Paul Hexem Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Whenever I see in profiles, nonsense about IMs getting capped, I'm always confused. I'm even more confused when it's a merchant.SL allows IMs to email, and with the sheer amount of failures on the grid of inventory offers, messages dropped during TP, and other issues, why would you not enable IM to Email?Personally, I hate notecards. I get an email saying I got a notecard, and then I gotta wait until I get to my computer, log in, and go and find that notecard, read it, and if the person's not online, send them a notecard, wait for another one back... I'd much prefer to just get a full message in my email so I can reply right from my smartphone and handle the issue all at once.So, open discussion, particularly for merchants- Why do you not enable IM to email?
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Hello Gadget - I have my marketplace sales set to issue a message when a sale has been made. On each sale, an IM is sent to email. Doing that, causes your IMs to get capped. It helps a bit to keep an eye out for what is going on with sales all day - what's selling - what time of day - if your blog post just got some action - if twitter just prompted a sale - that kind of stuff. A merchant who has it set that way to watch sales would have to go in all day long to clear that out in order to keep messages from being capped, and I think that a lot of people have other jobs. Sometimes the IMs do get through. I don't mind getting a notecard plus an IM - on an IM I can respond immediately while sitting at the computer for another job - but might not be possible for most. Some merchants do prefer an IM for that reason, so you need to read their profiles to see what they prefer. When sending a notecard, it helps a ton to put the issue and your name into the title of the notecard. eta: in fairness...I used to believe the same thing about merchants not taking care of business with IMs...but then, once the marketplace sales started rocking...figured out why the IMs can cap within a couple of hours, and just not feasible for most to tend to clearing those out all day. so now understand that it is a shortcoming of the system and not the merchant.
Pamela Galli Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I hate notecards. My sole business goal now is to not receive them. I don't care about selling things anymore. I just don't want to receive notecards. PS I have never had IMs to email cap, but I have had notecards not make it to inventory (and they are often named "New Note" or even more helpfully "Pamela Galli".)
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 well, yeah, that would be ideal....but don't you get to work your SL job all day long?
Dresden Ceriano Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I'm not a merchant so I can't answer the direct question. But as a customer, my advice to merchants is if you want to be contacted in a specific way, note that prominently in your profile. Most, but not all, customers will read it and do it the way you want it done. If I don't see something like that in a merchant's profile then I will usually send both... a quick IM stating that I have an issue and have sent them a notecard with the details... after I've sent them a notecard with the details, of course. ...Dres
Jennifer Boyle Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I have two longstanding questions that are closely related enough to this that I think it's OK to ask them here. Why is the cap on stored IMs so low? It seems to me that if it were much higher, the space required would be a very small fraction of the total storage required for everything in SL. Why have a cap at all when IMs are being forwarded to email? It would make a lot more sense not to store IMs that had been forwardedto email and to continue forwarding them indefinitely.
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Those are good questions. I'll add another. Am wondering if on the new social networking system...those notices that you get when someone has responded to your feed...if those notices add to the number cap.
Dresden Ceriano Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Oooo... Mickey, that is a good question. I hope someone that knows (a Linden maybe) will reply with an answer to that. ...Dres
Chelsea Malibu Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I too hate notecards and if your messages are capped, you often wont get that notecard. It's really not a good idea when a merchant tells you they need a notecard. In my opinion, they are just saying they are too lazy to read their emails. Since I am so conscience about my support, I don't care how you contact me as my only requirement is that you DO contact me. If there is an issue, I want to know and if you send me an IM, I check my emails a lot more than I log in to SL. I have my mobile and other back ups in place where I can address support issues. However, a note card only tells me that inventory has been passed and when I am offline, I can't read it. An IM I can read. However, the worst I have seen yet was someone who makes large circular sofas, that has a policy that if you don't join her group, she wont support her product for you. Needless to say, I will never buy from her again.
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I used to believe that too, Chelsea, and in fact was a bit snotty about it toward merchants, in one of my profile pics. But can you read my explanation and understand why? I'm pretty sure that I get notecards when messages are capped. My messages get capped several times a day, and the notecards still seem to get through. Someone else will have to verify that.
Chelsea Malibu Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I have had a lot inventory and notecards lost when capped. I don't log in daily and many times not for up to a week. They do get lost much like items sent can get lost when capped. It's also under the Delivery failure FAQ in the Marketplace. Either way, this is not a debate on the mechanics of the SL inventory system, it's about customer service isn't it?. I've never lost an IM when I'm offline..
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 well, can't speak for others...but I log in three or four times a day if someone requests customer service. I have the luxury of having several online jobs and can do that, but most do not. not sure what the debate is there? eta: even while sleeping the IMs get capped. Avatars do not sleep?
Innula Zenovka Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Hello Gadget - I have my marketplace sales set to issue a message when a sale has been made. On each sale, an IM is sent to email. Doing that, causes your IMs to get capped. It helps a bit to keep an eye out for what is going on with sales all day - what's selling - what time of day - if your blog post just got some action - if twitter just prompted a sale - that kind of stuff. A merchant who has it set that way to watch sales would have to go in all day long to clear that out in order to keep messages from being capped, and I think that a lot of people have other jobs. I don't understand that, I'm afraid. If I'm offline and my IMs get capped, my IMs to email -- whether sent by my scripted vendors or by avatars -- still get through to my email inbox, and I know what time they were sent because (in my case) gmail time stamps them on arrival. Why do I need to worry about my IMs being capped? It wouldn't make any difference to me, as far as I can see, if no IMs sent to me when I'm offline got through to me inworld to await my next log in, so long as they all show up in my email inbox soon after they're sent (which they do, in my experience).
Chelsea Malibu Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Innula Zenovka wrote: I don't understand that, I'm afraid. If I'm offline and my IMs get capped, my IMs to email -- whether sent by my scripted vendors or by avatars -- still get through to my email inbox, and I know what time they were sent because (in my case) gmail time stamps them on arrival. Why do I need to worry about my IMs being capped? It wouldn't make any difference to me, as far as I can see, if no IMs sent to me when I'm offline got through to me inworld to await my next log in, so long as they all show up in my email inbox soon after they're sent (which they do, in my experience). This is precisely my point. Therefore, why make our customers jump through more hoops to contact us.
Paul Hexem Posted August 5, 2011 Author Posted August 5, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: Hello Gadget - I have my marketplace sales set to issue a message when a sale has been made. On each sale, an IM is sent to email. Doing that, causes your IMs to get capped. It helps a bit to keep an eye out for what is going on with sales all day - what's selling - what time of day - if your blog post just got some action - if twitter just prompted a sale - that kind of stuff. A merchant who has it set that way to watch sales would have to go in all day long to clear that out in order to keep messages from being capped, and I think that a lot of people have other jobs. Sometimes the IMs do get through. I don't mind getting a notecard plus an IM - on an IM I can respond immediately while sitting at the computer for another job - but might not be possible for most. Some merchants do prefer an IM for that reason, so you need to read their profiles to see what they prefer. When sending a notecard, it helps a ton to put the issue and your name into the title of the notecard. eta: in fairness...I used to believe the same thing about merchants not taking care of business with IMs...but then, once the marketplace sales started rocking...figured out why the IMs can cap within a couple of hours, and just not feasible for most to tend to clearing those out all day. so now understand that it is a shortcoming of the system and not the merchant. If you get IM to email, you wouldn't HAVE to log in and clear them. That's what I'm saying. You'd see the message, regardless of how many messages have been sent from the marketplace. IMs to email NEVER cap. As a matter of fact, if you're trying to seriously be a merchant and you don't have IM to email enabled, that tells me you're lazy, don't care about customer service, or just plain dumb. Well, dumb is mean. How about "not technically inclined"? Either way, not someone I want to buy from.
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Well, sorry - but when I log in, almost every time...it says that messages are capped. And I miss some IMs...even having it set to email.
Mickey Vandeverre Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 wow. alrighty then....ya'll have a great day!
Innula Zenovka Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: well, can't speak for others...but I log in three or four times a day if someone requests customer service. I have the luxury of having several online jobs and can do that, but most do not. Which is one reason I far prefer to receive IMs rather than notecards. Because of RL work commitments I can't always log in to see what the message in my inbox that "So and So has sent you a notecard" is all about, but I can -- and do -- easily reply to the IM from my email client (most times) solving the problem far sooner than if it had to wait for me to log in, or forward it to my business partner, who's in a different time zone and on a more flexible schedule than am I, or ask the sender for futher details (which often I need).
Innula Zenovka Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Mickey Vandeverre wrote: And I miss some IMs...even having it set to email. How often does this happen? I guess if someone sends me an IM that doesn't go through to my email and then never mentions it, I'm not going to know about it, but I've never, that I recall, had someone refer to an offline IM they sent me and found myself saying "what IM?"
Chelsea Malibu Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I have heard this before but always from users of free email accounts like YMail or GMail. I pay for my Email service and have never had an issue. Like you, I can log into my email or a website from work but our firm does not allow access to SL from the offices.
Innula Zenovka Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 I use Gmail for SL purposes and have never had problems with IMs to Email not getting through. Sometimes they end up in the spam filter by mistake, but no more frequently than do legitimate emails from other sources.
Darren Scorpio Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Gadget Portal wrote: Whenever I see in profiles, nonsense about IMs getting capped, I'm always confused. I'm even more confused when it's a merchant. SL allows IMs to email, and with the sheer amount of failures on the grid of inventory offers, messages dropped during TP, and other issues, why would you not enable IM to Email? Personally, I hate notecards. I get an email saying I got a notecard, and then I gotta wait until I get to my computer, log in, and go and find that notecard, read it, and if the person's not online, send them a notecard, wait for another one back... I'd much prefer to just get a full message in my email so I can reply right from my smartphone and handle the issue all at once. So, open discussion, particularly for merchants- Why do you not enable IM to email? Most merchants (there are some non-merchant residents too) who have such thing posted on their profiles are often the type that are just full of themselves and trying to point out to the world that they are "too important, too popular and too busy". I don't like notecards, I hate them with a passion because they clutter my inventory and most times when I log in and have group messages and notices, and inventory offers cluttering my screen the minute I log in I just start pressing discard or OK on everything. I prefer IMs because IMs to email never cap and I can always send a reply to the customer from anywhere, IMO it is better customer service.
Paul Hexem Posted August 5, 2011 Author Posted August 5, 2011 Darren Scorpio wrote: Gadget Portal wrote: Whenever I see in profiles, nonsense about IMs getting capped, I'm always confused. I'm even more confused when it's a merchant. SL allows IMs to email, and with the sheer amount of failures on the grid of inventory offers, messages dropped during TP, and other issues, why would you not enable IM to Email? Personally, I hate notecards. I get an email saying I got a notecard, and then I gotta wait until I get to my computer, log in, and go and find that notecard, read it, and if the person's not online, send them a notecard, wait for another one back... I'd much prefer to just get a full message in my email so I can reply right from my smartphone and handle the issue all at once. So, open discussion, particularly for merchants- Why do you not enable IM to email? Most merchants (there are some non-merchant residents too) who have such thing posted on their profiles are often the type that are just full of themselves and trying to point out to the world that they are "too important, too popular and too busy". I don't like notecards, I hate them with a passion because they clutter my inventory and most times when I log in and have group messages and notices, and inventory offers cluttering my screen the minute I log in I just start pressing discard or OK on everything. I prefer IMs because IMs to email never cap and I can always send a reply to the customer from anywhere, IMO it is better customer service. There's that too. Self important. I forgot to include that in my list.
Mylar Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Personally, I would prefer people use the feed in my profile. I can check that and respond regardless of where I am. Plus there's a public record of the conversation, so if there's a problem that many people have with one of my products, they can see if someone has already asked that and what my response is. This can prevent me from getting several IMs/notecards saying basically the same thing. Of course, I'm just starting out and have like three customers, so it's not really an issue for me yet :matte-motes-big-grin:
Pamela Galli Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 There is one excellent reason for notecards that a merchant pointed out: You will never get a notecard that says: "hi" or "r u there" And much less likely to get one that says: "I have a problem with a thing I bought from you." Nevertheless if I ever start a new business it will be called No Notecards Please and my avi name will be NoNoteCards Resident.
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