BuddyBoss Site Builder Reports: Please Do It Right the First Time

This morning BuddyBoss Site Builder, yours truly, met with our programming team to go over the work needed for two customer projects. These were both sites built by other teams the customer had hired to build them. In both cases, they were built by experienced Wordpress developers who knew what they were doing. They were, however, first time BuddyBoss sites builders. The customers later reached out to us, because their first builders couldn't get the job done.

These were "mop up the mess" projects as I like to call them. We do a lot of these and I feel for these customers, They end up paying for the site once. Then they have to pay us and these jobs can get expensive. We first have to investigate and fix what they customer knows doesn't work. Then we have to do a lot of triage work to confirm the site really is working. We have a finesse for doing this work and we enjoy it.

It's a real challenge and we get these customer great results. It can be a painful process for these business owners.

Let me tell you some more about this.

BuddyBoss Site Builder Reviews Site #1

As we were going over what needed to get done, the chaos caused by these inexperienced BuddyBoss site builders became so obvious. The first site was a BuddyBoss / MemberPress site. These are two tools we recommend. They are designed to work well together. The project requirements were definitely within the capabilities of the tools. The implementation and configuration, for lack of experience, was the issue.

It had issues related to the site membership levels. The memberships were NOT configured correctly so people could mistakenly get assigned to multiple membership level. Paid members could downgrade their accounts to a free 7-day trial over and over again and get past having to pay. The customer purchase journey was confusing leaving members wondering if they were going to get charged the right amounts on the right day of the month. It also had cancellation improperly set up so people that requested cancellations still got charged.

Ugly stuff.

BuddyBoss Site Builder Reviews Site #2

The second site was a BuddyBoss / Wishlist Member configuration. This is another good tool combination. We work with these two and they work well together.

This one had a registration form that worked, but it gave users incorrect error messages. The new member registration worked, but left the new member wondering if it had failed. The Wishlist Member and BuddyBoss configurations were off so Wishlist Member understood what needed to happen, but it didn't inform BuddyBoss. The member profile displayed the incorrect membership level and there was no way to search for members. That was the first of 7 tasks I assigned to our team for that project.

BuddyBoss and these other tools I reference are not complicated. They do provide a large set of options to the point where it can be overwhelming. The tough part is knowing what to configure to provide which function and when is an additional add-on needed to address different features. Even the sharpest site builder with all the time and budget available could never guess how to get it done right. A first time BuddyBoss site builder just doesn't understand. They will miss out on the known best practices and fall short on getting all the tool was designed to do for them.

My team and I have been working with BuddyBoss since the tool first came out. You can check out my Social Learn for BuddyBoss article dated three years back for my original review of the platform. I have a second review dated a year back on the latest release. Take a look at that one as well.  We have worked with LearnDash, which has always paired up well with BuddyBoss for LMS function, and most of the major membership platforms. Having worked on 2 to 3 of these projects a month, we have seen a lot and understand how to use the tools to meet customer needs. We also know what these tools were designed to do. So if your requirements exceed what they are designed to do, we can tell you that up front so you don't select the wrong tool for your project.

Hope this helps!