I think I need to tell what is on my heart before it is becoming to hard to deal with.
Since a few orders, it seems that 3DHubs, through community management, is asking me to be far more reactive. By far reactive, I mean for example:
Changing status of a Fairphone order to “Ready to be shipped” and adding a comment for the customer on September 4th at 10pm. Telling him, in the comment, that the case will be shipped the 5th during the day.
September 4th 10:09pm: Comment from the customer telling that he will be delighted to receive it.
September 4th 12am: Case has been sent but I did not change the status on 3DHubs website
September 4th 1:29pm: Comment from the CM asking me if the shipment has been done
September 4th 5pm: Status changed to “Shipped” and comment to the customer.
It is not the first time I feel a little to much supervised by 3DHubs. I don’t know for the other hubs but my activity with 3DHubs is not the main one. I have a full time job appart and feel like I am a Maker, not a full time Fairphone case manufacturer. That’s a part of the Fairphone / 3DHubs spirit.
On an other hand, I really think the process was really fluent and that the customer was informed. Letting the customer know when the package has really been shipped involve a completely different logistics.
My intention is not to declare some sort of a war… but having everybody happy is perhaps a good starting point.
I also do this 3D printing business (as a business though) besides my regular job.
Normally I respond within a couple of minutes but when I am in a meeting or having a party it sometimes takes a bit more time and I catch myself feeling a bit guillty not responding immediately sometimes.
The funny thing is probably that nobody expects you to react within minutes! A couple of hours is always OK!
I don’t feel bullied by 3D Hubs (yet) and I don’t have the feeling they want something unachievable from me but as I said, I can understand how you feel.
As you said, @GuyJanssen, I ALWAYS try to answer in a period of 30min (from accepting an order to shipped status).
The shipped status is a little different from the others because, to ship a package, I have to take my car implying a delay.
Some times, it is also a bit floating just after the print has be realized. From my point of view, a print is done AFTER the finishing, which is a long part of the job (30min for a Fairphone case).
One more time, I can understand that 3DHubs needs to monitor the orders and try not to have to much delay between the reality and the website. But 3DHubs is not Amazon or Zalando and because of the structure, this complete transparence will be hard to reach. Trusting hubs’ comments should be a beginning.
Once the order is progressing it is the task of the Hub to communicate with the customer and not 3D Hubs.
Only when either the customer or the Hub asks for it the 3D Hubs CM will get involved.
To be honest, I didn’t know 3D Hubs was communicating this much about status changes and I sometimes also just key in a comment without changing the status but when I comment that the package is on its way that basically should be enough.
The only issue I see is that all Hubs have to communicate in the same prompt way and I don’t know if that is/can be the case!
Still: good comment and maybe 3D Hubs can issue a protocol which states the statusses, required actions, messages and the actions 3D Hubs is taking or monitoring.
