Product

Product Update: October 2020

User research, design updates, smaller booking minimum, and more

By Heather Roonan

Some of our changes this month may seem small, but they’re all working toward a better and more user-friendly GigSalad. As always, we’re listening and your feedback continues to be invaluable. So keep it comin’!

In this update:

We’re getting to know our users

Talking to our users and solving their problems has always been the driving force behind our development efforts. To help us with that, we’ve added a full-time UX Researcher to the team!

Pragya Bhatt has a wealth of experience helping companies better understand their customers and we can’t wait to see what she’ll do for GigSalad. Her research will include surveying and interviewing our users to study their behavior and learn what they need to succeed. Let us know if you’d like to be a part of it.

👋 You can get to know Pragya better at the end of this post.

Pretty design tweaks

We’re regularly making small improvements to various design elements around the site to provide a cleaner experiencer. Here are a couple of cosmetic changes we made last month:

Alert boxes

We moved away from the more jarring full-color boxes to just a white background with color elements. We also added icons to make it easier to quickly identify the reason for the alert.

Radio options and checkboxes

We cleaned up checkboxes and radio selectors across the site so they are more in line with our updated UI and design standards around the web. Essentially they are more user-friendly and visually-appealing to interact with.

Book smaller gigs, if needed

With so many services going virtual this year, we’ve seen a lot of requests for shorter gigs at a lower price. In order to better accommodate those bookings through GigSalad, we’ve lowered the minimum booking price. You can now offer quick performances or video appearances for as low as $15.

More visible review score

Rather than tracking down your review score on your Dashboard or in your profile, you can now always see it the dropdown menu when logged into your account.

We fixed some things

Nothing is ever perfect, so we’re regularly finding small issues or bugs that need to be fixed. A couple of notable ones recently were:

Saved messages. If you previously tried to add or update a saved message without a title, it wouldn’t return an error letting you know that it wasn’t working. Now, the update button won’t even appear until the required title is provided.

All-day events. When you add all-day events to your GigSalad calendar, those were previously displaying on your profile as 12:00am – 11:59pm. That is odd and not user-friendly, so we fixed it and those dates now say “all day event.”

See your savings options

We recently made it easier to view and compare how much you are saving when using a coupon to upgrade or add time to your membership. Before, the discount amount was only shown in the price breakdown. Now, all membership options will show their full price as well as the discounted price for the coupon being applied.

For October only, use the promo code BOO40 to save 40%!

Who’s that girl… it’s Pragya!

It’s always cool to watch our team grow, and Pragya is an especially exciting addition for all the reasons we mentioned above. So we wanted to give you the chance to get to know the person that’s going to be helping us get to know you.

Where are you from?
I was born in a small town in North India near the mountains, and grew up in New Delhi until the age of 11 before immigrating to California with my family in 2000. Fun fact: I’m the first generation in my family to grow up in a big city, the rest of the older generation was based in a remote village near the Himalayas.

What’s your favorite movie genre?
Thriller & Comedy.

Are you an early bird or a night owl?
Night Owl for life! Although I love sunrises and like to spontaneously wake up around 4:30 am to catch beautiful skies some days.

What skill would you like to master?
Race car and motorcycle driving! I want to own a Harley Davidson or Royal Enfield someday.

How do you like to spend your free time?
Cooking & working on satisfying my need for creative expression. I’ve freelanced as a Stylist for up and coming artists in the Pop Music Industry. And I’m currently learning Script-Writing and hope to write and make a series in the near future!

What’s your favorite party game?
Monopoly, hands down!

If you could have dinner with any famous person, who would you choose?
Egyptian Queen Nefertiti – I’d love to learn about how she managed the massive Egyptian empire and her trials with power in a male-dominated world.

Favorite thing about working at GigSalad so far?
The people, hands down! Each and every member of the team is passionate and committed to the success of our customers.

4 Comments
  1. Gene Hamm October 13, 2020

    The new improvements sound great. Thank you.

    Reply
  2. Johnny Kealoha October 13, 2020

    Help i’m melting! I have over 50 verified 5 star reviews and leads from GigSalad are as rare as hens teeth. I appreciate the many leads received for over a decade but I’m a retired 77 year old Hawaiian entertainer on a fixed income in the poor house. I appreciate the comp subscription you gave me in the past but I can’t afford a subscription at this time even with your generous discounts. As a long time customer I would appreciate being considered for a special senior dispensation after all your policy is to also favor one with over 50 highest, verified reviews. Mahalo for many years of service!

    Reply
    • Megan Price October 15, 2020

      Hi Johnny, please reach out to our Customer Happiness team at help@gigsalad.com or call us at 417-889-9909 to see what we can do for you. Thank you!

      Reply
  3. Hands Free Entertaining (Damon) October 13, 2020

    Welcome Pragya to the GS Team! Has your team been able to find a way to notify contractors when a customer books another contractor? (so we don’t continue to hold the date for the GS customer)

    In the past, I have been notified only through my PERSONAL E-mail, but not through my Gig Salad Inbox. Notification via my personal E-mail box should only be SECONDARILY, not as the primary means of communication when a customer declines our offers.

    Thank you.

    Reply

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