Eden Ashram review for SC Conjured Referrals
Sept. 29, 2020
Poor on almost every front. Let's start with the basics. Most Shopify store owners want simplicity, that's why they look at apps to have 'done the hard work' in terms of development / look / feel of a certain thing and then we can come along and plug it in to our store with hopefully little or (ideally) no fuss. So, if this is what you want then avoid this app. I'm sure they have spent time on some 'back end' bits and bobs but the implementation and set up for this app is laborious and time consuming. The customer seeing 'front end' doesn't even exist! Nothing comes 'ready made' with this app allowing for some simple tweeks to make it your own. Oh no, this is bare bones stuff. Don't be fooled by the images of the app in use by other stores thinking this is what you get, you don't. You get nothing but a simple text page similar to the simple text's you'd send on a phone from the 80's. ALL of the 'examples' they show on the app page are heavily modified /customised examples by the store (can only be done with CSS) and are NOT what you get. The 'out of the box' look and feel to EVERYTHING that they have standard is like graphics from the worlds first computer. Horrid. They say, 'we use the look and feel of the template you use to create the standard look' but there is NOTHING in my store that looks like the junk I got. Essentially they replicated the font. That's it! Then stuck a box around some text and these were meant to be the 'sign up' boxes! And then you try to reach out to customer support. Again, slow, outdated and difficult. I suppose I should have been concerned straight away when I raised a question about their link with 'Facebook' and the support had no idea what I was talking about! Then when I asked about the look and feel and how I can change this I was instructed to completely design a new page myself and then send them the artwork and they would try to match it! Eh?! I don't have time for that! And more importantly I told them 3 times that I would like a sign up page similar to the examples they provided originally (like the nice ones you see on their app page) and yet they seemed unable to follow this instruction. I still don't have it. Why don't (like almost every other app available anywhere) do they not just have a set of pre-designed, well thought out templates where we can simply change the font, colour, add/amend a picture etc. and one simple amendment would be a global change across all the relevant communications? How difficult is that? And this is also an important point. With this app you have to manually change and amend EVERY SINGLE email (there are lots), landing pages and pop ups INDIVIDUALLY. It is absolutely unworkable. Perhaps at some point in the future, and at version 29.6 this app will be something that could be used, but right now I'd advise you to avoid.
I'm so sorry you had a disappointing time with our app! Customer service is something we care deeply about, so I want to apologize that the service you received didn't meet your expectations. I've reached out personally through our support channel to ask for additional feedback and offer assistance specific to your situation, but I also want to address a few things you mentioned in your review here. Out of the box, our referral program pulls in your store's theme and stylesheet, so things like buttons and input boxes are styled using whatever your store theme's CSS. This typically makes it easy for merchants to match their existing store's look and feel, rather than needing to fuss with every element to match. In your case, it sounds like your store's stylesheet didn't have styles for those specific elements. In that case, all those elements can be changed, either using the page style editor, or with custom CSS, and we're more than happy to do that all for you if you'd rather not do it yourself. The reason every email, color, and bit of text is editable is because many merchants care a great deal about having full control over each part of the program. It's important to most of our merchants that they have the ability to fully edit all the imagery and messaging to match their brand exactly, rather than have to deal with a "cookie-cutter" template. Full customization is a feature we believe is an asset to our clients, and allows for referral programs that are highly unique in their design. Finally, all our examples are real stores who are actually using our app, who have generously agreed to be included in our showcase. They've made efforts to make their referral program look and feel fully branded to their store, and so we can't simply copy their designs for other customers. We do offer several layout options out-of-the-box, and as mentioned previously, they leverage your store's CSS. We also offer free styling service to every client on every plan level to help everyone achieve their design goals for their referral program. Again, I'm very sorry you didn't have a good experience with our app. We take all critiques to heart and would love to chat with you about what improvements we can make to better serve your needs.
