Here is my take away from the phone conference today with 3dhubs @filemon and several hubs.
@Filemon took input from a few hub owners, mostly those that were vocal here. This was a scheduled 1 hour meeting, which he was kind enough to actually let run over, even though he had previously said he had a hard stop. I thank him for that.
Obviously, 1 hour was not enough to get into all that needed to be discussed, but it was a start.
The bulk of the discussion was around the FDM guidelines, and how that is worded. There is some likelyhood that wording will get massaged.
Additionally, the dialogue that pushes a customer away from a hub was discussed. This is likely to get changed, I got the impression it was not going over well.
I THINK.
I think that the Prototyping and Prototyping Materials language is still cast in stone. The only way that is going to get changed is if there is enough pushback from FDM hubs. Even though this is “only a test” it was pretty clear to me it is going to be policy.
The only way to change this is if enough hubs speak up. (Most do not know about it, as most do not place orders, and most do not read this forum.)
BUT FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE AWARE PLEASE, if you read this forum, even if you have posted in this thread before, please keep pushing back. Or it will be the way it is. Its not about finding an alternative, or taking your hub down, its about getting the message to 3dhubs that this is a bad, bad mistake for them to be making.
I DO BELIEVE that enough pressure on 3dhubs will get them to see how this is denigrating to the FDM hubs who do good work.
PLEASE POST A REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, so your message is not lost below. Feel free to reiterate your concerns, so this thread does not get lost on the talk page. I really do not want to have to start another thread!
@Filemon Quick question for you, howcome 3D Hubs doesn’t push customers to make inquiries more often? I know I’ve only ever gotten a few, and I myself actually have no clue how to place one. They’re an awesome way for customers to seek more information about any given field of 3D Printing, and what to expect. As well, it (From my experience) Has always increased customer satisfaction having someone walking them through the process insuring they get exactly what they need for their specific project.
This also takes away from the issue of hub’s rankings dropping when customers come to them with unreasonable expectations. Nobody likes letting anybody down, but sometimes customers just don’t know what to expect, or what is required for the process. Inquiries really help this issue and give customers a much superior experience.
I just feel instead of adding more and more ‘guidelines’ and ‘suggestions’ automatically provided by the site, more one on one contact with an actual person from an actual hub would help customers to get exactly what they need. Also avoids all these issues people have about interpretation of wording throughout the site.
The takeaway from this about my suggestion; Educate potential customers about how to use the inquiry process. Show them more that it is a possibility for them to get quick advice from practically any hub on the site! It’s an awesome tool and I hate to see it going so unused.
Hi Simon, I scheduled a call today at 17.30h Amsterdam time. that’s my only possibility for today. If preferred, we can reschedule for tomorrow as well
This seems to fit along the lines of 3D Hubs interest in moving toward commercial printers and away from small shops. No one should really be surprised. The fact that they made this move to push most of the “little guys” aside without a word, and now are reluctant to change that stance is just further evidence of what is fairly common industry knowledge. It has even been reported by 3D Printing media sources.
It kind of seems like they are trying to drive us away on purpose. The new quality guidelines we just agreed to, then turn around and imply our product is inferior? What the…?
Then this whole business of using repeat customers as a way to determine if we show up in results?
The outcome of the meeting did nothing to change my mind that they are NOT listening to our issues on this. @filemon continues to cling to his “testing” meme and I did not feel he was listening to our concerns, or the concerns of most of the hubs that I am discussing this with whose voice I was trying to put forth.
I still feel 3dhubs is really is not listening to how we feel about “protoyping” and “prototyping materials”, or is unwilling to see why we feel it is so bad.
As I said in my first post the day this thread started, this change was done specifically to move customers to higher margin means of printing and has little to do with anything else. @filemon continued to use his canned phrase “No fewer FDM orders”. He posted that exact phrase here in this thread, and repeated it several times during the call, with that exact wording. This wording is designed to make us feel better. We shouldn’t. I don’t trust the “test” or the wording of “No fewer FDM orders.”
I personally think misleading the market will cost customers, and that 3dhubs is attempting to harvest the growth of the market by pushing customers away from FDM. “No fewer FDM orders” is a pretty bad goal, and easy to hit. What he will not say is “Hey, this is working, because 3dhubs is getting customers to move to higher $ prints from FDM” when that is the real goal, or they would not have made this change, and would have responded to our feedback on it, and would have shown some loyalty to us.
Again, they are not listening, or hubs are not protesting enough. (Pointing out again that most of the hubs are not going to see most of this, so the voice of those that hang out on talk should be considered a relevant sampling…)
If people don’t really, really protest, I think it is here to stay. This will drive competitors, split the market, etc.
There are a lot of other things they won’t say out loud, or in public.
I would add that ABS as prototyping plastic is silly, many final objects are ABS, including the mouse I am using, I would think.
Also, it is wrong and confusing because the other cards have not changed. So prototyping as a result shows in several of the other cards. Its just bad wording. I agree, a test to see if no fewer FDM orders is what is being measured, they are in fact testing something that is just wrong. If the data shows FDM orders went up, it would no less wrong.
“I can’t seem to get over this” Don’t get over it. Stay vocal.
I have much respect for you, your input, and your continued help with others here in “Talk” who need help from experienced hubs. You are great!
And you and I, in general, do not disagree on the many of the issues here, so disagreeing on the effectiveness of repeating points, particularly in response to new posts is not so bad. I do have a tinge of protest in my motivations, as well.
Also, I think you were off the thread for awhile, if I recall, so reading it from top to bottom, instead of how it occurred naturally over two weeks, it certainly reads much worse! Plus, if we do not respond, the thread will disappear, something we should not be willing to let happen, at the cost of it being unwieldy.
After this is all over, I hope you resubscribe. The forum really does need folks like you.
Yeah for sure! Thanks BTW Perry. You’re right about me being away for a few days. I turned off my notifications for it and then didn’t get back into the conversation until a few days later. That definitely made it much harder to follow the thread!
Hi all, the ‘material disclaimer’ on FDM has been removed for the reasons discussed in this thread. To give full disclosure, we might still add such material disclaimers in the future but we’ll do that on another note and across all materials when we do, not just FDM. More updates later.
I have a really random question for you Filemon, at first I thought the 20XX printer guide badges just get removed each year but after seeing everyone else’s I realized this wasn’t the case. I had the 2016 printer guide badge (as I contributed to it) until the newer one came out for 2017. After that I had the 2017 one but the 2016 disappeared… is there any reason why or information about how I can get it back? Thanks in advance
I’m usually not a grammar nitpicker (at least not to other people!), but the change you made on the Accept or Decline page (see the attached jpeg) - shouldn’t it read “or the customer and I have agreed…” rather than “or me and the customer have agreed…”
@filemon, will we ever get all our materials back? Many of us (prototyping) FDM printers went through the trouble to enter in different exotic filaments, i.e. flexible, woodfill, metalfill, etc. and now customers cannot see those unless the customer already knows in advance to specifically search for them.
At the very least, can those be put back in the drop-down list AFTER a customer chooses a hub so they at least get some clue that those are options?
They are not listed anywhere else. With all the debate about FDM vs. SLA/SLS etc., all those other materials have been quietly removed.
If that’s the case this is very upsetting… I just spent almost 1000$ on getting new exotic filaments, testing them and getting them working with my fdm systems. This would explain my sudden decline with exotic material orders. This goes back to my question about the materials I had asked before, specifically at the time armadillo by ninkatek, but if this is an issue across all materials I think something needs to be done.
I was going to mention it to you when I looked at your hub earlier, I noticed you had a lot of exotic (prototyping) materials.
Check it out for yourself, play Customer and see if you can see any of those materials from the front-end without knowing the name of them.
I already raised the issue with support@3dhubs and was quite bluntly shut down. Not sure if someone was just having a bad day or who knows. Before giving up completely, I thought I would give it one more try by asking @Filemon directly.
I am not trying to be unreasonable, I understand the goal is to increase conversions by not overwhelming the customer with too much information, but by the same token, I feel it is a gross error to completely eliminate materials that are available. Add an options button just for those customers that want to look, or just put them back in the drop-down again after they’ve selected a hub to let them see what is really available.
The downside? None, they’ve already converted from upload to material to hub selection. The upside? At that point, they may actually decide to choose a material that (usually) yields higher revenue for the Hub and 3D Hubs. Win-Win.
Hi guys, maybe best to start a new thread for this.
I’ll very quickly respond here, although I’m not sure I completely understand. None of the materials have been removed. Especially for the examples you give, e.g. Woodfill, search has always been the only option to find it. Or is that not what you mean?
Having that said, we’re working on a BIG improvement of our material database we plan to put live in Q2. It will be a very comprehensive index where customers can search amongst all materials. I expect a lot from that. The goal is exactly what you mention, to make it easier for customers to search and find what they need between all the different (exotic) 3dp materials.
