Will The Way Corelogic Treats Its Appraisers Hurt Alamode Renewals?

[hastalavista]

I was a long time clickforms user, back when it carried other names, but when they stiffed the appraiser when UAD came out I left..

TJ-

What did Clickforms do that stiffed the appraisers when UAD came out?
If memory serves (and mine may be faulty) I recall ACI having a huge problem. In fact, I left ACI for Clickforms because of that problem (I'm pretty sure it was when UAD was introduced).

 

[bnmappraisal]

Not much of a discussion.

.

Eli's poll about # of clients per month bumped this one from the main page

 

[Evincere]

Not much of a discussion.

.

No doubt Alamode (a forum sponsor as well) now owned by data collector Corelogic would be very interested in keeping tabs on this poll and opinions posted.

I see no reason for Appraisers to show their hands.

 

[Meandering]

Eli's poll about # of clients per month bumped this one from the main page

The OP said they wanted to discuss and disappeared.

 

[Non Sequitur]

TJ-

What did Clickforms do that stiffed the appraisers when UAD came out?
If memory serves (and mine may be faulty) I recall ACI having a huge problem. In fact, I left ACI for Clickforms because of that problem (I'm pretty sure it was when UAD was introduced).

Bradford charged then current users (IIRC) around $500 for the UAD plug-in. New users that signed up the day after payed regular subscription prices with no plug-in surcharge. It’s a big reason why I’m with a la mode now.

 

[bnmappraisal]

deleted - reread what I was going to quote/ask and answered my own question

 

[hastalavista]

Bradford charged then current users (IIRC) around $500 for the UAD plug-in. New users that signed up the day after payed regular subscription prices with no plug-in surcharge. It’s a big reason why I’m with a la mode now.

Thanks, NS. I did not realize that.
I guess I was one that signed up the day after. Been happy ever since; can appreciate why existing customers who paid a surcharge left.

 

[TJSum]

Yes Denis, the regular users were on yearly maintenance contracts which covered all updates to the software. But when the UAD update came out, they charged their users an update fee to comply with UAD which went against the purpose of having that yearly maintenance contract in the first place. I liked the software as a long time user, but that was bad business practice in my opinion and decided to move on. I find Total and Clickforms very similar in ease of use.

 

[hastalavista]

I don't blame you and I didn't realize this.
Intereting... UAD caused conflict for at least two software companies (as I recall):
ACI's implementation was a technical nightmare.
Apparently, Clickform's fee charge was a marketing nightmare.

I had issues with ala mode prior to this; they made promises that the system just didn't deliver (I needed a networked system; I even flew out one of their tech-guys... a nice guy who used to post here... out to give a 2 day training to the staff).

No one is perfect.

 

[timd354]

I don't blame you and I didn't realize this.
Intereting... UAD caused conflict for at least two software companies (as I recall):
ACI's implementation was a technical nightmare.
Apparently, Clickform's fee charge was a marketing nightmare.

I had issues with ala mode prior to this; they made promises that the system just didn't deliver (I needed a networked system; I even flew out one of their tech-guys... a nice guy who used to post here... out to give a 2 day training to the staff).

No one is perfect.

Yes, Clickforms made a marketing mistake....their view of it was that the UAD was essentially a change in the forms itself, so that would not be covered by a software maintenance update. I knew Jeff Bradford a little bit and I know that the changes required to the form software due to the UAD required a lot of work (and expense) on their end (and although he never told me this directly), I believe that absorbing the costs of the UAD changes without charging appraisers would have been very tough on Bradford (which is much smaller than ala mode was) financially. ACI (which was also much smaller than ala mode) apparently made a technical mess of the update (at aleast according to numerous appraisers) and I have to wonder if they also found expenses involved with the UAD update to be daunting and thus did not test the updates to their software as much as they should have before rolling it out.

Personally, when I was appraising, I found ala mode's software to be a resource hog on a computer's operating system and to be very clunky and slow (possibly because it was loaded with features that a very small appraisal shop simply did not need) and much more difficult to use compared to other appraisal software, which caused a significant increase in the time type up an appraisal report...I was a Day One user and loved that software until they went kaput and then I tried ala mode, did not like it and ended up with Bradford, which I did like. I never tried ACI, but my mentor did (he was also a Day One user) and he was not at all pleased with ACI, which is one reason I never used it.