Purpose of Suggestions category

English Forum Community 🗳️ Suggestions box
1

Respectfully, I would like to remind everyone of the pinned statement which explains the purpose and goal of the “Suggestions” category…

After all, HomeExchange is all about you! It’s your opinions and experiences that count!

The HomeExchange forum and platform may not be perfect (yet) :see_no_evil:, but we’re working hard to make sure they meet your needs. So, please feel free to :

** Let us know your ideas for new features, or anything we should optimize*
** Vote for the ones you like*

… this section is all about what you want from the forum and the platform!

In particular, I would like to emphasize the following statement:

Let us know your ideas for new features, or anything we should optimize

Some people, in response to a suggestion for an improvement to an existing function of the platform, are responding with a statement similar to the following:

this is the way the algorithm works

While this may be true, the point of the Suggestion Box category is to offer suggestions for changing the platform, including the algorithm, to make it work better. Sometimes, a suggestion is made because it turns out the member is not using the existing platform correctly or is unaware of how to use a particular function. By all means, it is helpful to help the member by explaining how to use the platform fully and correctly. However, a reply that “this is how it works, nothing can be done” is not helpful.

Anything can be done, given enough time and effort and expense. The question is to identify and prioritize the enhancements that should be done given the existing interest and the existing development and support team team resources. This is one of the basic principles of good Information Technology development and maintenance best practices, such as ITIL ( Information Technology Infrastructure Library).

2

For your info, the staff is already working on making it better, regarding beds for example. The result will be known in a few months

3

We know that there is a a support and development staff working on making it better. The purpose of this “Suggestions” forum category is to provide a way for regular members to convey their preferences, suggestions, and priorities to the staff team. Members are the “customers” of the product which the Home Exchange platform provides and therefore it is important for the long term health and viability of the platform to provide functionality which the members request and which they value. A good way to do this is to provide opportunities for the members to offer suggestions, and also for the HE team to provide periodic updates to the members about what changes/enhancements are being worked-on, and when they will be implemented on the platform.

HE has only relatively recently established the facebook page and the forum, and both are efforts to establish a conversation between members and staff about new enhancements. However, it is just a beginning. Most established IT shops in the government and business world have a more structured and formalized way of ensuring that the development staff stays in touch with the needs of the "customers’ (i.e. HE members). Techniques include a support desk in which users can submit problem reports or enhancement requests, newsletters in which members are advised about which new (or corrected) functions are being worked-on by the staff, focused working groups including members to review and prioritize change requests, business analysts whose job it is to communicate with members for the purpose of gathering and maintaining a list of change requests and participating with the development team in working sessions to define the priorities and schedules of implementing changes, and conveying plans for new releases to the members.

You mention that “the staff is working on making it better”. This is good news, but if the members knew something about what functions are being added or changed, a summary of the changes, and a schedule for implementation; it would help greatly. It would also help to avoid members making suggestions for things that are already being worked-on. Perhaps it could be a permanent “pinned” comment at the top of the category… a “Release Schedule” of future changes for the upcoming year, as well as a very high-level description of each change.

It would also help if the Team organized occasional live meetings with members, perhaps semi-annually, to review the current changes being worked-on, and to invite suggestions. I remember that this was done once years ago, but it seemed like a “one-off” that hasn’t been repeated. I believe that it should be a regular annual or semi-annual event.

4

I understand what you mean, some aspects could be more communicated, but a big part of what you talk about is already happening, just you probably don’t know about it.

I quote you :
“HE has only relatively recently established the facebook page and the forum”.

For the forum yes, that’s true, but not at all for the facebook groups. They are there for years, about 15 years if I remember correctly. I started moderating some of them 10 years ago, and some were already there before. They are for years a real source of feedback for the staff for a very long time.

“Techniques include a support desk in which users can submit problem reports or enhancements requests”.

Yes of course there is, the staff receives feedback in requests sent daily to the suport through the contact page, and through the livetchat we receive daily too and forward when necessary all members would like to see.

“Newsletters in which members are advised about which new (or corrected) functions are being worked-on”

That exists too, regularly in the sundays newsletters, the staff explain new features arriving. Some are explained on the blog, now here, on facebook groups, in emails etc (example : HomeExchange’s vision for 2023 ), but it’s not regular enough I’m ok with you.

“It would also help if the Team organized occasional live meeting with members, perhaps semi-annually, to review the current changes being worked on, and to invite suggestions.”

It’s done, but it’s generally in Paris. See Zann post a month ago about that : HomeExchange: A Platform Co-Created with Its Members – Recap of a Meet-up in Paris Focused on Messaging Improvements

I made some events like that, either online or in Paris, and it’s more for French members like me, cause the team is mainly French so it’s easier in the same language for the feedback etc. Same for Zooms webinars, we made one 3 weeks ago about the new features that will arrive in 2025 regarding answering rate, auto denial etc, and we provided feedback to the Product team as we were 50 French ambassadors in this meeting. So it exists, it’s regular, just you are not always aware of it.

I hope my answer learned you things about how the team gets feedback, it’s only this forum hopefully :slight_smile:

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