BTW, if you'd like to get some more free UX feedback, please feel free to visit our UX community platform at https://usability.testing.exchange
You're correct that so far we've been commenting when the person we reply to, can get more feedback about his/her stuff, at usability-testing-exchange (UTX). And, in cases when we've posted lots of helpful feedback, and also a link to UTX, then people have appreciated it, said thanks or upvoted, and some of them went to UTX, helped others over at UTX, and got even more feedback back him/herlself.
In this particular case, though, the actual feedback is brief — about the same length as the "see UTX" line. And I understand that that doesn't feel good.
I think we should write lots of more more helpful feedback, than the text occupied by the "see UTX" line. Look at my other reply (with feedback to OP) on this page for example.
About providing value (which maybe we didn't do so much this time): The purpose is to 1) help the people we reply to, so they can improve their websites & software. And 2) to slightly slightly improve the quality of the ShowHN submissions (feedback —> impovements, better submissions), which I would think is good for the readers here at HN. And 3) making people aware that UTX exists.
So this is supposed to be good for everyone: 1) people who posts ShowHN:s, 2) for the readers here at ShowHN, and 3) for us/me.
However in this case, as mentioned, the "see UTX" line seems a bit distracting and promotional, because the actual feedback is so brief. We shouldn't do like that in the future.
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Sorry @dpandya (original poster) for this off-topic discussion from your point of view. Anyway I guess you're interested in feedback about your service? (Since that is one of the points with ShowHN, right.) — I gave Emphasize a try, and left feedback in another comment here.
First: This doesn't tell me much: "Schedule customer conversations with ease." The next line though, makes me intrigued :-) (i.e. "Everyone says you should talk to your customers. Our software makes it painless.")
What about a shorter & simpler headline like "Talk with your customers. Our software helps you do that."
"See a sample email" — good idea, I wonder how to write such emais in a good way. I click "Get sample email", before scrolling down & reading more.
Ok here's the email I got.
David from Empathize wants to speak to you!
We would love to hear what you think about our product over a 30 minute phone call.
From my perspective, as someone who gets this email, if you want me to work for you for 30 minutes, you need to provide some compensation. Like $30. Or giving me your service for free for 6 months.
Anyway I click "Pick time" to test what'll happen ...
About the "Please select a time" page:
Which time zone? 12:00PM could be 02:00 AM to me, for all I know :-)
I feel slightly frustrated because the schedule seems adjusted for what's good for you, not for what's a good time for me (I now being the one who will give feedback to the company). If you really want my feedback, then you should let me pick any time I want 24 o'clock, and then adjust your schedule.
(If you pay me $$$$ then it's OK though if I need to adjust to your schedule.)
UX problem: After selecting a time, I clicked `[ > ]` instead of Submit, and didn't immediately undrestand what then happened.
I think: 1) Change from just `[ > ]` to `[ > next day ]` to make it clear what those buttons do. And 2) Make the submit button look more like a button, instead of like a footer, by making it narrower, maybe 2-3x as wide as the Submit text (but not as wide as the page).
Ok I click Submit. And see the text "Please complete all items above". What? Ok ... after a while I understand I need to fill in my phone number...
...Somehow make it more obvious that I need to type my phone number above. Hmm, interesting that I totally didn't see the phone number input. In retrospect, it looks as if it ought to be easy to notice.
...Maybe the problem is that everything is in bright gray — looks like not-importrant-secondary-stuff. Instead, what grabbed my attention was the large calendar in the middle, and that's where I started.
Ok I got to "Thanks! The call has been scheduled."
I'm looking now in my Google Calendar, but don't see any appointment there yet. Of course, since I haven't signed up. I suppose maybe only the company's staff will get their calendars updated.
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I look at "How it works", and find: "We automatically handle giftcards ..." — how do you do that?
To me that seems like crucial for getting someone to answer a phone call. What about including a gift card, in the "Get sample email" demo?
I look at "What makes us special", and "Email templates that work" — I would want to see some of those email templates; I'll be sending similar emails myself soon some day.
I would want the option to give money as "thanks" to the customer, not only a gift card.
Curious about pricing.
From what I've seen this far, of Emphatize, I'd actually prefer writing my own emails, and asking for feedback in text via email instead — I'm thinking people might have time to reply with an email to an email ... but not for a 30 min phone call. Also, if I get feedback in text, I can just copy-paste it into a todo document (rather than having to listen to a phone call and take notes myself).
Can I ask how did you come up with the idea to build Emphathize?
Have you validated that a talk-with-your-customers service is something companies are actually looking for? What if maybe they (like me) prefer asking for & getting feedback via mail instead? Or maybe they use some customer-relationships-management system that already has get-feedback functionality built-in?
Maybe there are more "Talk with your customers" stuff that you can expand Emphatize to include? The concept of a company that helps other companies talk with their customers, seems like something that could actually work. But I'm hesitant right now about if the service you provide, is enough, for companies to get interseted.
What about contacting some different companies / startups, and talking with them about how they do when talking with their customers, and what they might need / want from you? Then maybe good to first read the available-for-free-online chapters in this book: http://www.startupwerkboek.nl/startupcenter/Momtest.pdf (The Mom Test). It's about finding out if people are truly & honestly interested in the things one wants to build. —Maybe you'll come up with more useful features, or re-focus completely to something else.
Best wishes anyway.
They are not likely to be interested in a gift card, ... they don't want to use the service any more, right.
But if you pay them money, then they might have time for a phone call with you.
Or, if you send them an email, and ask what problems they found with the service — and tell them that the reason you're asking is that you want to fix the problems. So that maybe some day in the future, the service will be sth they will want to use. That can also motivate them. (But, I think, not enough for scheduling a phone call. Only to write a brief email back to you.)