Esignal ain't what it's cracked up to be

[Neil]

Quote from Chuck_T:
Well, you have got our attention, what can we help you with?

Chuck Thompson
President, eSignal

Few points Chuck.. I recently left esignal due to the cost really.. liked the data feed but only ever used you as a feed for IRT. Is there not some way to have a lower cost subscription for users who do not wish to make use of your charting software? Your charts are ok but I use formulas a LOT in quote boards and find IRT excellent for that purpose. I know I could pay for a year in advance, but thats a long time in trading.. lol I have survived two years trading so far but dont like to fork out for an entire year yet to come.. there is enough to think about as it is.. and your level two prices are plain silly.. its not a discount to get them cheaper if you pay for a year.. no-one else.. (I think anyway, not seen any).. charge more than $10 -20 max per month for level 2.

So consider a lower fee for pure esignal feed to third party software.. might bring in a lot of new customers. Also, your sales staff are a bit difficult to deal with.. I put a friend onto you.. he negotiated a price but went away on holiday for 6 weeks.. came back and they told him it would have to be a higher price.. he tried one month and then told them he would only continue if they reduced the rate to the original agreed amount.. they refused point blank so he gave up the subscription.. since then he has been emailed several times offering him a reduced rate if he would return to esignal! Do you see? He would still be a customer if they had not messed him around in the first place..

Good Luck
Neil

 

[docarzt]

I think it's better to improve the software, so that no support is needed instead of adding more people/money to the support staff.

I like eSignal and I like a lot of the new features. But before adding new features it would be better to finish the old ones. There are too many bugs.

 

[Speedracer]

Chuck,

"So consider a lower fee for pure esignal feed to third party software.. might bring in a lot of new customers. "

I second this request. I don't use esignal for anything but the data feed. I use ensign for everything. I would love a simple datafeed charge that is cheaper than what I am paying. Or add the features ensign has that esignal doesn't, and I wouldn't use ensign.


Also, please get someone in the states to sit in the office for support during the euro market opens. IT is pathetic that when you have a problem at night, you can't get hold of anyone. The only option is to email tech support, they usually take at least until the noon est. to respond, and then it is too late. I would have eurex quote problems when the guy trading next to me wouldn't, so whatever server I was on was off. Since you don't allow users to change servers themselves, we would have to call in to get this addressed, and by the time the email response was sent back, the problem was 10 hours old.

 

[Eddy]

Creating a fee for people using the E-signal datamanager only is an excellent idea.

However, I have very big doubt this will ever be implemented because such a fee would be de facto considered as an incitement for new users to subscribe to 3rd party tool instead of the Esignal charting package ....

BUT, why not offering such a fee reduction at least for the existing E-Signal customers (one year for example) who already know they won't use the E-signal charting features because they are just fully used and satisfied from their 3rd party package...

Eddy

 

[Ditch]

Quote from Speedracer:

Chuck,

"So consider a lower fee for pure esignal feed to third party software.. might bring in a lot of new customers. "

I second this request. I don't use esignal for anything but the data feed. I use ensign for everything. I would love a simple datafeed charge that is cheaper than what I am paying. Or add the features ensign has that esignal doesn't, and I wouldn't use ensign.

I second this proposal too. And don't charge more to your existing customers than your new ones. Tere's already enough said about the level of customer assistance.

 

[JayF_eSignal]

Quote from InTheZone:

Chuck,

eSignal would become my primary charting program if it had the following functionality:

1. Ability to download intraday historical data to a format readable by other programs, such as Excel. This is a feature that is available in Qcharts via their qlink program.

2. Improved Fibonacci retracement, extension, and projection tool. Qchart's implementation of this feature is much cleaner and easier to use than that of eSignal 7.x, in my opinion.

1. This ability is actually being beta tested. Coming with the release of eSignal 7.4 is support for ActiveX. ActiveX is a development tool adopted by eSignal to give third party users, including brokers, software developers and individual users, access to quotes, tick and history data, trading information and more. This will provide the following functionality:

· Real-Time Quotes
· Historical data (Intraday, Tick Bars (i.e. 10V, 10S, 10P, 10V), Daily, Weekly, Monthly)
· Symbol Linking
· Sending Trade Orders
· Receiving Trade Information (Executions, Positions, Pending)

ActiveX allows development of an application in any language. A sample program is provided that makes it easy to get started. Only a few lines of code are required for developing applications that receive quote data and only slightly more development is required for accessing tick and history data. In addition to developing third party applications that use quote and history data, ActiveX can also be used to send data to a trading ticket for order execution and for receive trading information back into eSignal.

2. With the release of eSignal 7.3, the ability to Extend Fibonacci lines was added (right-click line --> Edit). This feature, along with line tools on tick charts, should now bring this to the level of where our competitors are. If this is not the case, we'd be eager to hear what we could improve upon.

 

[JayF_eSignal]

Quote from Speedracer:

Chuck,

"So consider a lower fee for pure esignal feed to third party software.. might bring in a lot of new customers. "

I second this request. I don't use esignal for anything but the data feed. ...

The product names "eSignal Equities Basic" is the product designed just for this purpose. It is priced as low as $49 per month (annual pre-pay), or $69 per month for a monthly subscription. NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ Level I, and CME E-Mini's are available at this price level.

Also, please get someone in the states to sit in the office for support during the euro market opens.

Our UK Support Team is available 7:00 - 18:00 GMT, and can be contacted at +44 (0)20 7825 8777. They also respond to emails and monitor eSignal Central Forums during this time.

 

[Neil]

Quote from JayF_eSignal:

The product names "eSignal Equities Basic" is the product designed just for this purpose. It is priced as low as $49 per month (annual pre-pay), or $69 per month for a monthly subscription. NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ Level I, and CME E-Mini's are available at this price level.

Fair point jay.. just one thing about that is the fixed limit of 50 stocks viewed at one time.. allow more and that would be fine. Have you ever tried trading managing 50 stocks? Its next to impossible to do anything useful with those limts.. fine tho for anyone just trading eminis..

I have got used to working with symbol limits.. by doing sorting by price and volume etc to reduce down to managable sized quote boards and can scan within them one at a time to remain within intra day limits.. but 50 really is just too small... any chance at all of increasing that limit for the basic subscription.. might intice me back if so..

Neil

 

[InTheZone]

JayF,

Thanks for the info.

I look forward to 7.4's historical data download feature.

I didn't know about the the fib tool enhancements in 7.3. I didn't notice it in the new features summary the first time around, so I haven't download it. I'll give it a try and will let you know how it works.

Thanks.

-- ITZ

 

[CalTrader]

Quote from Chuck_T:

Well, you have got our attention, what can we help you with?

Chuck Thompson
President, eSignal

Chuck:

Here is a revolutionary idea .... That your competitors have already implemented. Try offering a fee based priority support system for customers that want and need this option. Like others have said, when there is a problem with a feed or a bug in the software, waiting 24 hours for an email turnaround on a problem is often not acceptable. This is why people want a phone number to call to get their important issue addressed. Asking people to sit on hold on their dime to get your products problem addressed is a customer killer: people will move on to another vendor if there is an option.

I think there was a time in the software and sevices business when the customer could be relied upon to test and call in on their dime bug reports for your software / systems. We never treated our customers that way and I think that customers have decided - rightfully so - that such treatment is disrespectful and that if a vendor attempts this type of treatment then they will move on.

Senior management should have planned for these contingincies in the merger/aquisition and ensured that customer service was not degraded. Its a warning sign when these business processes start to go awry and it places doubt in the customers mind regarding a vendors long term viability.