2013- Customer Service Feedback and Committment Statement

[madbean]

In order to keep the communication lines open I'd like to take this opportunity to re-state my commitment to providing the best customer service possible to all members and customers here at the madbeanpedals wonderland of love. To me, this means providing "greater than expected" service and reasonable response times to questions and feedback provided. This extends not only to paying customers in the store but also regular forum members who just like to hang out here.

So, if you have any feedback to provide or suggestions on how I can improve the "customer service" experience, please feel free to respond here. Or, if you prefer to keep your feedback private, email me at brian AT madbeanpedals.com.

Keep in mind that this is a for-profit business, even though it very much rooted in a community framework. I am a professional and therefore I do not take feedback personally so long as it is thoughtful and fair. While you are welcome to offer praise, too, I'm not seeking the "ego boost" here. I have a good sense of "what's right" but not necessarily the best sense of "needs improvement".

Lastly, feedback can also concern other subjects such as project organization, documentation, website development, features, etc. It's really up to your imagination.

I'm really looking forward to this year and I hope to keep you guys excited about the goings-on and the overall community spirit!

[octa805]

this is more of a request than positive or negative feedback.

While I don't want/expect you to have a pre-packaged pedal kit available as part of the greatness of your boards is the ability to tweak them to taste it would be, IMO, a nice time saver if you partnered with a parts supplier and just had a BOM on file there to save some time. From there people could edit out there parts orders to make any component swaps/adjustments they desire.

If this already exists and I don't know about it then I want to die.

[jimilee]

"wonderland of love"] Is more thank enough

[Ang3lus]

i think this is the best DIY site, most organized forum, most organized projects, best documents around, easiest store to access and order and fastest turnaround for projects, also original ones and you always keep us waiting for more.

this is the place before heaven, i'm sure of it.

[wgc]

I think that it would be hard to do a better job.  Could go on and on about what's right, though I realize you're asking for what could be improved.  I think it is this attitude which is what sets your layouts and site apart.

Anyway, with that spirit in mind, I personally would love to know more about the theory of the circuits.  In many build docs you touch on various mods and part subs, but I would really value your insight into the theory and workings of the circuits, eg this is the filtering section, this is the voltage reg section, etc.  

I come from a background of supporting and building complicated commercial pcbs at high rates but would love to expand my knowledge of how the parts work together in audio circuits such as these.

Sound clips on the project page might be helpful too.

Please keep up the great work!

[DutchMF]

I'm excited already! Dude, no sweat, the way you treat your customers is already a step up from what I've come to expect.... And you've got the best customer-support team there is! Cool thing happening all the time....

Paul

[thekyle55]

I'd like a paypal donate button somewhere.  I do my own etchings, and have built a bunch of bean's projects, but never given him a dime, which makes me feel bad because he deserves it.  Anything to help a brother out, especially when he's given as much to the community as bean has.

[Effectsiation]

I have tons of praise, but since you're looking for criticism, how bout:

1) You could actually update your twitter like you said you would

2) You could upload all the old versions of project build docs (I know some early versions of the Krunkee are missing).

3) You could include links to youtube videos (to include user videos) in project pdfs. Heck why not have a contest for submitting videos!

[aballen]

A lot of good suggestions here, but if I had to choose one.  Demo videos.  I feel like this should be a pre-requisite along with the build doc for releasing a board.

Nothing crazy needed, mediocre production quality is fine, I just want to hear the pedal built the way its described in the doc... and no hairy toe in the video please

[madbean]

Yes, I do need to get more demos done. This is probably the biggest fail on my part so far. There are a few, but not nearly enough. That is something I intend to correct for 2013. Thanks.

And, just to put a finer point on that: I plan on demoing ALL three new Zero Points over the next week.

[madbean]

I have tons of praise, but since you're looking for criticism, how bout:

1) You could actually update your twitter like you said you would

2) You could upload all the old versions of project build docs (I know some early versions of the Krunkee are missing).

3) You could include links to youtube videos (to include user videos) in project pdfs. Heck why not have a contest for submitting videos!

Thank you.

1- I'm just a little confused on this one. I've been using Twitter pretty regularly to announce when new PCBs are released. Did I say I would do something else? I honestly don't remember.

2- I have removed some of the oldest versions (going back to 2009, 2010) but the archive ZIPs usually contain at least one or two previous versions. The Krunkee was was removed at the request of MI Audio, actually.

3- Yes, I agree. If a demo video is done in advance of release putting a link in the doc is a good idea.

Which brings me to another idea that I've been considering: replacing the traditional PDFs with actual webpages. The reason for this is that they can be made much more dynamic and updated frequently. If I can figure out a way to do that AND include the option to download the page as a PDF that would be the best of both worlds.

Or, perhaps only include the schematic, BOM and layout in the PDF and all the important text in a webpage. Not sure.

[icecycle66]

Regarding demos:

Is there a way to add already made demos to the madbean youtube page?
Chromesphere has a crapload ot MB demos.
I have a few crappy MB on bass demos. 
There are a handful of others out there as well.


Being able to colocate or link all these on one Madbean youtube page would increase the amount of demos apperantly available.

[gordo]

If this already exists and I don't know about it then I want to die.

...that's the funniest line I've read in a very long time.

[madbean]

My youTube karate is pretty limited but it is something I can look into.

One idea for the re-designed website here is to include a media page where youTube could be imbedded. Ideally, it would be great to have individual member pages for such a thing. But, that goes pretty far beyond my own rudimentary web design skills. Luckily, I'm married to a webmaster (for Mapex, no less)

[juansolo]

Which brings me to another idea that I've been considering: replacing the traditional PDFs with actual webpages. The reason for this is that they can be made much more dynamic and updated frequently. If I can figure out a way to do that AND include the option to download the page as a PDF that would be the best of both worlds.

Or, perhaps only include the schematic, BOM and layout in the PDF and all the important text in a webpage. Not sure.

Tough one this. It's handy to have all the info in the same place. Plus I keep the old docs for some of the old builds that I have if for whatever reason I decide to rebuild it (as I did recently with my v1 CE-2) or need to fault find it.

The biggest pain of my amp build was that all the docs were online and I don't have a computer where I build my stuff...

I think the current system works on this one to be fair as it allows me to keep my own stash of the build docs I used at the time of building the effects (so they tally). Just have some version control of them so it's easy to see if it's a later version or not, if you don't already.