bludomain question?

[jack_barry1]

how long does it take to get set up with a bludomain website. I placed an

order but now have not heard back from them since they charged my card almost

a week ago. They were very responsive to my questions in the beginning. I

know there are tons of people with these same sites here which is why I ask.

[jennifer_nichols]

I'm having the exact same issue. I placed my order last week, received an email that said they'd send my link "tomorrow", and now 4-5 days have passed. I've emailed a few more times and I've heard nothing. When I called, their message said they'd be "out of the office" from Dec. 19-21st. Despite their great reputation, I'm getting a little worried.

[jack_barry1]

Jennifer... yeah, that's my story almost exactly. They sent an email saying they'd have my site ready "tomorrow" but that was several days ago. No response to emails. Message when I call says they're out of town until Thursday. What kind of business picks up and leaves town for a few days??? They responded right away up until they charged my credit card... WTF?

[a-acreations]

I asked them to do a logo for me. They said okaay and charged me for that package. 2 to 3 months went bye and they did not finish the logo. I followed up with all the info they needed. Then 6 months later they told me they don't do logos any more and did not charge me for the logo. Go figure. I wasted alot of time with the logo issue.

[roxyandkaidotcom]

Wow, that's not good. They were awesome for me. I sent in the form saying I was ready to

buy. They sent me a contract. I faxed it the same day. The next day I had an invoice and an

email saying they'd send me a link ASAP. I got the link to start working on my site even

before I paid the invoice. I was done within a few days, let them know and it was live the

next day. The whole process from very start to live was about a week.

 

I wonder if it's cause of the holidays?? Bummer, though. They shouldn't say one day and

then take a week.

 

Keep us posted ... I'm curious!

[natasha_canales]

it took over 4 months for bludomain to make my website "live". the matter was

complicated since i have to communicate with the sales person only not the "tech" person,

the same with a logo designer.

They were very responsive untill they received a deposit check, then delays in replyig

started. it was really irritating to be told that certain things will be done by such and such

datee, then days after dedline passed by and i had to email and call just to get an update

on a status. that was so unprofessional!

Besides i HATED that my contact person was sending emails with empty subject lines.

make sure when you reply back to make a note what is the email about.

 

BTW visited there booth in Vegas and spoke to a girl who is in charge of technical stuff,

she is really sweet person, she listened to what i wanted to add (really didn't want to

bother with contacting my "contact"), promised to look in the problems and voila next day

she emailed me results.

 

so try to get to the person who makes things happened.

[medina photography cherry]

It was actually the opposite for me, they were very responsive and even had my site live for 6 months before the billed me the final amount (2 years ago) now I have a seperate issue with them, my site has a virus and they keep trying to tell me it is my computer- how when the website is hosted on their server? I have not been able to get them to fix this as of yet-a couple of months, and now I see through my advertising sites that people are refered to my site but when I check the hit counter it is alot lower if not zero which tells me people are not wanting to view the site because of the virus alert or not willing to wait for the S L O W server (which is a seperate issue) I am looking for another host for my site!

[schnellimages]

I just had a site built by them about a month ago. They were very responsive and quick with their setup. They actually did not cash my check until much later. I have noticed that their email response to technical questions is not always that quick, but nothing major.

I get the impression (though I could be mistaken here) that they have a pretty small staff, and things are beginning to explode for them lately - and they are having a hard time keeping up. Blown deadlines for their interface releases are pretty common it seems.

However, that is no excuse for the kind of delays that some have experienced. My work with them has been very smooth and pleasant - so far.

I am a little put off in fact by how prevalent their sites have become lately, I was hoping my site might stand out more - at least here on the East Coast.

Good Luck.

[ni_gentry]

Yikes!

<p>

I was really considering signing up for a bludomain site... but now I have to reconsider.

Looks like they've got some customer service issues. Whatever the reason, that's not good.

[photochick]

They were wonderful for me to deal with, aside from getting the incorrect receipt. I would think it's just the Christmas aspect that is causing the issue and possibly the small office thing. I remember I once e-mailed at 8 am and at 1pm and ad 8:30pm the same day and the same girl responded right away every time. Which means they pull long hours.... Andrea was my resp and was awesome. I'm really sorry you are having troubles.

[b_bob]

Interesting. I just ordered a site as well and have been experiencing some very poor (actually non-existent) service since they confirmed my order. <p>

I placed the order thru their site, faxed them back the form, then emailed the reply to their confirmation, got an email saying they charged my credit card, then an email from Aundrea saying she'd have my site ready by "tomorrow" (they must like that word). That all happened within about 24 hours and ended last Wednesday. I've had zero contact from them since and am getting more than a little annoyed.

<p>I can understand if they are busy and if it takes time to set up the account, but they promised a certain day, did not deliver on that day, and then have not responded to any of my inquiries since. I can't imagine ever treating one of my clients like that.

<p>

What's worse is right before I got the "tomorrow" email, she sent me a message that was something along the lines of "they never miss a deadline and always meet their delivery dates"... Yeah, right.

[carter_wayne]

Had a very good experience, Aundrea was quite responsive..even on weekends. Took 3-4 weeks from signing contract to being up and live, but some of the delay was on our end. All in all very happy, getting good client response. It is really nice to be able to upload client proofs so fast and easy. The one downside is that I have seen a few sites with the same design as ours, but the content is what really sets the site apart not the design.

 

Carter

[jose_martinez9]

I just ordered my second BluDomain site (that already tells you I'm a happy customer). While I had some problems with offered response times during the built up of my first site, at the end I thought this was not a big issue.

I faxed my contract yesterday very early in the morning and since I have not received their usual "tomorrow" response, I just checked their blog to find out they couldn't get back home to Colorado cause air flights were cancelled due to snow. (I agree it looks kind of irresponsible to everybody leave the office at the same time). They are trying to work from their hotel in California but are having problems reading e-mails due to a slow connection.

At least they mention all this in their blog. When they had minor problems with some servers some weeks ago they also did that. I appreciate this. They don't hide their problems as other companies I have dealt with.

I just hope I can get my link to start working on my new site before Christmas.

[harald_hasselbach]

Hello... sorry I wanted to offer a solution to anyone who is having any difficulty contacting BluDomain as creative director for that company. Your comments, both good and bad are certainly appreciated and I am more than happy to try and help in any way I can. We are indeed a very small staff handling a lot of clients but that is no excuse. We really do pride ourselves in providing a very quick and easy web solution to all our clients. Please know that there is a good likelihood that we are not receiving e-mials from you if you are not contacted in a timely manner (something which has been plaguing us of late). If anyone would like to contact us you can e-mail support@bludomain.com and we will try to offer as fast a response as possible. Unfortunately we are currently snowed in and stuck in California where we recently traveled to get our christmas pictures taken. What was intended to be a one day trip looks like it may be extended for several days. Please bear with us - we really are doing our best to work in a full capacity from our hotel. Please know that we respect your right to speak freely and we certainly respect your privacy - feedback is always appreciated and we will do our very best to meet all demands. Needless to say we will honor any deals or specials that we have had recently until such a time that we are able to, once again, operate in a full capacity. Please accept our humble appologies to anyone who has been put out by this. Thanks,

 

Harald

[julee_wyld]

My story is so familar to the ones above. I submmitted a request to go live over a week ago

and have had no response from them. It's frustrating to have no phone contact information.

I'm trying to be patient and understanding, but I'm starting to getting annoyed. I wouldn't

treat my clients like this! Hopefully I will get a response soon. Good luck to everyone else in

the same situation.

[steve_cara]

I came across the blog stream regarding Bludomain today and it answers several questions that I had as well as poses some new ones. It's nice to see that Harald is monitoring the blogs to see what is going on in the community regarding his company. Prior to engaging them, I heard nothing but great things...seemed like a great idea and a progressive company in the market. Since purchasing a site January 1st, haven't heard a damn thing from them. We've sent several e-mails, etc and, maddeningly (although shrewd on their part) there is no phone number available for them.

 

Technical problems aside. Customer service is what they need to focus on right now. A two minute phone call explaining what is going on would have sufficed. Unfortunately this is not happening and we are all left wondering if we have simply tossed the money into the wind.

 

In the preceding three weeks, my competitors have eroded my market position while I'm spending time researching WTF is going on with bludomain. At the end of the day, a phone call would have solved everything.

 

I'm giving them 24 hours for a response and then pulling my money out.

[lisa_theis]

I'm in the same boat... I purchased a new Bludomain site on December 27th, heard that it would be set up the following day, never was, heard it would be set up by a Sunday early January, never was, and I've been chasing them every other day since with absolutely no support. I'm a current customer (not that it should mean anything... or should it?) and purchased an $800 site last April and am hosting with them. I had a couple of hiccups going live last time, but I still had a very good impression.

 

Now I'm fed up! I've contacted them via their main email, used the support modules, contacted a particular person directly, and still haven't heard a thing. It's been 4 weeks -- this is the worst customer service I've ever received! I'm beginning to take it personally, as their blog mentions that "Life is getting back to normal at BLU!", yet I'm still hanging here waiting for my template so I can get working. Why would they EVER price their templates so low, as now everyone can afford it and wants one, and yet the Blu team can't support the demand. I would have easily purchased another site at $400 or more if it meant better customer service!!!

 

Whew, and it's nice to have a forum here to vent. They took their comments field off their blog because of all of the negative comments. Where else are we supposed to go to be heard?

[kira_stackhouse]

Yes I am in the same boat as everyone else. I purchased the site on Jan 12th and I didn't

get a confirmation from them or hear a word for at least 3 days. IT says all over their

website to expect a response within 36 hours... anyway, when I signed up, I wrote a note

saying do NOT set it up until I talk to someone because I'm currently hosting with godaddy

but I wanted more info about hosting with blu --- so what do they do? They set up my

site on the blu server and now they want to charge me $60 to move it over to godaddy. I

get spotchy responses -- probably 1 email a night or every other night, none of which

answer any of my questions nor progress the setup of my site. I've wanted a bludomain

site now for the past year. and I finally saved up enough money to get it -- now I dont

know if it wasn't a huge mistake. I feel like every time I write a support ticket it just gets

thrown into a big queue and all of these different people are reading the same email box

so I've been communicating with more than 1 person.

 

And also FYI, if you're interested in doing gallery hosting with them, the "shopping cart"

feature only offers 1 shipping/handling rate -- which is very inconvenient.... so if

someone orders a 4x6 and another person orders an 11x14, they'd be paying the same

shipping cost. BULLCRAPPERS! I know alot of other photographers use www.pickpic.com

for proofing which seems pretty good -- but BLUDOMAIN DOES NOT SUPPORT THIS. And

Bludomain does not offer SSL certificates which you need if you are going to do your own

cc processing, which is one of the reasons why I decided not to host with them, and stay

with godaddy (who I've had for the past 5 years and never had a problem with ever).

[kira_stackhouse]

JUST ONE MORE THING.... before I signed up for Bludomain, I have been using Photobiz.

You can look at their sites at <a href="www.photobiz.com">www.photobiz.com</a>.

Their main website is not as "hipster" or impressive as Bludomain's site, however they offer

exceptional customer service -- in fact, leaving Photobiz makes me feel like i'm betraying

my own grandmother, that's how great they are. The reason I decided t move to

bludomain is because the look is a little cleaner for my liking and I like the style of the

gallery and the splash page. Photobiz does offer a splash page and also has a really

fabulous shopping cart/client area that has much much more to offer than photobiz's

current shopping cart feature. Joanne at photobiz is wonderful -- and I received

responses to my questions within minutes of my asking -- i can't say enough how

wonderufl the people at photobiz are. too bad their sites just aren't as pretty as

bludomain.

[kira_stackhouse]

just an update -- i have finally had my site transferred to my web host... it's taken way too

long but in the end it's there so now I can finally start working on it. The key? support

tickets. i found that out of the various people emailing me, wade to be the most helpful and

prompt in response. good luck! (i'm in a better mood now)

[charlotte_webber]

I really wish I would have seen this thread before I signed up with bludomain. I ordered a template online a few nights ago and haven't heard one word ( although my credit card was charged right away ) ...I've sent an email and a support ticket and no one has responded. I'm not even sure what is supposed to happen after you purchase the template, all it says on their website is that they can have your website built in 24 hours.....foolishly I assumed this meant 24 hours after your purchase. How can a company NOT have a phone number??? What I am wondering is when people have finally gotten a response from someone within the company did the line of communication stay open? This is soooo frustrating!

[t_gray1]

Wow, am I glad I checked in here. Was just about to take the dive. The support issues would have made me homicidal. Heh. Thanks for the info, everyone.

[paul_kim8]

I wish I had checked online earlier. It's been 6 weeks since I sent BluDomain $400 via Paypal. Getting a response from them has been unreasonably difficult. I plan on filing a grievance with Paypal and/or my bank to get my money back. IMHO, with wedding season coming up, everyday my site isn't up costs me potentially thousands of dollars in potential clients.

[costaricaweddingphotograph]

I've been a bludomain customer for close to two years. Their templates are extremely easy to use. We own a site (Lucy) and it's beautiful. We love it. We could never get a few things like the contact form to work, but since it was so affordable we decided just to skip it and dealt with our contact section ourselves (we could never get the issue resolved). However, we tried to purchase a new site on August 1 this year (a new template) (note that it's now November 14) and we still haven not received the site. They basically took our money and never gave us the site - and have ignored our emails (we've created seven support tickets over the last three and a half months). Be cautious about giving them your money because they don't have enough staff for customer service and any support inquiries you send will go 100% unanswered. I sent an email to everyone in the company I could find online today so I hope someone will get back to us so I can at least get our money back.

[imagineitkc]

<p>I LOVE BLUDOMAIN. Simply love them. I own 5 bludomain wesites and we got all of them ASAP except the first but that only took up to 2 weeks. We were hosting with some other company not bludomain and the other company was being a pain and wouldn't get us the info we needed for the transfer. We emailed bludomain and we starting to get nerves because a few days turned into a few more. However being first and artist and having an art degree I worked really closely with brilliant graphic designers; very brainy and usually not very social when conflict arises. <br>

I simply told them how amazing their work was, how much I couldn't wait to get my work in one of their sites and asked if someone could get back to me with why this is taking so long. I apologized for being a bother and then I recognized the amount of work they must have going through their hands. I sent them a link inviting them to check out my work. <br>

I have no idea if they looked at my work, but I had someone contact me with in a few min of sending the info. I also told them the hours that I would be working and that I could take their call until 11:00pm. I know how minds work and sometime genus happens really late. This is a small company, with a handful of designers, I am sure that they work when they need to. I just let them know that they can contact me anytime, and I meant it.<br>

I love the staff and I can't wait to meet them at a trade show sometime. I own George, Chloe, (2) Antonio, Charlie, and Janky; I bought yesterday and received it today. I am a huge advocator for Bludomain. </p>