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Warning: GetBeagle (Online Proposals) Almost Lost Me a Project

almost 8 years ago from , Designer

Recently, the Beagle peeps came out with online proposals.

I thought the whole PDF thing before was silly. Output was horrible.

When it first came out I labored over a proposal, only to come to the end and realize I was authoring a shitty PDF with poor formatting.

I decided to give them another shot with online proposals.

I really liked the composition interface and wanted an easy way to share online proposals.

So, over the weekend, in comes a very warm lead from a developer whom I often collaborate with as a designer - and I decided to write the proposal in Beagle.

The web version looked great.

I published it.

I quadruple checked the share link.

No I actually must have checked that link 10 times. No joke.

I checked it on my desktop and checked it on my mobile to ensure the link was correct and to ensure the mobile presentation was decent.

I ran into my developer friend last night and he asked me if I sent the proposal and I said, I did.

He asked to have a look at it.

I said sure - and opened the link from my phone.

The proposal I saw was not the one I sent. It was someone else's proposal all together for a Shopify theme design.

I thought that must have been a mistake.

I opened the email that contained the share link and - - - clicked - and the same. Someone else's proposal for a Shopify theme design.

WTF

Again, this same proposal that was someone else's. Not the proposal I sent.

I went back to the online interface for Beagle to double check the share link. Same as the one in the email.

I clicked on the link in my email - again.

This time the proposal I sent - my actual proposal reappeared.

Relieved, I thought it was a glich in their system.

This morning I got an email from the prospect saying they had received the wrong proposal. The proposal my prospect saw was for an SEO project.

An entirely different proposal all coming from the exact same share link.

I duplicated the proposal for this prospect inside Beagle, published it and got a new share link.

Sent it back to the prospect and it appears that FINALLY - he did receive the intended proposal.

The error makes me look like a total fucking goof. Makes me look like I'm using some buggy system and compromises trust with a prospect who has never met me in person.

What if the guy totally wrote me off and didn't even give me a chance to resend the link?

Of course, Beagle has ZERO fucking support on their site. At least when I tried to scroll down to that seizure inducing scroll jacked mess of a landing page - that takes forever to scroll through - all I saw was a Twitter handle.

There's a Twitter, there's a blog! There's Facebook!

How am I supposed to explain all this mess on Twitter?

Get Groove or Zendesk for god's sake.

With proposals, you're messing with people's money. There is no room for "beta" or errors. This is money.

You can't fuck shit like this up and you certainly can't be a ghost with no support.

Unreal.

13 comments

  • Per VPer V, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

    Sorry to say it, but you sound like a fucking douche.

    With proposals, you're messing with people's money. There is no room for "beta" or errors. This is money.

    It's in beta for a reason.

    25 points
    • Jon MyersJon Myers, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

      Zinger! Snark!

      Clever.

      The irony is striking Mr. Per V - that your name has whiff of Nordic origins similar to that of...

      Sorry, sending a prospect another company's proposal is not "beta" appropriate.

      I was compromised as were two other companies.

      Not everyone here is made of money and can afford such mistakes like yourself, douche.

      4 points
      • Per VPer V, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

        tl;dr: I hope you land the client, but be nice. Like I was when I called you a fucking douche.

        I'm probably the poorest douche on DN. With that said, if I was sending a proposal to a client and the same thing happened to me I would probably contact the company supplying the service (in this case Podio) and let them know that shit is hitting the fan. Not write a tl;dr post on DN and complain about it. Or maybe you could have written something here on DN (or somewhere else) where you wrote something like below instead of trashing them:

        Boys and girls, I know there's been some talk about Beagle here on DN recently. I'm currently trying out their service and I stumbled upon a serious bug where the online proposals gets mixed up. I've already contacted Podio about it, but I thought you should be aware of this so it hopefully doesn't happen to you also.

        And regarding Twitter...

        How am I supposed to explain all this mess on Twitter?

        Maybe like this:

        @getbeagle I just found a serious bug. Is there a way for me to get in touch with you?

        After that I would probably contact the customer and say something like:

        I'm really sorry for the issues with the proposal I sent to you earlier. I'm giving this new service a try (it's till in beta) and obviously I found a bug in their software.

        In this case the Podio guys were obviously here on DN to give you an answer and hell, they'll even send you a bunch of Beagle swag. Props to them!

        Blah, blah, blah.

        I hope you land the client, Jon.

        Edit:

        The irony is striking Mr. Per V - that your name has whiff of Nordic origins similar to that of...

        Please inform me!

        3 points
        • Jon MyersJon Myers, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

          If it happened to me and two other companies, it is not a discrete matter.

          There's a strong likelihood it happened to others.

          It's a security issue.

          I saw inside two other companies.

          In the fit of recovering from this impasse, my ability to read tea leaves and recall that Beagle is also, Podio, failed.

          There were no apparent help links.

          Excuse the fuck out of me for caring that others here might face similar circumstances and be out of hard earned money, snarky douche clown.

          1 point
  • Lete PaceyLete Pacey, almost 8 years ago

    Hey Jon,

    Sorry about that - seems you experienced a minor, but frustrating glitch. We're a small team with an early beta product for testing – we'll make this clearer in the onboarding. Of course, we care about people making good proposals that win work, so we're trying to re-create the issue you experienced.

    You can find a 'Help & Support' link under your account in the bottom left, this raises a support ticket straight to us where any member of our team can respond almost instantly.

    Perhaps you could get in touch there?

    12 points
    • Jon MyersJon Myers, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

      Thanks Pete, I appreciate the effort and appreciate the response.

      I did search for a support link in the account area.

      I did not see it.

      I also did not see it on the homepage as well.

      Like I said, I really like the editor and online output.

      I would gladly pay for the service.

      I did notice a difference in the share directories, /a and /share.

      Don't know if that helps.

      Hope you can appreciate my anger and frustration here.

      I assumed this was a release for real world use.

      If something as extreme as other people's proposals are showing up to prospects was a possibility - I would not have used this in a real world scenario, as the risk is too high.

      Other than that - I do really like the product. lol

      I'll wait til it's out of beta.

      Finally, my intent here wasn't to damage your efforts. I'm happy to take this post down or the mods can.

      I know how hard it is to get prospects and didn't want the same thing happening to someone else.

      Take care,

      -jon

      1 point
      • Lete PaceyLete Pacey, almost 8 years ago

        Hey Jon,

        Totally understand the frustrations – we're dealing with important stuff; there isn't much room for slip-ups.

        We actually found the glitch and destroyed it just now. But totally get your hesitations whilst we're still in beta. We still want to release quality products, even with a beta sticker on. We've made the right measures to ensure something like this can't happen again.

        All the best, and maybe see you in the future :)

        Pete.

        (If you get in contact with your shipping address via support, we'll send you out a bunch of Beagle swag)

        10 points
        • Jon MyersJon Myers, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

          Hey Pete, that's really cool.

          Thanks a lot.

          I will send you my address (offline) - as I don't want a surprise parcel arriving, which might be a possibility here. lol

          Surprised others can't understand how sensitive and costly this issue happens to be...

          Cheers mate and best with this product.

          1 point
        • Jon MyersJon Myers, almost 8 years ago

          Pete,

          Thought you might appreciate an update.

          The project that was in jeopardy ended up closing yesterday.

          I have two proposals to get out in the next few days.

          I'll give Beagle another shot.

          Thanks again for jumping in here.

          -j

          0 points
  • Liz LaraLiz Lara, almost 8 years ago

    Despite this frustrating and unfortunate glitch, the responsiveness of Beagle on this thread has actually made me more likely to check it out.

    Every support ticket is an opportunity to turn stuff around :)

    9 points
  • Joe Crupi, almost 8 years ago

    InDesign yo.

    6 points
  • Anthony Gibson, almost 8 years ago

    Totally get the frustration and the feeling that you had to vent via a public forum to get your problems solved. I recently was taken to collections by Barnes & Noble over a $18.24 textbook rental that I returned 2 weeks before it was due. Needless to say 6 customer service calls later, Twitter was the only way I got any sense of empathy from the company.

    Thanks for sharing, but also, thanks to GetBeagle to be in touch with the community. They have an excellent design and from the looks of it, an amazing product. I know I'm not alone when I say that Get Beagle will have more leeway from me just for the fact that they gave some extra effort to try to right their wrong.

    4 points