Customers being solicited

• 11-18-2011, 5:26 PM

  24181

  dani808 Joined about 2 years ago Kailua Posts 35

  Customers being solicited Reply Quote My company has built 2 wild apricot websites.  My client just forwarded me a message from a company soliciting their services specifically mentioning they are wild apricot designers.  As you can see my client wasn't happy about, nor am I.  If this is someone who is one of your authorized designers, I think its inappropriate and really protest to you allowing them to contact our clients this way, its embarrassing to me as the company who suggested Wild Apricot to them as their solution.   If they are not someone you know or authorize, then I wanted you to make you aware of this so you can contact them and ask them to stop.  I would also be concerned about how they got your customers information and would like to be assured, that they do not have access to any other account information.   thanks for your immediate attention to this matter.  ---------- Forwarded message ---------- FROM MY CLIENT Aloha Dani~ Just wanted to make sure you saw this. I am sure you don't appreciate these people contacting your clients like this and we don't appreciate it either,  we get enough web development company sales and spam emails, I really don't like getting them about something we already are using and happy with. X-Eon-Dm: m0005470.ppops.net X-Virus-Scanned: OK Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:23:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Wild Apricot Services From: james@nicasiodesign.com To: Are you getting the most out of your Wild Apricot website? Are your members starting to complain about its look and feel? Need help making your Wild Apricot website stand out from the rest? Nicasio Design and Development specializes in custom design and development of Wild Apricot websites. We have helped many Wild Apricot users with website customization, graphic design, member database migration, training, custom scripts, marketing/branding and ongoing administration.What sets us apart is our ability to deliver results and we can certainly help you with any needs you may have with your current Wild Apricot website.  Take a look at some of our recently completed projects - these are custom Wild Apricot websites: http://www.nedra.org/ http://www.hshps.org/ http://www.usgbcnj.org/ Further information on our Wild Apricot services can be found at our site at:   I removed their links Dani http://www.bosshi.com

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• 11-18-2011, 6:07 PM

  24182 in reply to 24181

  dani808 Joined about 2 years ago Kailua Posts 35

  Re: Customers being solicited Reply Quote ok I see they have been on this board since 2006 and are a preferred partner of Wild Apricot. So with that being said, I just have to say I am really disappointed to find this out.  I have always felt you guys are very professional and have done a great job with providing information and a dependable product and support and I am sorry I have to complain here but  This just seems really tacky to me.   It is one thing to tell clients on your website and newsletters that you offer referrals to preferred designers experienced with Wild Apricot, but to allow them to contact customers directly, and in a way that sounds negative to Wild Apricot is another.    Remember, there is so much of this solicitation going on already that they are being flooded with, and they are all like this one, pointing out something negative and implying something is wrong to feed off the clients fear.    If your customers make the decision to go with Wild Apricot, then they should at least not have to worry about that coming from you. It also does not inspire confidence in your product. Having someone email them directly implying people might be complaining doesn't make you look very good or make them feel very confident.  And the fact that it upset my client is embarrassing to me.  Keep in mind, it also doesn't support the other developers like myself who use Wild Apricot for clients and who also offer custom solutions.  You have to consider us in this equation, If you scare off all the non partner developers you lose more business than those partners can provide.  I would like to ask that you remove my clients from their mailing list and ask that you not allow anymore partners to contact them. I think you should also consider not allowing any of your partners direct access to your clients.  I personally would never allow any 3rd party to contact my clients, not only because its my job to protect them but you also end up with someone saying something that may not reflect well on your product.  Not to mention you open yourself of for liability.   Dani http://www.bosshi.com

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• 11-18-2011, 6:31 PM

  24183 in reply to 24182

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,265

  Re: Customers being solicited Reply Quote Dani,   We do not share client data with anyone, period. Partners or not. (If a particular customer contacts us and explicitly asks for a referral to a partner, we would forward their info to one or several partners. Obviously this is not what happened here. ) I think what they did is run some smart google searches to identify WA-based websites (you can do this for many website platforms if you know what to look for, each platform has certain system URLs is uses etc.) and then got public contact information from each website - and conducted a marketing campaign. It is a pretty proactive marketing campaign and I understand your feelings but it's not something done via/with approval of Wild Apricot. I will think this over but my first reaction is that this is not something we can prevent/meddle with - they are acting on public information.  Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

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• 11-18-2011, 7:32 PM

  24184 in reply to 24183

  dani808 Joined about 2 years ago Kailua Posts 35

  Re: Customers being solicited Reply Quote Yes I know, I assumed that wasn't the case because the email they used was not listed publicly but I just saw that it is now.  Not only that but you can't be too sure that was the case, I had to ask.  Then when I saw they were one of your partner designers  I found it unlikely that they would do that without approval from you.   I realize you can't control what people do on their own, but these aren't just some random company, this is one of your approved design partners right?  So you have some control.  Don't you have rules?   You refer to them and allow them to market on the forum  which in itself is a nice thing, it seems they should have to follow rules or lose the privilege. Dani http://www.bosshi.com

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