Our Approach For Project Inquiries - From April 2024

With Feedbax's dynamic evolution and the growing scale of our platform and customer base, we constantly encounter new challenges. Our goal is to continually enhance the user and customer experience on our platform through transparency and positive interactions, integrating our appreciation for our paying clients into this experience.

In matching project inquiries with suitable providers, we've identified optimization potentials in our existing approach, largely based on feedback from numerous clients.

To consistently offer high-quality comparative offers to clients, we've previously vetted your applications through a manual shortlisting process by our experts. The best applications, according to our criteria, were selected, prioritizing those from our paying clients when quality was equal.

However, this approach isn't scalable and has led to negative experiences for many of you, as applications requiring effort are ultimately rejected. The role of our experts as 'filters' can seem opaque and sometimes unfair to those not making the shortlist.

As our number of paying clients grows rapidly, we find ourselves more often having to reject applications from Enterprise and Premium clients, which can lead to frustrating experiences.

After numerous constructive conversations with providers like you, we've taken your desire for change on board and are making adjustments to our approach.

Important: The following approaches are not feasible for us:

• Buying leads by any interested party: This doesn't ensure that clients receive high-quality offers. Also, the risk of ghosting is high as clients may be overwhelmed by offers and contact attempts.
• Buying leads by the first 3 or 5 interested parties: This benefits only the smallest providers as they can act much quicker. Also, the quality of applications can't be guaranteed.

Adjustments in the inquiry process - effective from April 2024:

One of the most common pieces of feedback from our customers has been that the number of applications per request is too high, making the project requests overly competitive and thus less attractive. We sometimes receive 40 or even more than 50 applications for a single request. To reduce the number of applications and ensure a certain level of exclusivity, moving forward, only our paying subscribers will be able to apply for requests.

Furthermore, we are introducing an auction-based bidding process, as this is the only possible approach to introduce the necessary transparency into this process. Other approaches mean that rejected providers cannot understand exactly why they were not shortlisted.

Selected providers with the relevant expertise will receive an email notification about new project inquiries and can express their interest in applying. All bidders who fulfill the following transparent and essential criteria may submit their application and bid for the lead within the application period and view the bids of other applicants. They do not need to create application documents without knowing if they'll be shortlisted.

Essential criteria for the bidding process:

• At least one case study in the required expertise in your profile.
• Your website listed in your profile, clearly supporting your expertise in the targeted area.
• Your team speaks the required project language.
• Your Feedbax profile is well-maintained, showing the desired expertise with at least a 20% weighting.

These criteria are designed to ensure the quality of applications for clients while remaining completely transparent to all interested parties.

The top 3 or 5 bids, depending on the shortlist size, meeting these criteria will make the shortlist and get the chance to apply with a proposal document for the project inquiry. If their proposal documents do not meet our quality criteria, the next best bidders on the waiting list will be given the opportunity to take their place on the shortlist.

Benefits for paying subscribers:

To show our appreciation for our loyal customers, we've put together a special offer for you: an annual bidder credit that reflects your commitment and loyalty. Here are the details of our thank you gesture:

• Enterprise customers receive a credit of €400.
• Premium customers enjoy a credit of €300.
• Business customers are rewarded with a credit of €200.

Additionally, we offer our subscribers a generous bonus with every recharge of their bidder credit:

• Enterprise customers enjoy a 100% bonus.
• Premium customers receive a 60% bonus.
• Business customers get a 20% bonus.

Benefits of the new procedure:

With this new procedure, we can ensure the following:

• Minimized application effort, as only those on the shortlist apply with a proposal document.
• Maximization of transparency in the selection process, as all selection criteria are openly accessible.
• High quality of applications, as our quality criteria must be met, and shortlisted providers still apply with a proposal document.
• Long-term discounts for our paying customers as a sign of our appreciation.

Dealing with Ghosting:

Despite our efforts and acting in good faith to introduce new procedures with clients and background checks, we cannot completely eliminate the issue of ghosting.

At Feedbax, we highly value offering flexible solutions to our partners. Should a client demonstrably not respond to your contact attempts by email and phone, we offer special support: We convert your invested bid into a credit. You can then use this credit for future bids or offset it when you subscribe to a plan with us.

To avoid misunderstandings, we would like to define "ghosting" more precisely:

It refers to a client who doesn't respond within two weeks after your third contact attempt. Please note that all attempts to reach the client must occur within two weeks of receiving their contact details.

Remember to cc Feedbax ([email protected]) in all communications with clients. This enables us to optimally support you and the clients throughout the process and ensure smooth handling.

We believe these adjustments will pave the way for even more effective collaboration on our platform. Your feedback is very important to us, and we look forward to your comments on these changes.

You will be separately notified once our new feature is launched.