BigFolio Woes

[ronocnikral]

This last July, we went through re-doing our website, purchasing a template and a new blog (switched to wordpress).

When looking for a new website, we had a short list of criteria, mainly something different from everyone else and something with big pictures. We found a big folio site that we liked and here is the final product.

We love this website because it is simple and not something you see everyday. And it has a full screen feature. Nonetheless, I have digressed.

Bigfolio seems to carry a little premium when ordering their website templates compared to the average, I believe we paid $300 and something like $20/month. The site was relatively easy to build, most of the time was spent with us tinkering.

Part of the deal is you get a smallfolio site (so people can view on their phones). We originally got an email saying it was setup. When we tried it, no luck. More time spent on their lousy help system. Finally, after bothering them for days it magically started working.

Another part of the system is a contact form. Potential clients can enter some basic information and it would email us what they entered in (pretty standard). Since 2010 was our first full year in business in Houston, we saw a slight improvement in web inquiries (only can go up from nothing). And we actually booked a wedding with someone doing a google search, using the website etc.

Well, turns out we had about 5 inquiries in November and something has gone awry in the big folio system and we have not received any emails notifying us there has been a web inquiry. I checked the spam folders, the trash and everything, no emails about these inquiries. We tried a test form, nothing. Most embarrassing thing is, we have become the recommended photographer for a venue in downtown. They have been recommending us and most of these inquires have been from the venue downtown. To be fair, you can view the inquiries within their admin panel. Of course, for 4 months we received via email and then all of the sudden...poof, nothing. It's one thing to know if we have to check the admin panel hourly, but that was not what we were sold or the precedence set by BigFolio. I guess we will have to monitor the admin panel a couple of times a day. Not how we want to spend our time...

We have not been happy with BigFolio's customer service. I just thought other forum members would like to know about our experiences with BigFolio thus far. If we could do over, it seems we would most likely go in a different direction.

I will update the situation as progress (or lack thereof) is made.

[ronocnikral]

UPDATE 1: Lady helping us lazily thought the emails were going to our spam folder (not true). she closed out our ticket. this was despite her testing the system and not being able to find the email.

we had to start a new ticket. New guy has picked it up and Bigfolio has acknowledged they messed up. Programmers are looking at it.

Bride has emailed back saying they loved our stuff etc, etc, etc. These leads aren't like they stumbled upon us on the internet, we are the only referred photographers for this venue. maybe we wouldn't have booked any of them, maybe we would have booked them all, or more likely somewhere in the middle based on our past history.

I'm more concerned about how the business relationship looks going forward.

[Tom]

Thanks for the heads up, Conon. I'm looking to start a new site and they were one of the vendors I was considering. Will cross them off the list (especially for 300+20/mo!)

[Cajungaltx]

Dang.... that's insane....I'm a huge, huge, HUGE fan of portfoliositez.... I absolutely love the ease in which I can make changes....swap out templates...get help... all of it. They are awesome.

[ronocnikral]

update 2: big folio has fixed the issue with an "experimental" solution. they are not guaranteeing it will work, but are confident it will.

there is little compunction for how their mistake has affected our business. nonetheless, i go back to if we would have even known about their spotty service, we would have put our money elsewhere. it's an expensive site. if you're a national photographer, i'm sure the service would improve eons. our little outfit only gets the bare minimum service at a very large premium.

all is well with the venue. seems brides are holding onto their money until the bridal show in search of a deal...

just documenting our experiences to help others in their website decisions later on down the road.

[ronocnikral]

the woes continue. got an email from a bride last night that our contact form wasn't working....sure enough, we tried a test and a box popped up that said there was an error...

they have yet to offer any compensation for the troubles they have caused, despite our protests...

[ndsimm]

Glad I saw this, I was just about to move a new site over to them because they are associated with Smugmug now, but I'll continue to use GoDaddy and Flashpalette...

[ronocnikral]

Nathan,

While we love the look of our bigfolio site, we will switch when we get the time to do it. It takes so long and is so much trouble. no one is perfect, and we understand that, but a little effort goes a long way to make up for one's imperfections. we see very little effort from these guys.

Btw, they did fix our contact form. Thanks for sending a test!!