Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Greg Ambrosius
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Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 6:00 pm

Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:47 am

Spaige52 wrote:I really enjoy the competition on this site but the customer service is terrible at best. Some people get there stuff handled quick and others wait and wait. I strongly assume that it depends on how much you spend with the company. The fact that people get upset because you set deadlines and don't come through is your issue not the customer. Hopefully this will get better but doubtful.
Scott, I'll agree with Wayne that for the months of February and March we seem to disappear from the NFFC boards as we battle through the busy baseball season. We try not to let that happen, but we just become overconsumed by that sport and get football launch later than expected each year. That's on us.

But we never stop responding to NFFC emails or texts or calls. I just looked in my email and I don't have any outstanding emails from you. If I missed anything, contact me again. We always not only give our emails here ([email protected]) but we even give our personal cell phone numbers (715-254-5553). I'm not sure where we dropped the ball on customer service when it comes to questions from NFFC veterans, newbies and any owners, but I certainly don't answer questions in the order of how much you've spent with us. We will answer any question as quickly as we can and help anyone get acclimated with the NFFC.

And we don't just leave football for the busy seasons. Trust me, check out the NFBC boards in August and early September as they know we are knee deep into football drafts because those owners feel we abandon them for two months. We have to make sure we don't do that going forward, but with 10,000+ teams per sport it just gets very tough.

Sorry for any poor customer service you've received from us and we'll try better next time you send a question or response.
Founder, National Fantasy Football Championship & National Fantasy Baseball Championship
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius

Greg Ambrosius
Posts: 36415
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 6:00 pm

Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:56 am

Coltsfan wrote:Spaige,

I think that the customer service is really good here 10 months out of the year. The 2 months leading up to baseball is typically a disappearing act which Greg apologizes for every year and then promises it won't happen the next year and so on. I'm not saying anything here that Greg would disagree with.

But with that being said, if you ever attend a live event you will see what everyone means about great customer service. They really cater to the players and it's always an incredible time! And during the draft season they are always available to take care of anything and always in a very timely fashion. I hate it that you weren't responded to but I can say that it isn't typical and it has nothing to do with how many events you play in. I"m sure the ball just got dropped but you won't find that happening during the season.


Wayne
It's hard to disagree with you here Wayne, although I certainly didn't expect to be saying that this year. When we hired Darik Buchar as our third member of the staff, I thought we'd be covered to launch football early and not miss a beat this year. Then we acquired the MFL10s and we put a ton of resources into launching that contest by the first week of March. We did that knowing that every draft tool there was going to be used here, so it actually was helping us launch the NFFC earlier.

But along the way, the debut NFBC season with new software just needed more and more attention. And as you all know, we have a lot of funky rules in the NFFC for our various contests and that takes a lot of initial programming before we can launch. The MFL10s are pretty straight forward. So unfortunately we got behind and then the NFBC consumed us and now it's still consuming us. We finished with over 10,000 baseball teams and we have to continue to tweak the software to get it better than it was before.

So yes, here we are again apologizing for a later than expected start and saying it will never happen again. And this time I mean it!!

Seriously, once we program everything for football the rollover from year to year will be easy. Even with a growing baseball business, we should in future years be able to roll over the next football season so much easier. I won't even tell you why that was tough at STATS. Let's just say the programming setup is so much easier to launch a new season here at SportsHub Technologies that I feel VERY confident that we won't be launching in April next year. But first we have to get everything right for 2018 NFFC.

We still have some work to do. We are going to launch before the NFL Drafts and get Draft Champions leagues rolling. I will start to post the Schedule of Events, host hotels, pricing and more very soon. We have had all of this in place for months and honestly I should have posted that previously. Baseball just totally consumed us, and that's not an excuse. We just can't let that happen again.

I know our football guys feel slighted right now, but we're going to get this ship moving very, very soon. I feel confident in saying that this is going to be our best season yet. The new FAAB, in-game tools and live drafts are all improved and will be ready to rock 'n roll from the start. The NFBC guys are giving us so many pointers to make the software better that we're doing all we can to keep up. But the site has made huge gains in the last seven days and we'll have that look and feel perfect by the time football starts.

I apologize for the late start. We all do. But we'll make up for lost time soon. I promise. Thanks all. You're the best.
Founder, National Fantasy Football Championship & National Fantasy Baseball Championship
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius

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BLACKHAND
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Location: DANBURY , CT

Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by BLACKHAND » Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:02 am

I think Wayne said it the best. This is the best game in town but for 2 months of the year football is the last thought in their mind. Usually when a business grows they hire someone with authority to handle other situations. Hopefully Monday won't turn till Friday and Friday to the following Monday and so forth.
THIS IS THE BUSINESS WE HAVE CHOSEN

Greg Ambrosius
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Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 6:00 pm

Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Apr 06, 2018 8:38 am

BLACKHAND wrote:I think Wayne said it the best. This is the best game in town but for 2 months of the year football is the last thought in their mind. Usually when a business grows they hire someone with authority to handle other situations. Hopefully Monday won't turn till Friday and Friday to the following Monday and so forth.
Sure, if we didn't have a booming baseball business we could have probably launched the first week of March and had football drafts going for a month now. Heck, maybe we'd even have a Dynasty contest going. But none of that was even possible when we were at STATS, no matter how many people we had on staff here. That software was not easily rolled over from year to year, so as much as we begged our season was starting each April every year.

What we are doing now at SportsHub is creating a new site with new software that can easily be rolled over from year to year. Our late launch this year has as much to do with us getting this software right in baseball and fully loaded for the start of football. We are making a bunch of tweaks to the baseball in-game software now that will be fully implemented for the start of football. And then every year after that the rollover to the next season will be so much easier that we will have the new season launched in March. And yes, it won't take much for one of us to monitor the drafts and update the prizes and site. But this is our first year with the new site and that is all taking a little more time this year.

We can handle multiple sports at once with the staff we have. In fact, we're adding another sport this Fall as Darik is comprising the hockey rules. But yes, we need to launch sooner and stay active on these boards sooner in upcoming seasons. That will happen and next year I see no reason for us launching as late as April again.
Founder, National Fantasy Football Championship & National Fantasy Baseball Championship
Twitter: @GregAmbrosius

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Tom Kessenich
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Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Tom Kessenich » Mon Apr 09, 2018 8:12 am

Sorry for my lack of participation here everyone. Greg has explained it all so I won't repeat what he said. I will echo the fact that I am ALWAYS available via email ([email protected]). So if you don't see me here email me if you have a question and I'll be happy to help. I'll definitely be here more often moving forward and I apologize for not being around on the boards as much lately.
Tom Kessenich
Manager of High Stakes Fantasy Games, SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @TomKessenich

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Tom Kessenich
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Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Tom Kessenich » Mon Apr 09, 2018 8:28 am

Oh, and yes I'm very much alive.

Which is either really good news or extremely disappointing I suppose.
Tom Kessenich
Manager of High Stakes Fantasy Games, SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @TomKessenich

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Coltsfan
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Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Coltsfan » Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:53 pm

Tom Kessenich wrote:Oh, and yes I'm very much alive.

Which is either really good news or extremely disappointing I suppose.

It's great news Tom! Nobody since Chris Berman has been able to nickname players the way you do!

Glad to see you checking in on us!


Wayne

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Tom Kessenich
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Re: Are Greg, Tom, and Darik ALIVE?

Post by Tom Kessenich » Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:00 pm

Coltsfan wrote:
Tom Kessenich wrote:Oh, and yes I'm very much alive.

Which is either really good news or extremely disappointing I suppose.

It's great news Tom! Nobody since Chris Berman has been able to nickname players the way you do!

Glad to see you checking in on us!


Wayne
I do my best Wayne. :)

In all honesty, we do need to be here more often during the critical NFBC period. We do know that. It isn't easy and as the NFBC people will tell you they feel abandoned by us during the heavy NFFC period later in the year. So we hear it from both contests. :) We need to do a better job of making sure no one feels like we're abandoning them or have forgotten about them. Trust me, we aren't doing that and going forward we will be launching the NFFC earlier now that we'll have everything in place.

So we'll do our best to be more active to the point where you're sick of us. :)
Tom Kessenich
Manager of High Stakes Fantasy Games, SportsHub Technologies
Twitter - @TomKessenich

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