Mar 14 2008
Forumfocus
I took out a trial package with forumsfocus They seem a relatively new outfit as their own forum does not show a lot of members or activity (which may or may not be a worry), however this is how I rated them
Price.
Well they range from $9.50 (31 cents per post) up to $333.50 (33 cents per post), so this is not a cheap outfit. You would expect that the larger the package the lesser the cost, but these guys have done the reverse, I guess this could be because of low staff numbers and they want to ward of large orders?
Score 6/10
Communication.
Disappointing. I know its only a trial package but I did expect some form of acknowledgement of my order, maybe with a start date? I mailed the admin to get some more information and to their credit I had the reply in 12 hours and upon conclusion I did receive a mail letting me know that the job was completed and what username had posted on my forum
Score 5/10
Quality
I have no issue with the quality, the new threads and answers were in clear English, no horrible typos or grammatical errors and there were no 10 word style answers, relevant content
Score 8/10
Numbers of Staff
Well again I only booked a trial and received one user, fair enough, what does disturb me is on their packages page it refers to usernames rather then staff, so I think that again staff are in short supply and if you take a decent size package you will have 4 or 5 staff posing as different users (Ok I guess as long as its what you are after)
Score 6/10
Discount
On completion the admin did offer a 10% discount on a subsequent larger package which felt was quite generous
Score 7/10
Project tracking
This is poor with Forumfocus, there is no way to track your project except by keeping a very close eye on your forum, this area definitely needs working on
Score 3/10
Karma
The site is quite well laid out, easy to navigate and responds well in both IE and Firefox. It has nothing distinctive though and could get lost in the masses. An interesting little caveat in their Client requirement section is,
“At times our paid posters will place links in their signatures. These links are not their own personal website but are rather links for advertisers. With this stated no advertising will be directly done through posts that you purchase. By ordering a package you signify that you are well aware of this.”
Score 6/10
Overall I have rated the service at 41/70 or 58.5%