Are we wasting our time posting in suggestion threads/forums?

[yesright]

I am genuinely asking this question.

As an example in the "what stats do you want thread" and the stats suggestion forum.......... nothing ever seems to be either answered or any type of reasonable dialogue entered into about the suggestions.

Myself and others keep posting the same suggestions yet nothing ever happens.

If its a waste of time please tell me then I can stop posting and play more poker instead.

[The Minder]

HM has it's own agenda for the program's direction and over the past 2 years I have not seen that direction match user's requests. Sure, things like multi-currency have been brought in but that was more a case of HM trying to remain competitive. The support/mod folks will tell you that they can't tell us where the future lies for HM as they need to be "leading edge in a commercial world" and play things close to their chest. This might be the case if HM was truly the leader, but even a casual comparison between HM and it's competitors does not support this.

HM's strength lies in it's apps (Visions, LB etc) and if you add in the cost of those progs the whole package becomes pretty expensive. At that cost, users deserve more of a voice in HM's direction, at least at the basic level.

[morny]

Hi,

Of course we value your suggestions, we used to have a uservoice voting system and the general consensus was it was a waste of time despite us implementing lots of things based on the most popular suggestion because only the most popular ideas got looked at.

So we agreed to try the forum suggestions as this is what people wanted at the time. Personally i thought uservoice was better but we were happy to give it a try.

The problem with the forums is we simply don't have time to moderate them, how it operates is when we have a meeting to discuss what features we want to add someone will compile the information from the more popular ideas and they will be discussed as potential new features. If you have a question post it in the forums but we don't moderate the suggestions forum.

It doesn't make sense for us to pick ideas that are the least popular suggestions of course we want the most popular but we do have to take into account development time, how useful the feature will be to our customers, is that likely to increase sales, is it something our competitors have or dont have, how much time will it take to maintain, will it improve the product. There are a lot of considerations but popularity is certainly up there.

Personally i dont think the problem was with the old uservoice system and i dont think its with the current system it comes down to the fact that there are hundreds of features suggested and unless it happens to be yours coming next it gets frustrating and understandably so. We do hope to ramp up feature requests over the coming months but we don't normally release our development until closer to the time as it is a competitive market and we want to keep a step ahead.

Im not sure why you think apps have anything to do with suggestions, none of the HM developers have worked on any apps and in fact a couple of the developers that have developed apps actually help out with the HM development.

I'll certainly bring any ideas you have to management but we need to be realistic, it doesn't make sense to take a lot of support time up with moderating suggestions or developers time but maybe we can do something that makes people feel like they have more of an input. I'm not sure what that is right now and i cant promise anything but ill listen to any idea's you have and you also need to be realistic that there is hundreds of possible suggestions so regardless of the system people are going to be disappointed.

[yesright]

Hi,

Of course we value your suggestions, we used to have a uservoice voting system and the general consensus was it was a waste of time despite us implementing lots of things based on the most popular suggestion because only the most popular ideas got looked at.

So we agreed to try the forum suggestions as this is what people wanted at the time. Personally i thought uservoice was better but we were happy to give it a try.

The problem with the forums is we simply don't have time to moderate them, how it operates is when we have a meeting to discuss what features we want to add someone will compile the information from the more popular ideas and they will be discussed as potential new features. If you have a question post it in the forums but we don't moderate the suggestions forum.

It doesn't make sense for us to pick ideas that are the least popular suggestions of course we want the most popular but we do have to take into account development time, how useful the feature will be to our customers, is that likely to increase sales, is it something our competitors have or dont have, how much time will it take to maintain, will it improve the product. There are a lot of considerations but popularity is certainly up there.

Personally i dont think the problem was with the old uservoice system and i dont think its with the current system it comes down to the fact that there are hundreds of features suggested and unless it happens to be yours coming next it gets frustrating and understandably so. We do hope to ramp up feature requests over the coming months but we don't normally release our development until closer to the time as it is a competitive market and we want to keep a step ahead.

Im not sure why you think apps have anything to do with suggestions, none of the HM developers have worked on any apps and in fact a couple of the developers that have developed apps actually help out with the HM development.

I'll certainly bring any ideas you have to management but we need to be realistic, it doesn't make sense to take a lot of support time up with moderating suggestions or developers time but maybe we can do something that makes people feel like they have more of an input. I'm not sure what that is right now and i cant promise anything but ill listen to any idea's you have and you also need to be realistic that there is hundreds of possible suggestions so regardless of the system people are going to be disappointed.

So it is a waste of time posting in the two places I posted that are meant for suggestions?
Fair enough, then shut down the suggestion forums and the suggestion thread in this forum.

Why continue to waste peoples time?

Asking people to post yet ignoring them.

In this forum there is a "what stats do you want" thread

Over the past 8 weeks a number of people have asked for the same stats yet we get no reply........ nothing.

Why ask the question when you don't want to know the answers?

Its NOT about the most popular stats, its about the stats your customers need to make your product more useful.

Most companies love feedback that improves their product.

Are you saying your customers dont know what they want?

Good luck with that!

It has been explained in detail in two different places WHY the stats are important.

If you know anything about poker it should painfully obvious WHY those stats are useful.

If nothing else the fact your main competitor HAS the exact stat many of us have been asking for should alert you to the fact you might want to listen to your customers.

[Patvs]

Don't stop using the suggestions subforum and the "what stats do you want" thread.

We do read everything... I'm subscribed to the "what stats do you want" thread. Though that doesn't mean all suggestions automatically end up on the "to add" list of a HM programmer. Both places are primarily used to give us a feel of what the HM community wants.


Are you saying your customers dont know what they want?

Quite the opposite, they know exactly what they want. But I think the customers will never be 100% satisfied. No matter what we do.

For example, if we add a 4bet stat, we immediately get requests for 5bet stats. (even 6bet) If we enable the HUD to hold 64 stats. We get requests for 128, 256, and even 512 stats.
The current software has its (technical) limitations, otherwise we would be more than happy to give you the option to add an UNLIMITED amount of stats to your HUD.

----

If there's a stat you really NEED, start a mini-campaign, bump the thread in the suggestions subforum, sent a request email to support@holdemmanager.com and sent Morny and me a private message so we can bump it on the programmers' to add list.

[yesright]

Don't stop using the suggestions subforum and the "what stats do you want" thread.

We do read everything... I'm subscribed to the "what stats do you want" thread. Though that doesn't mean all suggestions automatically end up on the "to add" list of a HM programmer. Both places are primarily used to give us a feel of what the HM community wants.



Quite the opposite, they know exactly what they want. But I think the customers will never be 100% satisfied. No matter what we do.

For example, if we add a 4bet stat, we immediately get requests for 5bet stats. (even 6bet) If we enable the HUD to hold 64 stats. We get requests for 128, 256, and even 512 stats.
The current software has its (technical) limitations, otherwise we would be more than happy to give you the option to add an UNLIMITED amount of stats to your HUD.

----

If there's a stat you really NEED, start a mini-campaign, bump the thread in the suggestions subforum, sent a request email to support@holdemmanager.com and sent Morny and me a private message so we can bump it on the programmers' to add list.



If you are subscribed to the "what stats do you want" thread you will notice that over the past month there has been very few posts?

Most of these have been requesting the same stat.

You cant claim that lots of people are asking for lost of different things when people can read that thread and see that only a few requests have been made for mostly the same stat. (thats a clue)

Same with the suggestion forum. Again, no interaction, I have no clue if anyone from HEM is reading them?

Your post seems to act as if you get more requests then you can handle.

Im trying to be nice and cordial but thats kind of insulting our inteligence considering the lack of suggestion posts.

As I said the stat that I and others have mentioned is available on your competitors software.

That alone should give you cause for concern.

Its also not about the amount of stats, its about the most useful ones which make the product better.

How can anyone who plays poker at a decent level compare a "6 bet" stat to "Fold BB% to Sb steal"

Its mind blowing if you know anything about poker.

Surely someone at HEM understands WHY its vastly more important in the modern games?

If NOT then you need to enter into a dialogue with those that do.

Its been broken down why its important and why "folding BB to steal" is unbalanced because in 2 situations you are IP and 1 you are OOP

If you want to talk and discuss, we can do that

I first have to feel that someone is listening.

[The Minder]

Sorry Morny and Patvs, but I for one am sick and tired of the marketing/support BS. Uservoice suffered from a lack control and became a spammers haven. The suggestions forum here has become a well of mediocrity as first time users discover burning needs for esoteric stats that do little more than prove that 2 + 2 does indeed equal 4, but has little resemblance to playing poker.

In contrast, many of the longer term HM users have provided HM with well thought out opinions on how HM can be improved or modified to overcome faults. I have yet to see adoption of any of these ideas, or even recognition of the value of these ideas beyond a sanctimonious "we value all user input". Even more discouraging is the lack of development of functionality that Roy 'promised' was forthcoming. Do I care? Not really as it simply reinforces my belief that HM has lost its way. But what I object to is newbies coming into the HM forum full of excitement and anticipation and reading threads promising a bright new future that is not being delivered. The marketing guys need a reality check and this forum and the HM website needs to be cleaned of this sugar.

Since FTP introduced Rush, HM has been in catch up mode with it's competitors. It's now so far behind the pack that this version of HM appears to have outlived it's usefulness.

[morny]

I think were getting a bit off topic Minder, you've made your point about your position on many occasions and if you want to discuss your issues feel free to send an email to support@holdemmanager.com for Att:Morny with your concerns or start another thread, i responded to the OP's question who has a valid concern about whether or not we are listening to the customers suggestions and needs and i don't want that to go off topic.

Believe me this is extremely important to us, we don't want to just compete but maintain and extend our position as the leading tracking software. I might not have explained the situation properly in the first reply but my point i was getting across was that we don't actively respond to the suggestions forum but we do compile information from there when we are deciding what features to add next. Think of it as a suggestion box, we don't stand there and discuss what your putting in the suggestion box but we do read it and do care what our customers think. Maybe this is not the best approach and we should listen more.

There is lots of things were doing in the background to improve, we do consult with respected names on what we can improve, we have compiled lists from the what stats do you want thread that we want to add and also the suggestions forum, there is other things to consider like we will need to overhaul the database structure before adding a lot of the stats people want which is a big job but the stats you have pointed out are obvious ones which were very aware of, depending on your game there are lots of other stats that are also very important which might not be important to you and that has to be considered too along with other features and bugs which may not be critical to you but may be to someone else.

If you want to put down your thoughts and shoot me an email to support@holdemmanager.com with Att: Morny in the subject ill double check with our stats guy that he is aware of the importance of the stats that your referring to and it is in the plans but id be very surprised if they aren't. It's just a matter of development time and we generally don't discuss deadlines until were closer to a release but it is high priority.

But you probably have a very good point that people believe they are not being listened to because they are posting the same stats over and over and nobody is responding. This obviously means the current suggestion forum just isn't working, like i said i'm willing to listen to options that can improve it, us responding to each thread isn't most likely a viable solution. This is a system we tried because users requested it so we were willing to give it a try.

Maybe returning to a system like Uservoice where we spend some time accepting or rejecting feature requests and people can see what is planned etc but the forum wasnt really built for this kind of thing and uservoice or something similar gives us more control. if someone has suggestions how we might improve from the current system please let me know and ill look into it and see what i can do. FYI uservoice did have spam issues when they removed the filters from free accounts, this was reversed and there is no issue now.

Anyway were very much listening and committed to improving the product and we do appreciate this kind of feedback

[The Minder]

... if you want to discuss your issues feel free to send an email to support@holdemmanager.com for Att:Morny with your concerns or start another thread,...

My comments were directly in line with OP's post.

As to the above, I have sent my concerns to B-Money (who I assumed was higher up the food chain) at his request. In part, that conversation resulted in the "Calling All Tourney Players" thread, that has now collapsed.

[MASTERHOLMES]

well,,
as consumers we like to know that our feedback is recieved but more importantly if it sounds good or not, or even feasible.

cardrunners releases surveys now and then that ask questions and leaves a comment area for the end of the survey. so instead of using the forum as a suggestion box,, i would suggest just compling the good requests you have garnered and are considering and make a survey out of it.
and send it out via email and leave it for two plus two people and you will get an alternative focus group.

I HATED THE PREVIOUS SUGGESTION PROCESS,, every suggestion made and you would get told to click on this link and go vote.
that to me was very impersonal and at the very least the poll forum here seems warmer, but without interaction how can you really know what is going on for your consumer base.

so that is why i suggest the cardrunners survey idea ,,every quarter, i know it will make me feel good.

[morny]

I quite like that idea about the survey and im sure that is something we could do and ill look into it, ill leave this open for other people to suggest some more things here or tell us how they feel about the survey.

I still think we need a better way to collect the suggestions though to build a survey, issues were currently facing:


Uservoice is a good way to compile this information to see what the most popular ideas are and avoid constant repetitions of suggested ideas

On the other hand uservoice sometimes leads to more popular ideas overshadowing better ideas that dont get the attention they deserve however it could also be argued that if the idea goes unnoticed then theres not that many people interested in it and so if we add it will many people use it i.e will we get much of return for the development we put in if it only 1% use it

The forums may feel more personal but they are not an ideal platform for this, people cant see what ideas have already been suggested easily and thus you end up with 10 different threads of the same idea whereas uservoice solves this problem for the most part. Forums simply weren't designed to accomodate large suggestions like this

The forums take up much more support time to moderate compared to uservoice because of the issues above.

If we were to use a uservoice type system but spend more time moderating it, e.g rejecting suggestions and giving a reason why, adding suggestions to planned, completed etc and agree to add any ideas that reached a threshold of x votes to the survey to get more opinions then do you think this would improve things?

Also for suggestions that might not get higher votes maybe we have a monthly thread that allows you to make your case for a suggestion that was added to uservoice but didn't get votes but you think its important. Then well also add some of these less popular ideas to the survey too?

These are just my probable solutions, im open to other ideas so maybe well let this run over the holiday period, see what other suggestions come and make a decision on how to improve this in the new year?

I could start a new thread in the suggestion forums detailing some of these solutions either to get more feedback from people using the suggestions forum?