If you search ‘botObjects’ on Twitter or Google, from the information available you will see it’s a 3D Printing start-up company. They seem to have a very unique way of communicating with the market, the media and their own customers — they have done from the beginning.
This post is to highlight that doing research on a company, product or service using social media and/or the Internet will not always provide all the feedback that’s been posted in the past. For whatever reason this is, as always, “buyer beware.”
It’s relatively straightforward to convince the average tech writer you have a ‘product’, real consumers and users will push any technology products much harder and report back both the good and bad, that’s the deal with consumer facing companies and the use of social media for sales and marketing.
Communication is also really, really important.
botObjects has been developing a 3D printer that can print in many different layers of coloured plastic. Whilst this is not a wholly unique feature and producing a working prototype is not particularly challenging; delivering a mass-manufactured, reliable, multi-colour 3D printer is something many people would like to see happen — me included — and therein is the real challenge. It’s the long-term reliability and usability of any product — not to mention the reliability and trustworthiness of the company behind it — that makes it succeed or fail, especially for a start-up business.
Over the past 18 months or so, there has been a great deal of justifiable interest in what botObjects is doing — people have attempted to ask questions and given open advice to the company and their printer development team. Despite delays on the original timetable, most customers have been patiently waiting for the Prodesk3D to get to mass production and see if it delivers all the botObjects team have promised since it was first announced.
There are many individuals and organizations that have pre-ordered the botObjects 3D printer since they opened the order book on May 22nd 2013 and stating a shipment date of 1st October 2013 in various press releases. During this time the prototype machine and the co-founders of the machine have been featured across various media, including Fox News. And, after a sustained following campaign, they now have almost 20,000 followers on Twitter.
Then, in April of this year, almost 6 months later than scheduled, botObjects announced that worldwide shipping was taking place and provided contact details for orders. Late shipping in not a new phenomenon for mass manufacturing, particularly in the 3D printing world. As stated, many people tend to exhibit understanding and patience in these circumstances, but honest and open communication from the company is central to maintaining this. I’ve monitored the activities of botObjects fairly closely and this is not what seems to be happening.
For instance, before 7-7-2014 you could find plenty of regular botObjects activity on Twitter. Unfortunately, more recently people have been asking for a refund, trying to get in contact and desperate for information about their orders of the Prodesk3D they have already paid for — some claim over a year ago.
By late June, some customers who had been waiting for refunds started getting more upset and turned to Twitter for action.
By the time customers feel they have no other choice than to use social media for their voice to be heard, it’s often a difficult path for all involved. Once things are resolved, or refunds are completed, generally that customer wants to let go and forget it. But usually the messages remain in the open, where any other interested parties can see them.
By Monday 7 July 2014 something had happened to the many tweets and comments that would previously be found by a simple search on Twitter. Either they were deleted, removed or some sort of block had been put in place so they would not be discovered via Twitter Search.
7-7-14 – Searching for “botObjects order” does not show any past-recent results from other people except from the botObjects account. That was not the case a week previously.
As this was being typed up another user posted on twitter, so it seems this may just be a cycle repeating again.
It’s unclear if this post below is regarding a direct order placed by the college or regarding a press release botObjects sent out in August 2013.
“botObjects and its CEO/Co-founder plan to ‘gift and discount’ their 3D
printer as part of a groundbreaking package for high schools. “
Tech Crunch reported on the Free printers to US and UK High schools promotion here
One week later, the post above could not be found by using Twitter Search, you can now only see it by going directly to the users account.
I contacted John Salik to ask if he had removed the tweets — he had not and he also confirmed that Vanier College had paid in full for their Prodesk 3D printer from botObjects.
Upon contacting a few other customers, they were also unaware that their past tweets were not now showing up using Twitter search, they had also not removed or deleted the tweets themselves.
This may indicate that posts are being marked as spam or they are being reported to Twitter support and so Twitter is not choosing to show them? If anyone else has any ideas as to the reason, do comment.
Another customer offered to remove his comments upon finally getting a refund, and reports the following feedback:
As of 16-7-2014 another batch of botObjects tweets can now be seen (see below), how long will they stay visible is anyone’s guess.
Back in January 2014, a dedicated twitter account @botobjectstruth was setup and used to try and make contact with botObjects for a pre-order refund of the ProDesk3D printer, that ended in the refund finally being given and legal action by botObjects to shut down the accompanying website. And now another Twitter account has appeared (@botObjectsScam) attempting something similar, but pointing to deep dissatisfaction and distrust of the company.
Final Thoughts….
Early adopters should always be nurtured as they will be your product champions, they will help build and form a ‘brand’ and elevate great products if they believe in the company.
When any company uses social media, it’s a two-way process; it can show the best and worst aspects of products, services and personal attitudes. It’s now commonplace for consumers to use the real online advice and experience of others to make informed buying decisions and judgments about companies, products and services. And while all genuine feedback should ideally be available, it seems this is not always the case and not all online reviews and feedback are correct.
If frustrated customers are ignored, silenced or messages disappear; does that make the situation better or worse? It often just shines a big spotlight on things for others to see. Lessons from the past indicate that it’s usually not a good idea to try and manipulate social media.
For paying customers, communication and good service is still king, and while it’s a lot of hard work getting a product made and a start-up going, customers deserve all information available to be able to form their own views.
Information persists.
But remember, quite often things are not lost or deleted on the Internet — Google cache and various mirrors do keep records of social media activity, for example Topsy found most of the above tweets and facebook posts.
This link may or may not still work, Archive of Twitter (it does at time of publication). And here is a screenshot of what is found with a simple search using just ‘botObjects’ on topsy.com after Twitter search turned up very little.
I hope communication with botObjects improves for these desperate customers. I’m sure many of them just want an update of how development is going and when their printer will be shipped.
botObjects is also on – Facebook.
Hopefully botObjects will finally ship the Prodesk3D printer in July (2014) as they have indicated and customers will have a machine to test out for themselves. They have in the last couple of days, posted images on Twitter of boxes being shipped. I would be very interested to hear from people that have received their 3D printers and their feedback.
References – (you won’t find these via twitter search)
https://twitter.com/JTMcGibbon/status/481502848417808384
https://twitter.com/M3DMinatures/status/482758272370229248
https://twitter.com/M3DMinatures/status/482064696241958913
https://twitter.com/botObjects/status/481476618964434945
https://twitter.com/ayekeh/status/481812831328038912
https://twitter.com/ayekeh/status/481494409578815489
