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I have a general philosophy that when outsourcing you should go with the company that has the crappiest web presence and least good branding because obviously,

I have a general philosophy that when outsourcing you should go with the company that has the crappiest web presence and least good branding because obviously, if they're still in business dispute their terrible marketing, they must be good.

andy99 3y ago
This is absolutely true with trades. If you're hiring a roofer or whatever that has a great website, they will be the worst. The good ones have a backlog and no need to waste money on a site or other advertising. Essentially it's sales led vs product led. True also for e.g. beer. For a given price point, the one that advertised the most (Stella for example) put the money there instead of quality.
- insickness 3y ago
  That sword cuts both ways. A business that manages all aspects of its business properly, including web presence, outreach and customer service, may signify of a higher quality of work.
  - chii 3y ago
    its a version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law the metric is of a good site or a poor site being a proxy for the quality of the service or product. As soon as this metric becomes common enough, it gets gamed, and thus fails as a good metric.
voiceblue 3y ago
I just had this experience with dbrand vs sopiguard. The former has great packaging but their product (and even their shipping) has gotten so poor…when you contact them they immediately take a defensive position and ask for more money to fix anything. Sopiguard on the other hand has bare minimum packaging and their product is good enough that I don’t know what their CS is like. Oh, and for all their pretty prints, dbrand doesn’t put the name of what you actually got on the package, so you have no way to confirm if it’s a poor cut or a shipping error (in case of a MacBook skin). Their subreddit is littered with these complaints.
firstplacelast 3y ago
Years ago I was hiring a mechanic to look at a used car. Car and him were in a city a few hours a way, so I lined him up to meet me at the dealership. Website and reviews went back years and had good reviews (which can always be manipulated), but he was so difficult to deal with over the phone. Was polite, but could not give me definitive answers even when it came to payments. i.e. I told him I could pay him cash or credit and it came to this 5-minute back-and-forth where he would not just tell me what he wanted. Before I hung up on him, I realized if he has been in business this long he's got to be great at what he does because he is a terrible business-man. I think I was correct. Guy put the car through its paces, checked everything under-the-hood, did the weirdest test drive I've ever experienced, and wrote up a thorough report. Even the sales-guy was like, where the hell did you find this guy (in an impressed way)?!? 7-years later and he was 95% spot on about everything...one thing he thought I would have to replace ended up being an easy fix instead.

andy99 3y ago

This is absolutely true with trades. If you're hiring a roofer or whatever that has a great website, they will be the worst. The good ones have a backlog and no need to waste money on a site or other advertising. Essentially it's sales led vs product led. True also for e.g. beer. For a given price point, the one that advertised the most (Stella for example) put the money there instead of quality.

insickness 3y ago
That sword cuts both ways. A business that manages all aspects of its business properly, including web presence, outreach and customer service, may signify of a higher quality of work.
- chii 3y ago
  its a version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law the metric is of a good site or a poor site being a proxy for the quality of the service or product. As soon as this metric becomes common enough, it gets gamed, and thus fails as a good metric.

voiceblue 3y ago

I just had this experience with dbrand vs sopiguard. The former has great packaging but their product (and even their shipping) has gotten so poor…when you contact them they immediately take a defensive position and ask for more money to fix anything. Sopiguard on the other hand has bare minimum packaging and their product is good enough that I don’t know what their CS is like. Oh, and for all their pretty prints, dbrand doesn’t put the name of what you actually got on the package, so you have no way to confirm if it’s a poor cut or a shipping error (in case of a MacBook skin). Their subreddit is littered with these complaints.

firstplacelast 3y ago

Years ago I was hiring a mechanic to look at a used car. Car and him were in a city a few hours a way, so I lined him up to meet me at the dealership. Website and reviews went back years and had good reviews (which can always be manipulated), but he was so difficult to deal with over the phone. Was polite, but could not give me definitive answers even when it came to payments. i.e. I told him I could pay him cash or credit and it came to this 5-minute back-and-forth where he would not just tell me what he wanted. Before I hung up on him, I realized if he has been in business this long he's got to be great at what he does because he is a terrible business-man. I think I was correct. Guy put the car through its paces, checked everything under-the-hood, did the weirdest test drive I've ever experienced, and wrote up a thorough report. Even the sales-guy was like, where the hell did you find this guy (in an impressed way)?!? 7-years later and he was 95% spot on about everything...one thing he thought I would have to replace ended up being an easy fix instead.