Communication Communication Communication

[JOYSofGLASS]

Ref https://talk.folksy.com/t/is-there-a-problem-with-the-server/32167/53 and

Product and Technical Updates

Hi everyone, As many of you will know, we experienced a site outage on Saturday (18th October) which lasted much longer than any of us would have liked. We wanted to share a bit more detail about what happened, what we’ve done since, and how we can help get some of that momentum back. What Happened One of our downstream services ran an automatic update which unexpectedly changed the format of a certificate - causing the system to believe it had expired (when it hadn’t). This then had a chain r…

Following the outage at the weekend and the update provided today by support I feel a response is needed from a Folksy customer point of view and as comments are locked out on the support post I have raised this as a separate topic as I believe an important business issue is at stake here..
I am well aware and am pretty sure lots of other sellers are too, that serious outages like this do occur and that such outages are often outside the affected platforms control.
It may have been a while ago now but I worked in a highly technical role in IT which included lots of customer facing support , I do know what i am talking about, I attended lots of seminars on the subject of outages and how to handle them.

I appreciate that Folksy support did the very best they could to resolve the problem as quickly as they possibly could, thank you @dougfolksy BUT
Tthere was one thing very clearly and sadly missing throughout the extended outage period and that was COMMUNICATION.
So very very important when something goes wrong to quickly notify the affected people so that Folksy customers…. ( the sellers that is) - do not spend all day wasting their valuable time, running round like headless chickens, trying and trying again to get into their shops and then sending emails and then Urgent emails to Support and writing posts about it here and on social media forums.
And then the potential buying customers.. (our customers that is !)…. who will no doubt have been disappointed after trying and retrying to get into our shops with no indication Anywhere as to whether the problem was with them or with Folksy. I am sure a number of potential and totally aggravated customers were lost during that outage.

And why ?
Because though Folksy were obviously informed very early on via urgent email / ssssss that the system was down (and I tried at 5am and it was down then as it happened but at that point assumed it was an overrun of overnight processing), the silence from the Folksy end was Deafeninig. I am not referring to answers to Urgent emails which i presume all had to be answered individually. !! I do note that it was well into the day before even any message was added to the forum in response to the many queries as to what was happening.

Surely all that is required in situations like this is to :

1. Issue an Email to all Active sellers, as soon as it is known the system is down and hardly like to come back up again very shortly, to let the sellers know support is aware and ask the sellers not to keep trying until another email has been sent out to say the problem is resolved.
2. Put a notice on all Folksy social media Facebook Instagram X to notify our customers that the system is down and please return later once that message has been updated to say all is well again
3. Put a post on Here and on the Folksy related Facebook forums to say the same.

Is that really too unreasonable an ask ?
@Folksyadmin

[Caroleecrafts]

I agree the silence was deafening Joy. As a customer I expect to be kept informed which is standard business practice.

[linthamdesigns (Steve Nichols)]

On Monday when I tried two other websites, there were problems, one Pet Drugs Online, some how managed to get a notice up saying there was a problem with their server, so I stop trying to going on there . The other was Pets at Home site, couldn’t get on there either, but they hadn’t bothered with any notice up , si I tried a few time, but no luck, wasting my time

I agree with Joy @JOYSofGLASS about the lack of any notification on social media etc is very bad business practice, I sure a lot of prospective customers trying to access Folksy website will think it’s not working anymore and will not bother trying again in future, and we wondered why we don’t sell much on here.

[Caroleecrafts]

Steve our bank was down, notice on screen. Another site a small one, notice on screen.
Sales are so dire atm, now even worse. A friend sent me a text, they tried to look at my shop, nothing just an error they thought Folksy had closed.

[frutejuce (Frutejuce Handmade)]

Better Folksy communication would also have helped them in the long run as there would have been less urgent emails that they had to singularly reply to.

Keep people informed. Better for all.

[Bearlescent (Debby Coatham (Bearlescent))]

I was one of those who spent half their time trying to access their shop, used my tablet for a while, then tried my phone, later in the day I popped to the Facebook clubhouse page to ask the question and found there was already a post on there, had i have done that earlier It would have saved a lot of time.

[caryknottdesigns (Caralyn Brigid Knott)]

I agree with you entirely about everything you say. An email should have been sent - not only to all active sellers - but to all Folksy sellers telling them of the problem.

Cary Knott