Further communication with StickNFind about issues

Michael Manna, Social Media Strategist, recently recruited to StickNFind, contacted me to arrange a phone call to discuss the issues that myself and others were having. I didn’t think a phone call was a good way of furthering this matter, especially if there is one of me and many of them. This is my response:

 

I’d really like to keep this to email – it allows both parties to consider their communication better.

I want this product to work – which was why I started the survey to see how many others were having issues. I currently have 87 responses. I realise the sampling method is biased towards those with problems. To summarise the concerns of respondents, in approximate order of priority:

1. By far the biggest concern is not receiving the orders as expected. There are a lot of people who have not received any communication from you at all, and it seems some customers of sticknfind.com have received the product ahead of indiegogo backers. People are worried – the near silence on facebook and via email is rightly concerning – the words “con” have been used by several people. I have the product, I trust that you are shipping, just that it has overwhelmed the company somewhat. Your customers need to be kept informed.

2. The next biggest concern centres around the Android app. Many are frustrated that there is no app (or only a beta app). Again, poor communication means that many are not even aware there is a beta app, or that it will only work with a subset of phones. There are worries that it will only work with Android 4.1 or later, and not all phones/carriers will upgrade to this. People need reassurance. An email or slip of paper in the packaging explaining the situation would go a long way.

3. Many are reporting a range of <9m, or that the distance estimate is less accurate than expected. I am experiencing these issues. My gut feeling is this is a limitation of BLE, and there is no real way to avoid this. The promotional material very strongly suggests that much greater range is possible – I know my expectations were to be able to use them within my small terraced house.

4. There are some people reporting reliability issues. Certainly one of my tags doesn’t work any more, a few didn’t respond on arrival. I think this might just be the reality of hardware.

The common theme across all four of the above issues is that communication has been incredibly poor. I really hope your new role at the company corrects this, and I think it is really positive that you have already been engaging with people on twitter.

I’d be keen to know your thoughts on the above issues, but I think a response should be directed to the community rather than myself.

Unfortunately I have not had a response yet, outside of confirming receipt.

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