@AMT (long open letter here that I think reasonably sums up the overall community perspective of AMT as a company at the moment) I have posted known criticisms (sans the excessive crap) and potential solutions so hopefully the feedback is at least helpful (I have run 4 successful businesses of my own into prosperity and sold them off so I do have some qualified experience in business advice here)
3 points I want to make here for all of our mutual benefit:
1. Competition
2. Marketing and communications
3. Delivery and Execution
4. Potential solutions (not just gonna bitch here but constructively contribute)
1. Competition
Notably YOURS (and BFL and other American miner companies) competition
https://www.bitmaintech.com/about.htm (yours and all other US companies competition right now)
I read this and realized that THIS IS A MISSION STATEMENT for them and something they deliver on and have. Myself and others have bought from them and successfully received our orders when promised. My orders arrived in a timely manner. No issues no drama. Its accurate in its context. If AMT can ramp up the degree of transparency and honesty and keeping to their word (there are AMT 1.2 miners that should be in the hands of people on the publicized order list that are not in their hands) As one of the two (three?) known US based companies (all with horrendous and questionable communications and PR/marketing practices) you are being trounced by your Chinese competitors in the consumer mining space. Bitmain is selling miners and have been consistently delivering. My own personal experiences have been excellent with them (I have bought a few devices with them already) BFL another competitor is even worse on delivery and again a US business. This is a sad state of affairs for the mining industry as a whole as the two most well known American bitcoin mining companies have this terrible reputation of poor delivery and potentially (even if not true) scamming their customers. If this keeps up then the Chinese will have US competitors out of business within 2 years or less unless the game is stepped up. This is based on numerous businesses in various industries, and in that the numbers and math do not lie.
2. Marketing and communications
If there is a delay then please be honest, upfront and proactive about the why this should not be a reactive thing it needs to be proactive. The trolls and haters are gonna hate no matter what you say. Don't feed the trolls respond to the customers who want answers only. They are the ones you owe answers to no one else. (ANYONE WHO READS HIT IGNORE ON THE LEFT SIDE UNDER THE TROLLS NAME FOR YOUR SANITY). BUT the actual customers who are more reasonable WILL appreciate it and eventually overrule the trolls. Right now the trolls consist of only a few people most of which are not even customers and a couple who are, but are unreasonable to deal with anyway. However with every passing day that promised orders are not delivered against the promised schedule you posted, AMT is making more unsatisfied and rightfully angry customers. Some kind of full and HONEST disclosure email (OR forum post but email directly to customers is better from a customer retention standpoint) announcement to customers a mass email would be good. If you are sending out emails on a one by one basis that is not specific to the individuals order it is grossly inefficient. I signed up for the email mailing list on the site and have not gotten anything from the mailing list (used various emails even). Fact is no communications is a concern for anyone especially those who have invested substantial amounts of money regardless. Bottom line the problem is this. Website needs regular SUBSTANTIAL updates (not this forum). Post up your pics, post up videos staff updates engineering updates and shipping updates should be on the website not on this forum. It is poor form (I come from a marketing background prior to my IT one, so I understand these concepts very well). Communication with your customers is key. Honesty is key here. Misleading (even if unintentional) is not ok at all. Bigger companies may get away with it...to a point. Smaller ones can't afford it. I have learned working with and for start-ups that its a financially lethal practice to a business to operate with poor communications with their client/customer base. The question is why aren't the updates that are on this official forum post not part of the blog? If your website is updated by a 3rd party fire them and find someone who is more diligent in getting the communications out in a timely manner. If you are the ones doing it then this needs to be a huge priority as your business depends on it. Word of mouth advertising (viral) can make or break a business.
3. Delivery and Execution
The preorder practice ONLY works if you meet your promised deadlines YOU SET on this forum AND your own website (which were recently changed). I am not just speaking for myself alone but there is a published schedule with your own words stating this. From a legal standpoint you have painted yourself into a corner where your less patient customers can come at you with that. And some already have a standing in that area along with the fact that many have not gotten an update on their order. And its been re-posted various times and quoted as well.
From a business standpoint let me be clear. Your competitors in china are already destroying both you and BFL as they are meeting their targeted shipping dates CONSISTENTLY. I understand you are moving forward and are trying to get things out there. But update the customers and at least provide some reply even if its by mass email. TO help you out here you could send out a mass email to customers not JUST this convoluted forum post where the message gets drowned out with the antisemetic, alex jones type conspiracies and whatever other insanity spewed by trolls (conspiracy nuts and unreasonable folk which I have on ignore now for my own sanity). But your paying customers AND future customers could use some updates and reassurance (not to mention their hardware). There are rightfully angry people here who have not received their devices on dates YOU promised.
As a result of these missed delivery targets for customers, there are people threatening lawsuits. They might have merit, they might not. I am not a lawyer so I will not speak to that conclusively. I have been an avid supporter of AMT because of the technical efficiency of the product (on paper) but in practice I have to look at competitors who deliver. There are also red flags being raised with lack of delivery on various fronts. There was supposed to be a video produced that was never released, orders that were supposed to be delivered/shipped that have not. And those people are asking for updates with no reply. This is a huge problem for us all. I believe you are a legitimate business and do have intention of releasing product. But I am making a note that you have a serious problem on your hands in front of you. Your PR needs some work and you need to under promise and over-deliver not over-promise and under-deliver. Your sales and marketing people need to understand this concept utterly. If you are shorthanded then maybe some kind of efficiency modeling is in order to streamline things. If you have a 3rd party working for you to build these devices that's great, but we still want to know the engineering and detailed shipping status.
All we are doing as a community is holding you to account for your own words (well most of us who are not trolling or insulting you). If you cannot deliver when you say you are then we have every right to be upset, not Alex Jones anti-semetic nutter crazy and lobbing high school grade insults, but angry in that you push back dates. These things can prompt the more reasonable to start looking for legal alternatives to a reponse or refund. We understand its a preorder. I get that and I know many here get that. But you have posted up a By March 31st delivery date It is an admission of delivery for a preorder regardless of the nature of preorder (AND a VERY specific schedule on this very Official thread started by you guys). These are company endorsed and guaranteed dates. Its on the internet. Even if you changed the webpage or post stating the schedule there are plenty of tools out there to prove it was there should someone decide to go the legal route here. (wayback machine and other 3rd party internet archive/caching tools). This is not a legal threat, its an observation and a fact. Something to keep in mind since there are people threatening legal action here (I am just interested in getting my miner and helping others get theirs on the promised dates which I believe you will do)
4.Potential Solution/s to the above problems
A. Keep your word
B. Communicate, communicate, communicate (email, this forum, newsletters (especially helpful)
C. For your benefit below is a solution (with example) I know works in both theory AND practice and might help you save face.
First off I take this out of the Square Enix playbook as they did this recently with phenomenal effect (and from a business practice applies directly to you and other companies with similar problems). While this was a video game the concept from a business standpoint applies equally as well here. Square Enix made a game called FFXIV. It's first iteration was so horrible and so widely panned that it almost put the franchise out of business (a case of poor quality work) it was enough for them to fire most of the creative staff and replace them (not saying you need to do this but clearly improvements need to be made in staffing or at least upping the numbers ASAP)
Being a Japanese company their interest was huge in saving face as that is a key point for them. They did. They took the game and remade it into FFXIV: A world reborn. The reviews were great. *THIS IS THE RELEVANT PART TO AMT* They turned things around....BUT they ran into some problems. Server issues due to demand were so high that they had to STOP SALES OF THE GAME FOR ALMOST A MONTH just to make sure they caught up with the problems (in your case order backlog in their case server issues). As a result the issues were stabilized they compensated existing customers in various ways and came out heroes. They took a small loss on this BUT once they had it all fixed and all they made up those sales in spades. Sales exploded after that and it is one of the top MMORPGs online right now. Like I said it might be a video game BUT its still a business. They made a call that lost them some money in the short term but gained them much more in the long term all because A: they were transparent with their customers from the outset, they apologized and gave HONEST updates from the outset B. proper expectations were set (meaning they said they were going to deliver X date and did BUT also mentioned there might be issues from the outset) C. regular engineering updates and took feedback into consideration which made a far better product D. compensated customers for delays, issues (which you state you do so stick to that and and follow the rest and you should have a winning formula of success)
How this applies, I recommend simply put a halt on any orders until existing ones are fulfilled. At this point clear out the stock you have and as you get more parts in start to slowly begin the order process. OR put a capped limit on orders you can reasonably meet. This has two effects. People will jump in line until the limit is met with the net result of creating a huge demand instead of huge criticisms. And start to build an on hand stockpile vs relying on pre-orders as this method is simply not going to work any more as it has a huge black eye (don't be another BFL), it might be time to bring in actual investors to fund the business and build capital.
As an added bonus not to mention reassurances for paid customers it might not be a bad idea to give the miners who have paid for their hardware an option to send their miners out preconfigured and going the extra mile even during the testing phase use said miners with those settings to insure that their miners are being tested (and thereby reaping some profits already). This is certainly a value added proposition for them (and AMT as a company score HUGE points in the customer service area they currently lack in) whether or not its feasible that's something you will need to determine based on staffing needs. But if you have set apart a miner for a customer it would not hurt to have it get set up during the QA phase so it starts mining before it even ships. Otherwise people will think (and rightfully so with the excessive delays) that you are using miners we bought and paid for your own profits as well (an accusation that has been leveled on BFL and are currently in court over). Giving people SOMETHING, an option that shows evidence that their miner is being prepared will go a very long way to reducing the PR and marketing issues you are dealing with. Hopefully you take these suggestions with some seriousness and listen to your customers. There are those of us still in your corner and want you to succeed. I am still one of those. But that is also contingent on your efforts to reach out to us as well and make sure we are getting more than just token photos. A real effort that involves responding to the customers, not the trolls. Emails to the customers via mass email or newsletter or blogs would be best. The last blog update was on Feb 18th. Considering the amount of information posted on this site since then it might be better to put info and energy into the site instead.
Again all this is in trying to help you be a better company for everyone's benefit and make AMT a profitable hardware company. In the end the customer service will reap huge rewards financially. I would hope you read this carefully and take in the information and maybe even apply it or come up with a better solution that will address all the concerns. Currently on bitcointalk and ecointalk you are seen as a possible scam, there are public posts on facebook that smear you as frauds. Your reputation is all you have now. And that is the perception based on a non-delivered product. That is also due to the lack of communication. It seems clear you have a product. But one thing I have learned about business and marketing. Bad news travels faster than good news.. If you have a product start shipping it and start making a public show of it. Highlight users who have it make videos get the community involved in showing off your miners. its the ONLY way at this point you are going to get any credibility back. As I would expect from them the trolls will find something wrong with what I have said or try to diminish it based on my post count or some other factor. I really don't care about them not should you. They do not deserve replies (which you have given them) but your customers do deserve replies. And regular and timely ones too.
Final thing. For status updates it wouldn't hurt to post a blog entry on your site when orders are shipping out. THIS WEEK ORDERS
to is shipping!! And you know...actually ship. You did this with the blog for the chips that were shipping out. Why not for the consumer hardware? This is not a hard thing since you know what is shipping. It helps with the transparency and it helps the people who are requesting answers. Thanks and again I hope this helps and you look to improve the communications.
Sure he visited there... Took a pic, and then walked-out to use that as "proof of a miner". lol.
