Zenstores status page
Updated 20/05/2016: We've now launched the Zenstores Status Page: visit status.zenstores.com to check the status of the Zenstores app and our connections to ecommerce platforms and shipping providers.
This video explains how you can access the status page from within the dashboard and direct from your browser in the event of any isssues.
Original post: 07/05/2016: How we will do better
This Tuesday (03/05/2016) some of our users noticed the Zenstores dashboard taking longer than usual to respond. Our busy sellers, faced with a Bank Holiday backlog of orders, let us know pretty quickly that they were having problems shipping orders and we got on the case, resolving the problem within a few hours.
So why the blog post? I think most people realise that technical problems are an unfortunate inevitability of life and that even if you’re using a brand-new iPhone with 10,000 hours of product testing under its belt, there’s a good chance something won’t work properly at some stage. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything we can to prevent problems from occurring. Our goal is to deliver a perfect experience for every one of our users every time they log in to Zenstores. and we are truly sorry for the delays this issue caused.
However, if occasionally we fall short in that goal, as we have in this instance, the most important thing becomes how well we manage the situation and minimise the disruption caused. That’s where I think we let some of our users down this time, so this blog is about how we can do better next time something goes wrong.
So what actually happened?
It’s very simple: Zenstores became extremely busy. Our business is growing rapidly and although we ensure our systems have lots of spare capacity to accommodate high demand, Tuesday saw a completely unprecedented number of users on the platform, orders being imported, and shipments being created. This unfortunately meant some users experienced slow page load-times on the Zenstores dashboard.
We’ve solved this problem by dramatically increasing the amount of spare bandwidth so that it can accommodate many times the demand we saw on Tuesday. We’re confident this will prevent this issue from occurring again.
However, the knock-on effect was that as Zenstores began to slow down for some users, they started to wonder whether the issue was on their end. Although we did send out a message to everyone who was online at that time, we didn’t do it immediately and I know many people restarted their computer a few times to see if that solved the problem. Some tried Zenstores with three different internet browsers. Some rebooted their routers.
Our users shouldn’t have had to do these things.
What we’re going to change
Zenstores Live Status
In the next couple of weeks we’ll launch a status page that Zenstores users can check to see whether there are any issues with our dashboard or any of our connections to the various ecommerce platforms, marketplace and carriers we are integrated with.
From one place just a click from the Zenstores dashboard users will be able to see whether there are any issues with our service. If the issue is at our end, they won’t need to waste time trying to troubleshoot their computers or internet connections. We’ll then follow up with direct communication about the issue via our in-app chat service and keep users informed with timely updates.
This update is a simple one, but we think it will help deliver on our promise to our users to provide clear information about what’s happening on the rare occasions there’s an issue.
Once again, we’d like to apologise to all Zenstores users affected on Tuesday and to reassure you that we are committed to providing an unparalleled service for online sellers. If there’s anything else you think we can do to improve the level of service we offer please let us know in the comments section below.
Yours,
The Zenstores Team
