations like this myself with no resolution). But that aside there is never an obligation to answer any post(s). It's social media and just like ALL social media you must moderate yourself or it can consume you and your time.
Sincerely,
Jacob G.
I'm fine with that, At least setup the ticket system where It's simple to navigate to send the question so it can at least be filtered/viewed and possibly sent to the Content creator. I'm all for that, but at least give us a means to make the attempt in the first place is all I'm suggesting. It wouldn't be hard to add a new drop box option: contact Content creator and a field: Artists name and your letter in the Description box.
Sincerely,
Jacob G.
This is a suggestion you should make to Daz directly, via a ticket.
This answer is a perfect example about what the first post is about...
Having to use a ticket, instead of having a public means of contacting WG or it's PAs means, that such answers and problems just stay under the carpet... easy to ignore them... no need to make the other customers think about them...
Here at DAZland I've got an open ticket for 2 years about a product, that has a minor flaw - some sliders that are supposed to morphs a hat not doing anything - which probably would take not really much time to get fixed.. but after two years nothing happened... Bought a product at Rendo a while ago, noticed a bug, contacted the PA per in shop mail and after one week (!) it got fixed.
Now...
Which option would customers might prefer?
And to the PAs that are selling at DAZ land and Rendo: Do you have more work doing customer service at Rendo yourself?
that would be OK if DAZ actually had a working cudtomer service. From now on if I have a workability question or problem with product its going back for refund.
Which is, I suspect, a good example of why many PAs would not want an option for direct communication - the expectation of that they should respond would be very high, regardless of the nature of the query, as I fear would be the expectation that PAs should opt-in regardless of their abilities (in language or general communication skills) or available time.
This is somewhat fallacious thinking though, as it presumes those are the only (or even correct) options.
Sure, if the only factor were the speed and responsiveness of support, then that's an obvious choice, but when "Trained DAZ support technicians will answer customer questions and emails for you!" is actually the second thing they bring up on their page about becoming a vendor (just after "your products have access to the largest 3D model customer base") , then your real second option would also inevitably include "drive some vendors away from the store". And a choice between occasionally getting slow support on a product I was interested in, and not getting some products at all... that's not an obvious choice.
In any case, when it comes to a ticket that's been languishing for more than a month or two, it's always worth chasing it up. There's always new tickets being added, so it's not hard for a ticket to just get buried. After all, if the buyer's left the ticket for a year without getting back to you about it, does it really seem like the most important thing to fix right now?
If a company does not respond to costomer compliants within a reasonable amount of time, that business does not do well and Daz is notorious for the lack of support that has been getting worse over time. They would greatly reduce their returns if they optimized this support, instead, they got worse. They would also greatly reduce the amount of returns if they properlly checked products before they hit the store, instead of letting said customers deal with the problems they know won't get fixed in a reasonable amount of time. To a person who uses Daz for business, that is a huge problem. It doesn't matter if Daz thinks it's not important, to the one using an item for their business, it means the difference between having a job, client, etc. or not.
Response times have been improved recently, in my experience, and some older tickets have also received attention.
I'm not sure about the improved response times. Some of my recent tickets have had no response at all (other than the automated one at submittal).
According to "My Activities", two of them have been sitting there for a month, one for 23 days, and one for 8 days. Is a month with no response considered "improved"? Or is the system broken and CS isn't even seeing some tickets at all?
If you're having a problem with a specific product, you don't need the creator's help. Very often, creators are so familiar with their products, they have trouble seeing where and how it isn't intuitive. Many creators don't speak English at all, and those that do often it isn't their first language and have trouble communicating (which often leads to them coming across as rude and users getting mad at them). You can look in the forums to see if other people are having the issue as well. If you have trouble with the forum search (I've heard some do), you can do an Advanced Google Search and restrict it to the Daz domain/forums.
If a vendor has a thread about a product, you'll find it in this forum: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/daz-pa-commercial-products
If you want to make suggestions and don't want to file a ticket to do so, there is a forum for that the creators can look in if they are open to it (which you've mentioned using before) https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/product-suggestions
As for direct contact-- while some users are very polite and patient, as a creator, I've gotten many messages that were not so. Because I'm fairly active on the forums and easy to find, I've gotten everything from polite thank you's and well dones to request to render NSFW things for people to getting yelled at that a character I made didn't match what they wanted for their project how could I, change it immediately. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the internet, the kind messages are much less common than the not-so-kind ones. As I'm sure you're aware, some creative types can be particularly sensitive and don't handle the messages well. On a business level, it is beneficial for all involved for them to avoid them completely. But really, the other users in the forums are often very helpful if you don't want to file a ticket for some reason. Other people that have bought a product can answer your questions often better than the vendor can.
Other areas to get help in the forums are Tech Help-- https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/technical-help
And just in the general commons where you posted this thread. As you can see, several people came to your aid, and hopefully it has answered your questions. I understand completely why you would want to contact a vendor directly, but I hope this helped you understand why many of them don't want to be contacted and gave you better avenues to pursue.
I'm in agreement with ChangelingChick, a quality PA, and from my many years in the forum I'm amazed any PAs give any help at all. There are many users who do not take the time to learn the software and are rude, asking questions they could get answers to easily, or making demands that are unreasonable. If Daz PAs charged what their products are worth I could see more support but when most products cost the price of a lunch after the discounts (and why aren't you a club member to get the discounts?) I see no reason for tears.
I'll do that!
hum I forgot about thatI'll have to go there and read up on how to search by domain i think you type the webpage then a : or something like that. Good tip.
I can understand the unreasonable sense of entitlement that people can place on an artist coupled with language barriers and time constraints could lead to chasing artists away. I empathize knowing the artists plight coming from communities such as Deviant Art. That's why I stated putting "rules" in this case Pining a "do / don't" list for example, ie No NSFW request, Suggestions Welcome, post no ideas for collaborations or your posts will be ignored etc. I mean it's not a cure all to everything but a reasonable expectation and once again if communication is an issue, then just don't opt-in in the first place. If things aren't working out you can always just delete the thread altogether and just move on. There ARE plus and minus to everything.
In all fairness I follow a pattern when I'm stuck. First I do a general search of the product on the forum or try to find something similar on my issue. If I fall short or am still stuck I post a question in either the newbies, commons and/or technical help about that product. Kind Helpful People like yourself usually give advice. Depending, more times than not it's way above my skill level and then I try to practice or research or get a product to try and do what they suggested. I tend to ask a lot of questions and use a lot of key words to help attract attention to the forum so that others in similar situation might find the thread and add/benefit from it as well. If that fails then that's where I want to start doing trouble tickets and contacting Content creators. Like I said before I get it, they are busy people too. They are not my first go to. Heck I even go to the unofficial discord for Daz forums and chat there as well. Lots of useful info and helpful people there too.
Sincerely,
Jacob G.
Unfortunately, some users would immediately ignore that. Stuff would have to be moderated first, at which point, it's basically exactly the same as the ticketing system.
As if people who send that kind of messages would follow those rules...
Damn Right.
The way things are working at the momment.
If you want people to by from you, be ready to stand behind your products.
Ok I read quite a few posts on this thread and here are some things to consider.
First off, a PA should be concerned with the quality of work they put in the stores in order to reduce negative feedback, product returns or bad reviews that stop others from buying from them in the future.
Secondly (Other people that have bought a product can answer your questions often better than the vendor can.) Seriously...in what reality is this a good thing? If a customer knows more then the creator, I would be rather suspicious of whether or not that vendor actually created said item.
On that same note, if a product is not performing as expected, then the one who created it should be the one fixing it, since they should know their product better then anyone else.
(side note)...in regards to those customers not reading instructions, well that only works when the vendor actually includes instrcutions and it's not as often as what has been suggested. I consider myself privledge if a vender even bothers to include a readme that pretty much only says the name of the product and the vendors name and nothing else.
As for the orignial poster...Not going to happen. Not saying it's a bad idea, yet after 30 years in the customer service industry I can pretty much guarantee no one wants the headache you are suggesting. No one wants to hear bad things about their product, don't want to know there is something wrong with their product that needs fixing, and lets not forget the priviledged male and female Karens who are not happy unless they are screaming, making others feel terrible and have an overwhelming need to be the center of attention...etc. Basically what everyone else has said in regards to all this. Sadly that makes up most of the people vendors would hear from.
Oh one last thing..no one wants someone to come along and say "you're product would be better if...insert appropriate suggetion". I do believe that is why many vendors sell addon's separately, it's a revenue boost from their product.
One should remember that the creators do not make metadata for the products, that is done by DAZ...
I think you misunderstood what was meant. It's not that users know the product better. It's that the creator knows it *too* well. There have been a number of times when a user has gotten some bizarre result because they used one of my products incorrectly, and I couldn't see how they got the result they got because the whole thing was incredibly intuitive to me. Its use is completely obvious to me. As a creator, you don't make the same mistakes and assumptions about a product that users tend to, so often times, it's easier for a user to help another user because they had the same thought process. It's like an early assignment in any programming class you take-- they'll have you write instructions to sharpen your pencil in the room or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Both are tasks that are very intuitive to anyone that's done them, but then when the classmates start following the instructions to the letter, the results are wildly disparate from sharpening a pencil or makeing a pb&j. I make use of a lot of instruction tips in my products and 100% of those are from either my testers or Daz's testers running into a problem I didn't anticipate because I thought it was obvious. I try to think of every problem a person could have with my stuff, but I come up short because I just don't think of all the ways people try to use things. I remember one time someone posted a thread trying to figure out how they'd gotten some result in the help forum, and I was baffled how it could have happened. But in minutes someone else responded they'd done the exact same thing and how to fix and avoid it and do it right next time.
To add to what ChangelingChick said about vendors being too intimately familiar with their products, vendors aren't inherently experienced at tech support. Knowing the solution (which, as said, isn't necessarily the case), and knowing how to explain the solution are different skill sets.
(Bearing in mind that the problem is often not the product itself, but how it's being used).
Most of the rest of that was already responded to, so cutting this down to just one note. I have not interacted with every vendor, but every vendor I have ever interacted with wants to know if there is something broken with their product that needs fixing.
And as already stated, not all PAs speak English natively - or, potentially, at all - let alone speaking the language of whoever is asking for help, which makes providing tech support that much more of a challenge for both sides.
Of course we do. But tech support is generally best at making sure it's a problem with the product and not something with the user's use or installation or download and contacts us to fix it (and if it was something that happened after it left our hands which we can't fix and they will). We generally only have access to 1 version of DS and 1 operating system, and users are on a *bunch* of versions and operating systems and sometimes those are the problem and not necessarily the product.