It may be helpful to add an inline status alert (similar to those used by Twitter, Netflix, Basecamp, etc) in the actual dashboard when you're experiencing high demand.
I signed up yesterday afternoon and submitted a couple of requests and wasn't sure what to expect for turnaround time. If you are not currently completing requests as quickly as you normally would, it would be reassuring to trial members (and existing members) to receive a notice that things may take slightly longer than normal but you are indeed working hard to catch up with demand.
Great idea. We're working around the clock, even though a quarter of our staff was on Eid break when the site launched. They're all back, but yes, everything should be back to normal in terms of turnaround in the next 24 hours. We've also added more people.
I saw that on the website and was really impressed. I'm confident that when I sign up I won't have to worry about you stretching your resources too thin to help me adequately, even when it's in your short term best interests.
Zaki... Great job on the service! The tasks that have been done thus far are of the highest quality I could expect. My concern is the tasks not getting done.
I had 3 or 4 done yesterday, but since then, nothing. Will you be able to cope with the load soon?
We should be back at full strength in terms of service time by mid-next week. When you say gone, do you mean replied to? My email is zaki (at) timesvr.com if you have any issues.
Could someone who successfully uses an assistant like that outline concrete tasks they delegate to them? Both private and job related (software engineering here). 9 out of 10 restaurants here do online booking and I don't need to book at the "Fat Duck", with its annoying phone reservation, that often.
I asked for a bunch of research: some background data for my market, with sources, and a comparison of some vendors I'm interested in. If I was deep in code, this would be pretty useless.
I actually signed up for timesvr earlier tonight after reading this. They claim $59 a month buys you unlimited tasks, which I cannot believe is profitable, but if they can make money off of my business, I wish them health and happiness.
I'm pretty surprised by it as well. The 1 week free trial is awesome too - worst case, you have a team of assistants to do free work for you and you leave after 7 days. Although at their prices, that's really only a $15 free trial so it's not really going to hurt them any
It is surprising that this can be profitable, but if you value your time at anything above $20/hr and this saves you a few hours a week, this is certainly worth it to you if the work done is at a high enough quality level.
I think I would still prefer a live, personal, one-on-one assistant. Sure there are a lot of downsides, but if you get a good person and you learn each other's personalities? I think the upside is a lot bigger than the downside.
Completely agree. However, most people can not justify or afford a full time, or even part time, assistant. They're just looking for 30 - 45 minutes of help a day. That's where we step in :)
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Will unused tasks get carried on to the next month?
No, the basic tasks expire at the end of the month. This is to help us price our service affordably by optimizing the Aide's time. You are however welcome to use all your tasks each month, and purchase more at a reasonable rate."
This does not seem relevant to an unlimited service.
Upvoted. I didn't see the FAQ page, I just used the service. I agree with you, it's not relevant so they should correct that - (or clarify why it's relevant. My hunch is you were downvoted because people have a knee jerk reaction to downvoting tangent negative comments =)
yep, aware of that. A couple of alignment issues on Opera as well. One surprising thing we learned was that Safari behaves very differently on a Mac and a PC. Oh well :P
If you want to offer other languages your best bet for the short term is to outsource the translation. Keep hiring English speakers as usual, but when dealing with alternate language users use an outsourced middleman for translation. There are plenty of services available that provide native-quality human translation in a fairly short amount of time. A good service will offer at least 10 languages and possibly up to about 30. It's the easiest and fastest way to support many languages.
Very interesting review, Sid. I'd be interested to know where things stand in 4-6 weeks time and if you've made a choice to support either of the services exclusively.
Just called them. GREAT customer service. I dont know if the business numbers can make it profitable when scaling out. If it is everything it seems, they will do well.
Just signed up. I gave them a research task I already completed myself last weekend. I want to see how the results compare. Will probably post the results somewhere.
Hopefully people here and elsewhere can appreciate that as opposed to doing a shoddy job. :)