KickstarterForum.org

I seem to have a small stream of people who have cancelled their pledges. One or two offered the explanation that they had impulse pledged and were now reconsidering. I wonder if Kickstarter would consider adding a text field to the cancelling process and requiring backers to offer the reason they are backing out.

Does this happen to most projects? Anyone else have any experience with this?

Interesting. I've had one or two people talk about that. It can also happen the other way - I was a backer for a campaign where they kept sending updates in the final hours for people to consider raising their pledge and they ended up being funded.

LeatherDiceBags wrote:I seem to have a small stream of people who have cancelled their pledges. One or two offered the explanation that they had impulse pledged and were now reconsidering. I wonder if Kickstarter would consider adding a text field to the cancelling process and requiring backers to offer the reason they are backing out.

Does this happen to most projects? Anyone else have any experience with this?

I actually decided to pull my pledge on a project the other day because it turned out that the video was a complete con. When you cancel a pledge, KS does ask you why you are cancelling but I guess from what you are saying that this information does not come back to the creator.
I told the creator my reason for pulling the pledge and I am sure most people would tell you. Maybe they see you have successfully funded and think you don't need them anymore?!

Don't take it to heart - I am sure you will continue to be successful and that this was just a glitch
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/429 ... xury-leath

In my opinion, you already have the boiler plate answer you’d receive if Kickstarter added that text field you’re asking for - “the impulse pledge” or something like that, but that’s probably not the real reason.

It’s hard to say, people change their minds for all sorts of reasons. Did this happen after you were funded? Perhaps helping to get you funded was their primary objective.

Have you asked them directly?

The key is to stay engaged with your backers with thoughtful and meaningful dialog. Do it with updates, but also with private messages and keep it personal. I know that you have done this, so there's not much more you could have done.

We live in a buy and return culture. One of the great benefits of crowd funding, is no returns. So on KS if someone’s going to return, they do it now.

James

So, I could ask them directly, but only because I took the time to thank each new backer personally as they joined our project. Otherwise, I'd never be able to find them or communicate with them. Once they drop your project, you have to go to pretty extreme lengths to get a message to them. The only way to contact them is to pull up the original message I sent them and reply to it. There is not a way that I have found from the dashboard for project creators to reach these people. I felt that the level of difficulty might be an indicator that Kickstarter didn't want me contacting them.

I get the impression that I am much more communicative than most of my backers. I know Kickstarter tells you be engaged but I think that has to be balanced with not being too pushy. I have quite a lot of backers that haven't answered the direct, simple question I asked when they first joined up about what color they'd most like to see made available.

It is a shame that Kickstarter is not passing that information they are collecting on the project creators.

I like data and I like to learn from everything that I can. But I can't fix something if I don't know what's broken.

LeatherDiceBags wrote:So, I could ask them directly, but only because I took the time to thank each new backer personally as they joined our project. Otherwise, I'd never be able to find them or communicate with them. Once they drop your project, you have to go to pretty extreme lengths to get a message to them. The only way to contact them is to pull up the original message I sent them and reply to it. There is not a way that I have found from the dashboard for project creators to reach these people. I felt that the level of difficulty might be an indicator that Kickstarter didn't want me contacting them.

I get the impression that I am much more communicative than most of my backers. I know Kickstarter tells you be engaged but I think that has to be balanced with not being too pushy. I have quite a lot of backers that haven't answered the direct, simple question I asked when they first joined up about what color they'd most like to see made available.

It is a shame that Kickstarter is not passing that information they are collecting on the project creators.

I like data and I like to learn from everything that I can. But I can't fix something if I don't know what's broken.

It is interesting to note that 2 of us replied to your post, offered advice and encouragement, both of which take time, yet you did not acknowledge that courtesy but rather continued with your personal gripe about how KS relate information.
Treat others as you like to be treated yourself.
Ignore others - maybe others will ignore you too. Maybe here lies the answers.
Just a thought.

Hi Mary,

I was not aware that once a backer "backs out" your ability to communicate with them is diminished. I think this is a flawed idea, which all of us as project creators should take issue with.

If you feel you have communicated well with your backers then that really is the best you can do.

James

ACLeathercraft wrote:It is interesting to note that 2 of us replied to your post, offered advice and encouragement, both of which take time, yet you did not acknowledge that courtesy but rather continued with your personal gripe about how KS relate information.
Treat others as you like to be treated yourself.
Ignore others - maybe others will ignore you too. Maybe here lies the answers.
Just a thought.

It definitely wasn't my intention to be rude, and I wasn't ignoring. I crafted my response based on the reply posts I had received. It is clear to me that I am not well enough versed in forum etiquette to respond in a way that doesn't clutter a forum with excessive quotes, replies to several people at once, and doesn't unintentionally offend. I'm trying to do it again, this time with quotes so that it is clearer that I did read and react to reply posts. My apologies in advance for the excessive lenght of this post. This is actually the first forum I've every really participated on and I apologize that you feel I have ignored you, ACLeathercraft, especially since that is not the actuality of the situation. It was also not my intention to offend you. I'm still trying to get a hang of the quoting system. I ask that you please be patient with me. I'm not here to gripe. I actually saw that no one had yet addressed the question of backers cancelling (here or on other places that I read about Kickstarter projects) and thought that it might be a helpful topic of conversation for another new project creator later on. I'm not demoralized or upset about losing backers; just curious.

ACLeathercraft wrote: When you cancel a pledge, KS does ask you why you are cancelling but I guess from what you are saying that this information does not come back to the creator. I told the creator my reason for pulling the pledge and I am sure most people would tell you.

"It is a shame that Kickstarter is not passing that information they are collecting on the project creators." was directed at ACLeathercraft, for the information that Kickstarter does ask why a backer may cancel a pledge. Also, the explanation as to why I'm not messaging the former backers about this: "I felt that the level of difficulty might be an indicator that Kickstarter didn't want me contacting them." Especially with the knowledge that ACLeathercraft provided that Kickstarter already collects data on cancellations, I really don't want to harass anyone who chose to leave my project. After I explored Kickstarter enough to find a way to ask for feedback, I realized just how stalker-like it made me feel to do so.

The above section was also directed at inflexionUSA when he asked:

inflexionUSA wrote:Have you asked them directly?
The key is to stay engaged with your backers with thoughtful and meaningful dialog. Do it with updates, but also with private messages and keep it personal.

This part was also in direct response to inflexionUSA's questions: "I get the impression that I am much more communicative than most of my backers. I know Kickstarter tells you be engaged but I think that has to be balanced with not being too pushy. I have quite a lot of backers that haven't answered the direct, simple question I asked when they first joined up about what color they'd most like to see made available." Asking what colors each backer hoped to see was the most meaningful, personal thing I could think to ask my backers individually without asking personal questions unrelated to the project.

I didn't reply directly to the following statements. I am inferring from the quote at the very top of this reply that perhaps I should have. So, I'll respond to it now.

sbriggman wrote:Interesting. I've had one or two people talk about that. It can also happen the other way - I was a backer for a campaign where they kept sending updates in the final hours for people to consider raising their pledge and they ended up being funded.

Thanks.

ACLeathercraft wrote:Don't take it to heart - I am sure you will continue to be successful and that this was just a glitch

Thank you for your response, but I am not looking for emotional support. I am looking for data in the form of answers to the questions presented in the thread.

inflexionUSA wrote:It’s hard to say, people change their minds for all sorts of reasons. Did this happen after you were funded? Perhaps helping to get you funded was their primary objective.

This one, I actually missed. (My apologies, inflexionUSA.) The cancelled pledges do not seem to directly correlate to the level of funding. They are fairly consistent across the project as a slow trickle of people leaving. If I had lost several at once, I would immediately suspect that it was something I had done or not done and investigate that as much as possible. No one backed out right after either our initial goal or first stretch goal was achieved, but I did have one just before either of those goals were met. It is still entirely possible that the backers were leaving because they realized we were close enough to the goal that we might still make it without them. I'm still not sure.

Again, if I offended anyone, I offer my apologies. Like I said, I'm new to the forum experience. While I appreciate feedback about rules of etiquette, I don't believe that this thread is the appropriate place for said feedback. If anyone else would like to help relieve me of my forum etiquette naivety, I simply ask that they do so over message instead of further diluting this thread from the initial intent. Thank you in advance for your thread relevant responses.

While I definitely value the feedback from others who have responded, my original questions still stand. I'm hoping to learn from other project creators if backers cancelling pledges is something that they have experienced. While backer information is useful, it is different from what I was hoping this thread would add to this forum. If other creators out there experience minimal backer cancellation as a somewhat normal phenomenon, then project creators should be aware of that situation and take that into account while planning and funding their own projects. If it is not a normal phenomenon for most project creators, then it means that projects where this does occur may want to expend a bit more energy trying to find out why.

While I definitely value the feedback from others who have responded, my original questions still stand. I'm hoping to learn from other project creators if backers cancelling pledges is something that they have experienced. While backer information is useful, it is different from what I was hoping this thread would add to this forum.

So as not to labor the point - both of the responses you received were from Creators who are also involved heavily with cross promotion and backing.

As for offering emotional support - I apologise and I stand corrected - it is an English thing

ACLeathercraft wrote: So as not to labor the point - both of the responses you received were from Creators who are also involved heavily with cross promotion and backing.

I'm afraid I must not be communicating myself very well as I can't seem to find the answer to the question I asked. I only see your response from your perspective as a backer, not as a creator. I hoped I had clarified my question in my last reply. Maybe you could humor me and put it at the beginning of your next reply so I don't miss it again. I will try to make this as clear as I know how to try to avoid further confusion. By all means, please feel free to elaborate on your response, after the initial yes/no response to the thread question.

Have you, from your experience as a creator (not from your experience as a backer), had any experience with backers cancelling pledges from your campaign? Yes or no.

Thanks for humoring me.

(My opinions and experiences are my own and are merely offered as alternative views on the situation being discussed. My post is not intended to offend, merely to participate in the discussion in the hopes that I might be of assistance (however limited) and learn from the experience.)