Billing survey - the results are in!
Posted by David Greiner on November 2, 2006 3:05 PM
When we initially put our billing survey together, we were hoping for at least 50-60 responses so we'd have a decent range of feedback from different types of customers (from larger agencies right down to those doing some freelance on the side). Amazingly, we had almost 500 responses, most of them with thoughtful comments and ideas on exactly what would work for them.
The results
While we've been genuinely blown away with the number of responses, it was the results themselves that surprised us most. In the vein of trying to keep MailBuild as simple as possible, we were hoping there wouldn't be an equal response to each of the options presented, leaving us with a hard choice on which direction to take.
Luckily for us, an overwhelming number of you guys pushed the vote in a single direction. The vast majority of you were gunning for the ability for your clients to pay with their own credit cards, either at the standard pricing or a marked-up rate and you guys receive the difference.
After this, the next best popular vote was to keep things as they are now, where you pay on behalf of your clients and then invoice them yourself. Coming in a surprisingly unpopular last place was the ability to allocate your client credits from your own pool of pre-purchased credits.
Where to from here?
We're giving you guys what you asked. Today we're hard at work on adding the facilities to let your own clients pay for campaign delivery using their own credit cards. They can pay our default pricing of 1 cent/recipient plus the $5 delivery fee, or you can set a mark-up rate they should pay (say $10 delivery and 3 cents/recipient). If you go for the mark-up option, we'll collect your profit and then send it to you via PayPal at the end of each month.
We realize many of you are also happy with the current approach, so that will always be an option too. Billing settings will be controlled on a client-by-client basis. You might have some clients that you continue paying for, others that pay themselves at our wholesale rate and others you charge a mark-up and pocket the difference.
When we say we're hard at work on this, we're not joking either. Here's a sneak preview of an under development screen to set the billing options for each of your clients.
But, that's not what I voted for!
Inevitably there will be some of you guys who voted for the credit approach, but considering the fact that almost 6 times more people went the other direction we think this one was pretty cut and dry. Having said that, we'll never rule out other options in the future, but right now we're starting with the simplest approach that the majority of our customers have asked for.
A big thanks again to those who participated in the survey and helped make MailBuild a better product.
29 total comments:
:-( What a shame, although we proposed it, I really felt the credits route was the most flexible. But hey ho! This is our second choice so we can work with it OK.
Good to see you guys are already on the case.
Just a question really with clients paying on their credit card as to what will appear on their credit card statements? I'd hope it wouldn't say MailBuild or Freshview on it - otherwise they might wonder who MailBuild is, Google for it but then realise that they can get their mailings cheaper by doing it direct!
James, we're definitely on to that one and we certainly won't be using MailBuild or Freshview. Right now, the charge may be from createsend dot com or something similar. We'll be going to great lengths to ensure this is clear to your clients when they pay to minimize the chances of any charge-backs or them tracking down MailBuild.
We're also working very hard to ensure the payment will be charged in US dollars as opposed to Australian dollars, which is another top priority.
You guys rock with this functionality I will easily be able to onsell this product to my clients...when do you hop to have this component up an running?
WHat are the chances that you will have a subscription based option in the near future? I am loosing the resale value of mailbuild to my customers realizing that they can simply go to constant contact for a mere $30 / month and get unlimited emails. This might seem like a bit - but when I mark it up to $.05 for example a mere 700 emails brings it to $40 for each mailing. They just don't buy that.
Just wondering as I would love to offer sompething comparable - even if it is more than the $30/month they see more value in "Unlimited Emails" than they do in par per subscriber.
Thanks much guys - I do after all LOVE this product. You have really made it easier on all of all around.
Chris
Cheers Joel, glad you like it. The turn around time has a lot to do with banks and merchant providers, so we don't want to promise anything until that process has been completed. We're working hard on the functionality itself right now though.
Chris, we don't have any plans of introducing a fixed monthly fee right now, although there's nothing stopping you from paying for your clients with your own card and then working out a monthly fee that works for the both of you.
Great news! I am very happy to hear this is in the works. Any idea of a roll-out date? I have a proposal on my desk that is calling for this.
Good news indeed. Just one question? Would there be any way of displaying the figures in a local currency? i.e. for us it would be nice for our clients to see themselve being billed £5 setup not $10. Even if it needs to say on the screen you will be billed in USD and exact prices will vary depending on exchange rates?
Too bad for us, we had our hopes on the pre-purchased credits pool. Our clients now have to pay by Visa and most of them will not be able to do this. Corporate Visa cards may be common in the US but our client base (European small/medium companies) prefers invoicing by far. Another delay in implementing MailBuild into our marketing services, but looking forward to any upcomming changes!
Jason, we're currently dealing with different merchant providers on the best approach to take, so until we know when this process will be ready we don't want to promise anything sorry.
Dan, this may be something we can implement depending on the merchant approach we take, but I don't want to promise anything right now. Either way though, I'd say we'll be starting with US dollars only support.
Kris, thanks for the additional feedback. As I'm sure you can understand, we had to run with the numbers and with 6 times more people after the option we selected, we really had no choice there. Of course, we may be able to add even more flexibility in the future.
Wonderful development. The fixed or fixed + markup option is significantly better in terms of overall client management. As hands-on that the system is for clients already, allowing the option of having them be billed directly is a great next step.
Thanks!
Hi Guys,
Any progress on timings for introducing this functionality yet? I know dealing with Merchant Account providers is a pain but it would be great to know if you think this will be up and running by Feb as we are doing a number of exhibitions specifically to promote Mail Build. Thanks
Hi there,
Another one here trying to find out how this update is going? I'm sure when I emailed you in October you said this would be done in a month :P
good for me
Hey guys, you'll be pleased to know that we're nearly at the end of the process on the bank side of things and are aiming for a January launch of the new billing update. Thanks for your patience on this one, we think it's going to be worth the wait.
With this added feature, I'll begin using Mailbuild. I was just starting to build me own small scale billing system for this, and now I don't have too. As soon as this gets implemented I'm SO on board. You rock.
This is fantastic, exactly what I need. I'm looking forward to the release.
I don't charge my current clients markup on this but I intend to in future. In which case I can see it being quite important that the charges are made in a local currency (AUD in my case). It might be hard to explain why something that looks completely like my own service charges them in USD.
Well done guys.
Great news! Thanks so much for listening.
Thanks for the words of support guys, that's really great to hear and it's nice to know we're heading in the right direction. Pamela, for launch we'll be starting with US dollars only, but we're certainly aware of this issue and hope to offer further options based on the feedback we get after launch.
Really looking forward to the new option of having clients pay for their own mailings. Any idea when this might go live?
Hey Tony, glad to hear it will be a good match. We're hoping to have this feature live by the end of this month.
Any news on the launch of the new billing method?
Hi Dave:
Where are you with this now?
Hey Jason and Brian, thanks for the queries as the end of January looms. I can tell you that the billing system is built and tested, she's good to go. As we mentioned in the past, banks and payment providers don't know what the word "agile" means and we're still at the final stages of setting up the accounts we need to go live.
Again, they promised us it would be ready before Christmas and we're still waiting. All things point to them being ready next week, and as soon as that happens we'll be launching. We'll also post it on the blog immediately and let everyone know by email. Trust me, we can't wait to get this out either.
How are we doing on this feature? I am checking back almost daily for info for the ability to bill customers direct. Great work guys!
This is your week Paul ;)
Yep, this is the feature I wanted (and I didn't even need to ask!)
Although, I'm just pondering the maths, and I think you have made it a bit more complicated than it need be: most agencies (including us) will just mark up expenses by a set amount, e.g. 20%, of the total price. It seems difficult with your implementation to mark up by anything less than 50% - 1.5cents over your 1cent charge.
Nice work guys. MailBuild is a fantastic system and I have been trying to come up with excuses to use it so this will make it that much easier to implement and use with my clients. Keep up the great work!
Toby, thanks for your thoughts on that. We're looking at giving you more flexibility over how you can set your mark-up rates now. We'll be posting more on that soon.