In the end we only but try to do our best.

In the stock market, I never invest in any company that is not transparent. I need to know what they are doing, getting company news every day, and being able to trust management is doing the right things. This is also true in blogging, and you make a great point.

I totally see where you are coming from. Certainly we have to be careful in who we trust. There are a lot of sicko’s out there and they are a pain in the butt to say the least. I see them around me in the offline world so have no false expectations about the online world.

You know, this discussion has raised some really important points from all involved and I for certain look at this whole topic with new eyes.

If you wonder about who learns or not, that isn’t negative. It is simply your own awareness about the topic. Some here will agree and others won’t. Whatever we do, decide and act on is solely based on the awareness we have at the time about the subject. Does this make sense to some of you?

Whether it is satisfactory I guess is up to the client. To you, this seems to matter a lot which is perfectly fine. To me, I already said why I am not comfortable by giving out my address to the world to see just like that.

So far, I haven’t had any problems doing that. I also never felt that I missed out on clients because. Am I here to do serious business. You bet!

I’m a serious business owner running a small home business. I’m not an LLC, not a corporation or another business model. I chose not to disclose my address for good reasons. This choice is mine. Does this make me “not” fully transparent?

I happen to think I am. If you read my blog, you will get to know me and who I am pretty fast. I think that is transparent enough. But then, that is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? Further to that I’m also easy to contact. I have my contact form and email on various pages on my blog as well as on my website.

Like I said, I never felt this to be a problem and when somebody contacts me I’m happy to give them my address unless their email is something like 23ft532@yahoo.com. Then I get a little uneasy.

I do respect your point though. We just seem to have different opinions about this.

They should then make more info available IF the need arises. If a customer or pre-sales potential customer requests further info from someone else, they should get another email contact. Addresses and phone numbers should be provided under careful consideration. Thieves, liars, crooks, and just crazy, bored people who love to make life miserable for others in this large world (I speak from experience).

I am shocked that people expect full disclosure of contact info online for all businesses. NO ONE has ever questioned nor doubted me and I only provide an email. Perhaps it’s is dependent upon the kind of business you are doing (and your reputation in the field). I’ve been told to get an unlisted number (which made my life worse, people don’t trust unlisted callers) and never give out my home address. But I have inventory and perhaps that makes a difference.

Next, if you are a consultant, or selling via affiliates, why would initially only giving out contact info beyond your email address be relevant? What would I do with a phone number in England or Australia: spend a small fortune calling them at a very different time zone?

People order my photos and rarely obtain anything beyond my email address and then my mailing address on the return address of my package. People are thrilled and surprised I actually answer all my emails, whether paying customers, fans, people interested in licensing, whomever.

However, I’m about to buy s/w for Joomla. For weeks I’ve written and written via their site, myspace (the only contact I found for their founder, a woman with a friendly smile who can’t bother to write me back), dug up a couple email addys of the folks listed on their site, in addition to their site, and no, they don’t list their phone number online or could I find it in any free phone listings.

You better believe not only does it make me wonder what is wrong with them, but do their products work or most of all, will their business survive or will I be stuck with an outdated product in a year or two?

I contacted one of their customers (because they had a list of customers on their site) and he verified the Joomla extension I want does work. We discussed other extensions, so he isn’t a paid parrot for them, just a nice guy in the same situation as I.

The other issue is although their customer service person responded to me, it took many, many emails to finally get the info I needed from him. He is the worst customer service/tech support person I have met, and I’ve been in that end of the computer industry.

I’ve taught and been using computers for 20 years, so I’ve seen all kinds of companies come and go (and those outside of this field). I’ve even written to this company about that issue.

I wonder how much they care they are losing customers because I bet I’m not the only one with these issues, but one of the few to write them about it. Although finding email addys was not easy, and some of the top people could not be contacted, I did better than most, but still concerned about how long will they stay in business with this horrible attitude.

This lack of response and transparency totally contradicts what they say on their site. So it makes me wonder if their products work (and from that one customer, not all work as advertised).

I think they are arrogant and figure their products are so good with their friendly, proud, confident spin on their site, they don’t need to hear from us. Or they only pay attention to paying customers via their forum, but pre-sales aren’t important. Or they thought I’m stupid and a pest (that’s really what I think).

Their products might be fine, but I wonder who long will they last. And that makes me wonder if their product will stay around as long as I need it!

Why do I bother: because so far their product is the ONLY extension that does something I really want/need to do with my blog/site.

That’s where transparency is really an issue. Combined with business practices, it will be the difference whether a business lasts or not at some point. As the Small Business Association said years ago, 80% of businesses fail due to bad management. Management is all about their policies and how they treat customers because customers are the ones who really suffer.

So here’s my question: what if you don’t have a choice, that you want the product, but not only their site is vague about contact info, or other things, but their customer service lacking? No matter your decision, it’s never easy.

One thing to mention: this company offers a 30 day money back guarantee. So I’ll get the product, put it through its paces, ask questions on the forum, and if I’m still running into problems, discontinue usage and request my money. But I’m praying it works out! Always the optimist, no matter what, but trying to balance with pragmatism too!