Open Criticizm - my overall Kayako experience

[twhiting9275]

It looks like you are looking for me to wave a magic wand and fulfil all of your requests and our goals instantly. That isn't going to happen, I am afraid.

Instantly? No, I'm not that foolish to believe that. Nor am I foolish to believe that it will ever be done. History repeats itself, over and over in the kayako world.

Historically, kayako has been full of empty promises, missed deadlines, and the like. Now, instead of being on the defensive and automatically closing things (which btw, were not answered effectively, at all), try this. Put yourself in the customer's shoes. You know the ones that actually pay your bills!

You can call me a troll (as you have done off of these forums) all you like, but, really, if voicing opinions about your company, or any company for that matter, makes me a troll, by god, then you're just as guilty. ANYONE who's ever said anything negative about a company is guilty of being a "troll" by your own standards.

Again, put yourself in the customer's shoes, not in your own here. Promises have been made over the past 3 years that have just taken forever to deliver on. You cry "patience, patience, be patient", yet, you show no fruit for our patience. This is an atypical scam. Bleed the customers dry, stall things as long as possible, and when the function is FINALLY ready, guess what? It's time to pay MORE! This happened with customers for v2 -> v3 integrations, it's happened for modernbill customers, and it's happening again for whmcs customers.

How would you feel in this position? Seriously now.

As a developer (as I've said in the moved thread), I understand that things take time, but, when things repeatedly take forever to do, it's time to re-evaluate everything. This has been promised for soooooo many years now it's not funny, yet, years down the road, it's still the same old same old @ kayako.

BTW:
Would a "troll" say "your product is good"? No, they wouldn't.
Would a "troll" keep coming back to see if things had changed? No, they wouldn'.
A "troll" is merely out for trashing things, flaming, etc. If you think my flames are trash, or flames, by god, you've seriously got a LOT to learn about trash and flames. I'm tame by comparison to every troll out there. Yes, I have an opinion, and it is my right to share said opinion. If you don't like the opinion, then, look at what you don't like about it, and seriously think "Is he right?". In this case, it's not am I right, but is every customer that has said this right?

Patience is great, but in order for patience to be warranted, you must prove that it is worthwhile. So far? Kayako's not even bothered to do this.

Anyways, that's it for me in this thread. You've ignored the key points in every conversation so far, brushed everything under the rug that didn't match your personal opinion. Change? I'll believe it when you prove it!

[bear]

I'm tame by comparison to every troll out there.

If not trolling, what's your reason for posting the same thing over and over again, and calling into question the product, the developers, thier work and hiring ethics and calling it's staff liars here on the forum?

[twhiting9275]

If not trolling, what's your reason for posting the same thing over and over again, and calling into question the product, the developers, thier work and hiring ethics and calling it's staff liars here on the forum?

Maybe you misread something here, because I've done very little of the above.

I've never, once said anyone is a "liar" here.
I've never once "posted the same thing over and over again".
I've never once "called into question the product". In fact, I've done just the opposite, and said it was good, because, it is.
I have never once "questioned hiring ethics". I merely pointed out a major flaw in the hiring policies. That is hardly questioning.

Have I questioned work ethic? You better believe it. Why? Because, compared to industry standards, it is poor and slow!
The industry standard for support ticket resolution? 24 hours, open to close.
The industry standard for new features? 2-3 months, depending on how tough it is to put something together.

I'll use one of the best cases I've seen in a very, very long time here, whmcs. You want to talk about someone with an excuse to be slow? Matt's been doing this stuff solo (or was doing dev. work solo) for the longest time, yet he manages to kick out a release for his clients every couple of months, and bugfixes take much, much less than 24 hours to get put in. Sure, now he's got a couple of support staff, but AFAIK he's still the only developer, yet, he manages to keep up with customer requests quite well.

Why question work ethic? Because the current model is flawed, it's been flawed for years, and it needs to be fixed. Every time we're promised "major changes" in it, we (the customers) get severely let down. Every time we're promised a feature, it's put off constantly. How can you possibly call that professional?

Have I questioned the developers? come on now, you take a look @ what I posted about the same bug 3 (stable) cycles in a row, and how can you not call development into question! Take a look at how slow development is, how can you NOT call development into question?

It is unethical to promise XX feature, and stall on delivery in order to grab more money from clients . That's just wrong. Whether or not that's the full reason, it is inevitably part of it. Like I said, if one single developer can push out major integration for major products (plesk, cpanel, helm, directadmin, etc), all of which he's barely familliar with, in less than a year, there's really no reason , or excuse, for the delay.

[bear]

Originally Posted by twhiting9275

I've never, once said anyone is a "liar" here.

Insinuated then. Here's one:

Did you want to answer the questions? Of course not. So, you removed them.

And another:

Just another form of censorship, kayako not wanting you to post that things are bad. That's Jamie's major job, keeping the bad stuff out of the public!

Insinuating that Kayako is trying to hide anything, or that Jamie's job is to do so. You appear to be claiming that they are being underhanded, or in other words, lying to the public.

I've never once "posted the same thing over and over again".

I can find a number of instances where you claim they take too long developing, support is slow and how you can do it better, why can't they.

I've never once "called into question the product". In fact, I've done just the opposite, and said it was good, because, it is.

Saying it's good on the one hand while denigrating it on the other is a backhanded compliment. Or perhaps this was directed at staff again?

I have never once "questioned hiring ethics". I merely pointed out a major flaw in the hiring policies. That is hardly questioning.

On the contrary. A company has the right to hire who and where they please, essentially. If they prefer to hire locally, that's thier right to do so. You called into question thier right to make that decision. What you see as a flaw they see as supporting local economy and creating a work environment they feel is in the best interest of their company. You don't share that opinion, so that makes them "wrong".

I will not go on arguing this with you, as it's obvious you have very strong opinions about Kayako's business and how it should be changed and improved to suit your wants and needs. I find I get much more done when I worry about my own business, personally.

[craigbrass]

Repeating the same questions over and over will just stop Jamie from doing the job he is supposed to be doing.

I agree that development isn't happening as fast as would be liked but finding GOOD developers is hard. I know this from experiance. Just give Kayako time.

[PHP Guru]

I have read this thread and want to share my experience with you. I just teated and used demo builds of kayako as I am a PHP developer and reported so many XSS vulnerabilites that I found in last couple of days and contacted to Support team first.

They asked me to contact Mahesh and I was shocked he sent me patch within 3-4 minutes after fixing those issues and all the times I sent him these flaws he make very fast fixes and committed into CVS build.

Kayako team is very talented but I suppose its very hard to manage about 25000+ client base as they have only Two PHP developers Varun and Mahesh . Isn't it?

They are doing very well and need some time as they have to manage everything.

Thoughts?

Regards,
PHP Guru

[craigbrass]

Totally agree with you PHP Guru. Kayako have 2 good developers. It is hard to find good developers but they are trying their best to find more. A team of 4-5 would get the job done perfectly in my opinion but this is going to take time.

[twhiting9275]

Originally Posted by craigbrass

Just give Kayako time.

And how much "time" are we supposed to give them here?
Admittedly, php developers are hard to come by, but by limiting the scope of things (IE: only Indian programmers), you limit the results. Common sense would dictate this.

The "give them time" cry has been made so many times over the past few years it's not even funny. I'd say that ample "time" has been given here, for them to find and progress with things.

One of the best quotes that comes to mind here:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

So, are we learning, and progressing, or are we repeating? Judging by the slow performance (and this is not a criticism either, just a comparison), on the WHMCS module, we're most definitely repeating.

[Varun Shoor]

Thats the very reason we are in process of opening a new US office. To concentrate on hiring quality developers.

I am personally working on WHMCS module and am in constant touch with Matt.

Regards,

Varun Shoor

[craigbrass]

Oh right, so there will be PHP developers in the USA office? Jamie said there wouldn't be...

[Jamie Edwards]

Originally Posted by craigbrass

Oh right, so there will be PHP developers in the USA office? Jamie said there wouldn't be...

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

...We are considering expanding development to our USA office once it is completed...

[craigbrass]

Ah right.

[pamphile]

@vinny

SupportSuite is the best software I ever purchased. There is so much potential in this software and it's desktop tools. I have no regrets.

BTW, Amember forces you to upgrade every 6 months. Even if you don't upgrade Amember always experiences a security flaw that forces you to upgrade once a year. By now you surely know that.

[Ryan Lederman]

Originally Posted by craigbrass

Oh right, so there will be PHP developers in the USA office? Jamie said there wouldn't be...

We have already hired a very experienced PHP developer and he starts next week. More information to follow in the announcements forum.

[craigbrass]

Nice one guys. 3 core php developers will surely speed things up!