Settings-option for Communications Reply

patpendlego

Hi all,

"Store must reply to all customer communications within 48 working hours."

Found this rule in the Terms and Conditions of BrickOwl. Apparently 48h is hard coded somewhere.

I do not like this rule. IMO a store should be free to set its own limit as to how soon communication is replied upon. Similar to the settings-option Despatch Time for which there are 4 timeframes to choose from.

I suggest therefore a settings-option for Communication Reply with also 4 timeframes to choose from. Preferably the same timesframes as for Despatch Time, since that makes the most sense (to me at least).

Thank you,
Arnoud

Mrs Swoop

I disagree. 48 hours should be plenty of time to respond to a message.

tons_of_bricks

@Mrs Swoop It depends. During weekdays, yes, plenty of time. But I don't usually do any work on weekends. There's 48 hours right there. And if I decided to take a 3 day weekend to go somewhere, that's at least 72 hours.

I agree with @patpendlego . My average response time is 0.5 days, but I think this is more about principle and allowing stores to have the freedom to operate how they need to. Sure, certain rules need to be in place, like shipping times, but even then, stores have options they can choose from.

Mrs Swoop

@firestar246 I haven't looked it up but Patpendlego said it was working hours, which wouldn't include weekends, so then even with your extra day off you've still got a whole day to respond.

tons_of_bricks

I missed the working hours part. So in that case, what constitutes as a working hour according to Brickowl? A normal work day usually consists around 8 hours. So does that mean a seller can take up to 6 six days to respond to a message? Or is taking in account the whole day, even night hours?

Mrs Swoop

I would guess that it's all hours during working days, so Mon 10am would mean by Wed 10am, Fri 10am would mean Tues 10am. And excluding bank holidays. But that really is a guess.

Calibrick

I know BO excludes weekends from its calculations; I've never really figured out what working hours are myself. :-)

I too though think two working days is more than enough time to reply; if your store is closed because you're on vacation, the time constraint doesn't count I believe. If you are opening and not answering customer queries in a reasonable amount of time, I would assume BO has set this term of service to ensure its stores don't leave customers hanging for an unduly long length of time... they have to take the platform POV vs the per store POV... that's my best guess, I do see the logic in it (just my respectful opinion).

patpendlego

Enough or not, that is all opinions not fact. The store-owner is responsible only not BrickOwl, about how the store is run. Enforcing such a fixed hard-coded rule only shows the inflexibility of BrickOwl.

I know how I will solve it, if the rule stays in place: setting up an automated response mail at my mail provider and I will always respond withing 48h. Needles to say this is not functional, but hey if someone enforces such a hard-coded fixed rule you will get a hard-coded fixed answer.

Since no-one benefits from such an approach... hence my suggestion. But I don't mind, if it is not implemented there is always my automated answer.

Lawrence

Brick Owl is a marketplace comprised of many different stores. We require that all stores provide a good level of customer service. To protect the reputation of the marketplace as a whole, we would not allow longer message response times.

We would not consider an automated response to be a valid response.

patpendlego

So I've set it all up. An auto-respons message in reply on any message sent through the BO-platform to my account.

All I need now is a volunteer to test it, since I cannot send myself a message on BO. Anyone?

I just like to know if it works

patpendlego

@Lawrence please be aware that it is not the timeframe in which the message is answered that will ensure the reputation, but the contents of the message. So this hard-coded fixed rule will not get you where you want to be. But based on your anwer I assume that you are reading all replies sent by stores in order to determine if it is a valid answer or not?

Hoddie

I don't understand what is so difficult about replying within 48 working hours? Isn't that equivalent to 5-6 midweek days? Even if you run a specialised store and a customer has a query that will take time to deal with, it would seem remiss not to at least let them know within a reasonable time that you're on the case and will respond again when you have the info they're after.

I'm not sure if your intent is to have BO become closer to the wild west that is BL, but I don't fancy your chances if so.

patpendlego

It is not difficult, but it doesn't have any meaning. It is not about quick respons but about the contents of the reply. It is the quality that counts, not the quantity. This rule about 48h is all about quantity not quality. So it has zero meaning.

If you judge people by quantitative measurements you will get quantitative behaviour: how many messages received? how many responses? how many within 48h? how many not? that kind of statistics. Quantitative numbers. That is all. Zero meaning.

However, if BO lets me choose the timeframe myself, it is MY responsibility and if I do not meet my own timeframe it is my doing only. So I will make sure to meet my own timeframe, with meaningfull replies. That is the difference.

Vosblokjes

@Lawrence
Are the 48 hours only counted during working days (and do you have a calendar for all countries)?
And do they count when a store is closed?
As is said, a store should have the option to close for vacation (or anything else) and then not able to respond within the given timeframe. That should not be a problem.

Within 48 hours it will not always be possible to respond with a complete answer, but as someone said, there should at least be an response that you are looking in to it.
An automated answer will not be enough. I don't think BO is looking into every message sent, but a pattern will be visibel soon enough.

And if someone doesn't like the rules, and the community can't make BO change the rule, there is always the option to close the shop.
Don't forget, we are allowed to sell on BO, it is not our right to do so. And 1 store messing up reflects to the whole marketplace.

Now for the suggestion. I support the idea of the ability to set your own time frame, but not the same as the dispatch time. 6-14 days, for an open store, to respond to a message is way to long, if a store needs that much time they should stop selling.
But 2 options could be good, so the standard 48 hours and another option for within 2-5 days, where this second option has the same restriction as the 6-14 days dispatch time.

patpendlego

If a store states response time in 6-14 days and it actually does that, who are we to judge that it is way too long? They comply with there own timeframe and that timeframe is know to any member here. If someone doesn't like the timeframe they will go shopping somewhere else.

But, as it is clear it is a suggestion. If BO is going to police all (my) responses whether they are 'automated' or not, be my guest. There are again ways around that. But is that the way to go? That is the question. If BO wants to keep this rule they will get behaviour that belongs to such a rule. Simple as that. Really, either way I personally will deal with it. I'm not the owner of BO so it's not my problem. All I have to do is respond in such a way BO is satisfied counting.

Hoddie

Again - this is BO's playground and they sent the rules. It's reasonable that they sent the minimum standards that apply to all sellers. If you can't meet them - or don't want to for whatever (valid) reason - then that sucks but you can't have a store here.

tons_of_bricks

@Hoddie I really enjoy BO and it's admin, I think he does an amazing job here. However, I slightly afraid that he may be slightly overreaching with the rules. Sure this is BO's playground, but nobody is going to want to play in a playground where everything is dictated. Store's need some freedom to make them unique. Forcing stores to reply by a certain timeframe is not going to eliminate the bad stores, but merely make them respond in a not-so-useful way just to avoid the penalty. Or they can just mark messages as "no response needed" even if they need a response.

I think stores should respond to messages within 48 hours, but I don't think BO needs to dictate that. But my main issue here is not that stores get penalized for not responding to messages, but that it seems like they don't get warned. I feel that if a store is getting close to getting banned, there should be a warning of sorts to give the seller a chance to fix whatever mistakes they're making. Many of the sellers here are hobby sellers, but there are few (including us) that make a living doing this. To be shut down and then told the reason afterwards is not the best way to do things, IMO.

Hoddie

Admin has said stores won't be banned if they ship orders or reply to messages late, so long as they do ultimately ship and reply. Having said that, I'm sure BO reserves the right to prod stores who do it regularly.

I think having a standardised experience for buyers - in the form of minimum standards - regardless which store they buy from, is a good thing. I've experienced the best and worst of BL, and BL couldn't give a toss about standards, that's why so many bad stores exist. Sure, replying to a message after 2 weeks isn't necessarily bad, but it's not great either.

But minimum standards in the form of not allowing additional fees, listings abuses, feedback hostaging and manipulation, etc. are all very welcome features of BO that no reasonably competent and honest seller could have an issue with.

If I messaged a store and it took more than 2 working days to get a reply, I'd be pretty miffed. Maybe that's me being entitled I dunno. I bought from a German-based retailer on 20/5 (not on BO), and I haven't heard a thing since. I've contacted them three times on different platforms without reply. That's terrible customer service, but many sellers on BL want the freedom to act that way, and freely do so. I'd hate to see that come to BO.

Dimi_DBB

@Hoddie I agree with you on having minimum standards for stores to give buyers a good experience.
But you do also need to consider the fact that there are hobby sellers that don't focus on fast shipping or replying to messages.
Those hobbyists can change their shipping time to a longer period, so maybe a setting for message reply time could serve the buying experience as well.

Yes, hobbyists need minimal standards as well, but do they need to be the same as more professional stores?

Jay37

@Dimi_DBB Yes, I think hobbyist stores need to have the same minimal standards as the professional stores. Those existing standards are already flexible (for example in shipping times), and I really don't think it's asking too much in these days of smartphones and constant digital access to reply to a message within two days, even if to only acknowledge the message and give a timescale for a more in depth response at another time.

I have said it before on other threads that we are here to serve the customer. End of. BO asks for a certain consistency and we have agreed to that when we sign up as sellers. It is not a dictatorship, as others have alluded to. Having rules to abide by is not a dictatorship. We can, and have, suggested rule changes, and sometimes they get implemented, sometimes not.

I'm with @Hoddie and @Calibrick in this one. I don't want a dictatorship or a wild west, but what we currently have is a site that has enough structure and flexibility to hopefully suit most stores. If some stores think that's not enough they are not forced to trade here.

Calibrick

Hoddie and Jay are so much more eloquent and to the point than I am (I'm sure everyone here knows how darned wordy I am, lol).

I almost love the idea of allowing a custom response time... but in thought, Lawrence's point is perfectly sound IMHO. We all can set our delivery targets and customer expectations, which is pretty awesme. But as Jay notes, in this time of the most accessible comm methods the world has ever seen, ensuring people are talking so the platform as a whole retains a sound reputation is super important.

Typical buyers don't complain about a specific store to their friends, AFOL clubs, etc. They most likely say "I tried buying on BO and they never respond." When I have a sucky eBay experience, I don't say in casual conversation "X store on eBay fracked me over", I say "eBay blows." It's just human, we're not always specific when we talk or grouse. :-) Fair? No... likely reality? Yes, I do think so in general.

While I can see the hobbyist point (I have no doubt we have peers here only selling their personal LEGOs over an extended garage sale with zero intent to restock or profit), *objectively* their actions are just as reflective on BO on the Internet of Things as a giant professional seller that does this full time. So each of us affects each other.

I think I've noted multiple times in various posts that we all help each other because we all recognize that one store's success is EVERY store's success. I love it when big, long-term sellers like Firestar start selling over here - at some point, their store isn't going to have something in stock that I do. ;-) And the mutual aid makes for a great community!

That attitude is a part of what makes BO so awesome. But similarly, a single poor actor can affect the entire site's reputation, which affects every seller also. The Internet is the judgiest place on planet Earth, sadly.

Submitted respectfully for consideration. :-)

patpendlego

@Calsbrick quote "Typical buyers don't complain about a specific store to their friends..." you have a good point there, indeed that is often the case. Store-specific issues of buyers will be reflected in feedback. Plus, with the current changed in Taxes and VAT, the OMP will gradually play a larger role in the transactions. I'm not convinced yet that sellers of today will still be sellers in a years time or so when all changes have been played out. We could end up as merely suppliers of goods to the OMP and the actual transactions take place between buyer and the OMP. I'm very curious how things will progress.

White Horse Bricks

@patpendlego "@Lawrence please be aware that it is not the timeframe in which the message is answered that will ensure the reputation, but the contents of the message."

This is not true, it needs to be both. A helpful message sent after ten days of silence will almost definitely not please your customer.

patpendlego

It depends on the circumstances. I don't think it can be predicted. But I agree with the idea that it needs te be both. Hence my suggestion to be able to have a few timeframe instead of just one fixed. As said before it/that is all about quantity. It would be great if there is some addition possible to the term/rule about the quality of the respons messages. Perhaps feedback? Like on orders?

And again, it is a suggestion. If not implemented it is fine too, I will deal with it of course in my own way. I am happy with the reactions on the suggestion, it gives me an idea about how other sellers are thinking about it.

patpendlego

Or perhaps a follow-up survey for the member? About the quality of the conversation, between the member and the store-owner. It's not uncommon these days. I would like that because it may give information about how well the communication went and what might be improved.

Calibrick

Actually I would love to have an ability to post custom OPTIONAL surveys for customers to my store... I mean I guess technically I could build one in Survey Monkey and link to it from my storefront, but having that as an option here for sellers (so long as buyers are not badgered or nagged into populating it) and buyers is a pretty good idea!

I've long wanted to ask customers if they think I overpack, underpack, what they like and don't like in the user experience, etc. Should add that as a sep post under Suggestions, I would def upvote that! :-)

White Horse Bricks

@Calibrick That kind of info in a survey would definitely provide some really useful insights. Unfortunately given the low response rates for even marking their orders as received, I think so few buyers would fill it out that the data would not be worth acting on.

patpendlego

True, these days I'm getting plenty surveys from each site bying something from. 9 out of 10 not filling it in... I'm not going to suggest it, sorry.

Calibrick

White Horse, you are probably absolutely correct - the response rate would be abysmal... :-(