Absurdly unprofessional and inability to deliver quality work.
I cannot recommend working with them on any other level. They are absurdly unprofessional. My team's experience working with BuddyBoss has been utterly frustrating. We tried them for DFY (done for you), we tried them for Agency work at $145/hour and they are 100% sub-par to any agency or plugin support we've ever worked in the 25+ collective years my team has worked with any plugin company or agency. And this says a lot about them, here is my breakdown why: 1. In our experience, their Agency model is incompetent, they are acting like order takers vs. a real agency where you actually help the client (meaning you problem solve and offer up solutions), the amount of handholding we've had to do on this "Agency" team, I should have gotten paid part time. 2. We paid a retainer and trying to eat up the work until it runs out so we can just move on with our lives but it's so so so so very painful to work with them. 3. Tom and Mike were original owners since the new owners took over it's gotten progressively worse. Graham the "managing director" literally ignores escalation emails, you hear from him when he's sending out emails about why didn't you buy PRO or PLUS (their "latest" upgrade screams that they want to get more money out of you) or why haven't you jumped on their deal yet, everything else is crickets, and Marcus their alleged "Director of PM" (whatever he does) is old school 1990's PM management (their 1 PM, Diane never checks anything (meaning quality checks anything), there's constant issues we get thrown over the fence for us to review and tell them it's a hot mess, the team says their product is "responsive" but when we check on mobile screens it's an embarrassment, we have login tracking in our WordPress when anyone we've given access signs in or out. She signed in 2xs to our project and that was 8 months ago, what kind of PM does that??). If you could see the amount of back and forth we're done with his team in the Philippines and India to squeeze 1-2 questions answered MAYBE A WEEK out of them to respond, utterly absurd. 4. They have that team overlapping with doing other things so "Agency" quality work is pulled by internal work which utterly makes the 145/hour they charge you to respond to you in 2-3 days or sometimes 3-4 days later absurd. Considering most of their team is offshore doing the work in India and Philippines that hourly amount is also absurd because it is not the level of customer service a US based company would charge. 5. We've never worked with a more slow-dragging "Agency" in all our lives. It's insane how they pass off 145/hour as "Agency" work. If you are handholding an Agency and repeating questions left unanswered for days and days, it's not Agency you hired an expensive team YOU manage. 6. Their "retainer" model is essentially theft. You can't get your money back, yes we signed the contract but not if they deliver incompetence. They basically trap you into the retainer, but if you contest their incompetence you don't get a refund. Some can argue we signed a contract but we never signed a contract to be treated with incompetence! Big difference. 7. Lack of target dates. Anyone anywhere working with a professional Agency typically gets a target date or estimation of completion. Not these folks. They are utterly oblivious to project management in that sense. Agile is a word they throw around to use as the nature of Agile means they lack any structure. That's not Agile that's hiding behind Agile because the team is stretched, disorganized, and don't have a clue how to offer real support or creative solutions (but call themselves doing "Agency" work). 8. When we did need help from BuddyBoss' "support" the Lawrence guy took 2.5 months to help us and it wasn't real quality help, he repeatedly asked for FTP access which we gave and yet he never found the solution and blamed it on other plugins although those plugins are on their own "integrations" list. Like gamification or their FluentSMTP! They are supposed to test these and clearly it was messy. Their new owners are certainly riding on the old reputation of Tom and Mike (former owners) but since the new owners took over it's been a disgusting, hot mess of one poor experience after another. They lack quality control of most "Agency" models. Very little structure, we wouldn't call their "Agency" work Agency it's a bloated excuse of $145/hour, do not get roped into their retainer model or use those services. YOU WILL REGRET IT.