Forum

Online Users

and 140 other people

Popular Threads

Buying qualifications
246 Posts, 19 Members

Most active users

Recent blog posts

All Topics » Feedback » Budget:Not Specified

Budget:Not Specified

 
by Chris P
+ Show
17 Feb 2012 at 7:36 AM
Posts
Chris P
 
PPH, canging the wording in the slider for the budget from "Not Specified" to "I'm Flexible" is quite frankly not going to cut it. 

Get rid of the slider, clients just are not using it, and bring back  the to - from budget range boxes, which clients were actually using.

Stuart, Louise and 3 other people like this.

21 Feb 2012 at 7:17 AM

Stuart P
 
I've just had a look at the form. Although I didn't see the old version of the form, I can see the problem. The budget slider is set by default to "I'm flexible".

Might it be a good idea to set the default position to the middle of the slider - somewhere around £350 - and ask clients to go lower or higher as their budget allows?

There are so many "Budget: Not specified" jobs appearing now I'm seriously considering finding an alternative to PPH.

Stuart

Christian likes this.

21 Feb 2012 at 12:00 PM

Louise W
 
Nowhere on the client form does it say it is a slider. There is a blue line with tube station type dots either end. Do clients know you can move the dots up and down, because it certainly doesnt say anywhere use this slider to specific your budget.

Personally I would like to see:

More hints in the job description box. PPH could write -  remember to include your aim, your time scale, your requirements....

Then give them some statistics like we have for our invoicing. Please select a budget below. Remember 80% of jobs with specific budgets get more than 20 bids, or are more successfully awarded, or attract freelancers with a score of 4.7 and above...  I dont know I am making it up now but you get the drift.

The aim seems to have been to get the client able to fill out and post a job in minutes. But I dont think this is really helping long term and they will get so many soft bids and questions on the clarification board that it will take them longer in the long term.




21 Feb 2012 at 1:05 PM

Eva C
 
yes, PPH, please make it complusory for the clients to key in the budget. It's important for both clients and freelancers, it helps to close the deal faster with the price lag known to both sides.

Here is my two cents - ask the clients to choose if it's hourly/ fixed rate job. Then, a pull down menu for budget range - From NUMBER (by default it's 40and the client can't change the value below 40. Or an explaination box will appear to explain why the client can't change the value below 40.) then to NUMBER. Please make it complusory for the clients to specify the budget range. even though they don't know the going rate for the job, surely they have the budget in the mind.

I've used guru.com for sometime and ultimately i deleted my account there because most of the jobs are with the budget below $250 and I got really tired if that means $5!!!!!!!!!! 




22 Feb 2012 at 12:43 AM

Maggie W
 
It occurs to me that maybe PPH removed the budget range because they got fed up with people complaining about low budgets ... but this has done absolutely nothing to solve the problem, all it's done is made it worse! When people complained about low budgets, the best answer (IMHO) was 'if the budget is unacceptable to you, don't bid on the job". That's not an option any more ...

22 Feb 2012 at 8:18 AM

Eva C
 
maybe someone from PPH can explain about the change??? 




22 Feb 2012 at 10:01 AM

Maggie W
 
OK, having lived with the minimalistic look for a week, for me it's totally changed the PPH experience. Before, I would look at the list of jobs maybe twice a day and spend half an hour or so clicking on ones with a reasonable budget that looked interesting, and deciding whether or not to bid. Now I look, and there are so many all very similar with no budget guideline, none of them stand out and I'm finding that I'm not tempted to click on any at all, so all done and dusted in less than a minute! Have bid on exactly one job all week I think. 
This is going to save me a lot of time happy

Stuart, Chris like this.

24 Feb 2012 at 9:10 AM

Chris P
 
@Maggie, I agree with you, shame really because I’m sure there are still some great jobs out there, if only we had the tools at our disposal to sort the wheat from the chaff. @Eva, hopefully some one from PPH will comment soon, they have been asked enough.

25 Feb 2012 at 10:48 AM

Dea-Marie W
 
Hi guys, 

I have read over your concerns & spoken to the product team...firstly I really wanted to respond with something a little more concrete than I'll look into this etc, so I have taken some time asking questions & playing devils advocate. 

These are the questions I have asked...

Why did we change the job posting form? 

High uncompletion rate - after examing data we spoke to clients who had started a job posting form & never reach the stage of posting. The general feeling was that clients felt the form was too long, asked too many questions & difficult to understand. 

Why remove the requirement to specify a budget? 

1. Both Fl's & Cl's voiced their concerns with regards to budgets not being realistic, the feedback that we had from clients was that they were geniuely unsure how much Y should be priced at.

2. With the previous approach, F's would voice their opinion about the budget on the Clarification board - I think we all know that this was also a way of Fl's venting their frustrations.

Won't there now be an increase in the amount of bids on a job - in turn frustrating Cl's?

Yes, but this needs montioring to find out why...is it because we make it more easy for Cl's to open up a line of communication with Fl's - some cl's didn't realise they had the option to leave it open before, intstead they specfied any amount just to get the ball rolling. We've done some calling 

Okay, so I want to know what else should I be asking...have I asked the right questions, has my answered spurred you to ask other questions? 







27 Feb 2012 at 2:04 PM