I have been a lurker for a while but this bunch is amazing. I would gladly follow the craziness else where. Just my cents.
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Setting up a forum takes time. Even if MBV chooses to have volunteer mods they will still need a community manager (someone paid) , picking the right forum software can take time. Deciding what forums to have. Then deciding on the rules. Even if they acted quickly it could still take a month or three. Then there is the question of whether or not it would hurt new business with all of its core customers on the MBV forums, who will be here to suggest people give MBV a try?
MBV'S core customers drive a lot of new business to them. So, they have a lot of decisions to make. I don't see this necessarily happening quickly, unless the owners really want to make it happen and everyone is onboard with it. But I think MBV has plenty of volunteers available if they want to give it a go. And they can always pay us in liquid too! Lol
All forums need rules and mods to moderate those forums. ECF is so popular because of those rules. Forums that have no moderation tend to have a low user base because all of the bad apples tend to congregate on those sites. At the same time, I do believe MBV may be out growing ECF. Their existing customer base alone is in the tens of thousands and any business needs to always be thinking about growing. The worst thing a volume business like MBV can do is stagnate. Growth is essential and the owners of MBV recognize that, hence the more advanced hardware they are working to offer their customers (much needed). I think having their own forum and running some contests to kick it off will be a great way to draw people in and allow them the freedom necessary to interact with James and the others and it will bring MBV's customer service to the next level. So we really need to push for it because there will be some monetary expenditure involved and not just for the forum software and bandwidth. I watch as other vendors dump business and give up sales because they don't want to grow too big. This is really not smart business sense.
This business is in its infancy and MBV is the big player on the block. The way they stay the heavy hitter is to continue expanding while maintaining excellent standards across the board. A forum just makes sense to me. Some place where customers who purchase from MBV can come and help each other and the new customers thinking about making their first order.
So James, is the forum up yet? Giggles. You have my information if you need something, just let me know. I like vbulletin but I don't know what it runs these days. I would not recommend having a custom forum with an unfamiliar format. I have seen poorly or confusing forum layouts run people off quicker than you can say 'Why?'
Several of your customers have run their own businesses, owned and administrated their own forums and are willing to assist you with little to no compensation. What can we do to facilitate moving this along? You already have the customer base to fill a forum and you know all the best places have forums... Including Amazon. So what can we do to convince the other MBV big wigs that this is a good idea and needs to be done?
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