You are currently browsing the Fixya Blog weblog archives for the year 2014.

Is Your Barbecue Ready for Labor Day?

With Labor Day just around the corner, millions of Americans are prepping their barbecues and backyards for one last summer cookout. But there is nothing worse than hosting a bunch of hungry friends and finding out your barbecue isn’t working properly or even worse, just won’t start.

To help you avoid this disastrous problem, here are some of the most popular problems Fixya users have run into with their barbecues, as well as the solutions that helped them keep the festivities alive.

Fixya’s Most Common Barbecue Problems

  1. Barbecue Won’t Start: One of the most common problems we found was that many people simply could not get their barbecues to start. Here is how the Fixya community suggests you fix this common issue:  http://www.fixya.com/support/t2375839-grill_light_dont_hear_gas_running
  2. Low Gas Flow: Barbecue not getting hot enough? Learn how one Fixya user was able to identify and fix his low gas flow problems:  http://www.fixya.com/support/t525729-low_gas_flow_low_heat
  3. Replacement Parts: Sometimes the best fix is to just replace the broken part. One Fixya user was able to find where to buy replacement parts for his barbecue thanks to the helpful community:  http://www.fixya.com/support/t366931-patio_classic_grill_replacement_parts
  4. George Foreman Parts: And for those that want to barbecue but lack the outdoor space for a traditional setup, the George Foreman grill is always a handy substitute. This Fixya user needed help finding the replacement parts to get his indoor grill hot and ready for cooking: http://www.fixya.com/support/t154487-replacement_parts_george_foreman_grill

You can find all the popular questions and answers for barbecues and grills here: http://www.fixya.com/troubleshoot/browse/grills_and_smokers/popular

And of course if you cannot find your problem listed on Fixya, be sure to submit your question to have the community help you. The last thing we want is to have your party stuck only eating potato salad this Labor Day.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jun Seita.

The New Fixya Brand Page

After announcing the new Local Pro Reviews feature earlier this month, we are excited to continue rolling out new pieces that we know will enhance your Fixya experience. This week we want to keep the excitement going by showcasing our new Fixya Manufacturer Brand pages.

A Fixya Brand page is the central hub for all questions, answers and general activity involving a particular brand and their products. It is the place to go if you are seeking any information about a particular brand, such as Sony, or one of their individual products, such as the Sony Playstation 4.

With the new Fixya Brand Page, Manufacturers can now personalize their page with a unique icon and cover photo transforming this page into an extension of their brand. We want this Brand page to become the customer support center for all companies.

 

Along with the customization, anyone can sort through all questions and answers for the brand using our new filter tabs. With these tabs you can separate question threads by the most popular, the most recent, unanswered questions  and recently posted answers. We want you to be able to casually browse through Brand questions or find a specific thread as quickly and easily as possible.

To see some great examples of the new Fixya Brand Pages in action, check out two of our partners pages:

http://www.fixya.com/troubleshoot/dyson

http://www.fixya.com/troubleshoot/hoover

And if you’re a Manufacturer interested in claiming and customizing your own Fixya Brand Page, simply sign up to become a Fixya Pro or look for the “Claim Your Company” link on your Brand Page.

The new Fixya Brand Pages are only the beginning of the many new features we will be rolling out over the next couple months. Be sure to check back here to learn about all the new features as soon as they are released.

 

Fixya Features: The Fixya Dashboard

Whether you are an active Fixya user or simply visited us once to get help for your broken device, there’s a good chance you probably have come across this grey bar located on the right of every user’s profile.

                                       

This is the Fixya Dashboard. You can find it in any Fixya user’s profile page. Think of it as their “player stats”; it details the user’s activity and more importantly, tells you exactly which products they are experts in.

Some of the information is fairly self-explanatory, some of it is a little trickier to understand. Regardless, we decided to take a little time to walk you through what all of this information means and why it’s important to you as a Fixya user.

 

Fixya Points: Scoring big by helping people
We’ll start our Fixya Dashboard breakdown by going over the Fixya points system.

The main way to earn points is by answering questions and depending on how recently the question was posted, you will receive anywhere between 1 to 3 points. For example, questions answered in the first 3 hours will give you 3 points while those answered after 12 hours only give you a single point.

The number of points a user has earned helps determine their level rank, where your answers appear on the question thread, your achievements and much more. There are a few other ways to earn points besides just answering questions, but we will let you explore Fixya and find those out for yourself. To get you started on earning points, here a quick peek at the different points rewarded per answer.

The next metric in the Fixya dashboard refers to the number of people you have helped with your answers. This algorithm measures how many questions you have answered, the number of people who have viewed them and the helpfulness of those answers to determine roughly how many Fixya users have benefited from your help.

For Fixya Pros, this number is especially important because it is a great way to track how many people have seen your business. This metric also influences how often your Fixya Pro Ad appears to customers in your area. (If you haven’t joined yet, be sure to check out our Fixya Pro for Local Business).

 

Expertise and Achievements: Showcase your knowledge

Think you’re an expert on a particular product or type of device? The Expertise section is a great way to show off your knowledge.

With this section, you can obtain icons representing the different products and specific brands you are a master in. The expertise icons are awarded when you have earned enough points answering questions for a specific product or brand. To see how many points you need for a particular area, check your Account Dashboard for the Progress to Expertise widget:

                              

The final section in the Fixya Dashboard is the Achievements section, which showcases the different badges you have acquired. There are several different badges for various achievements; some are easy to earn, many are difficult. Be sure to check out the full list of Fixya Achievements.

                       

And that wraps up our walkthrough of the Fixya Dashboard. Also note, we have several additional metrics to help you track your Fixya performance in your Fixya Profile which are not viewable by other users. Now that you know how the Fixya Dashboard works, be sure to keep an eye on your performance and how you stack up against the other power Fixya users.

Survey: Fixya Pro helps drive more business


Professional repair-folks, you already knew that Fixya is the best place to provide solutions and help others with their product problems. But did you know that Fixya is also the perfect platform to promote your business?

In a recent survey of Fixya Pros, we found that over half of the respondents reported having had customers from Fixya directly calling them for professional help. Several experts that joined Fixya Pro for Local Business, particularly those that fixed computers and household appliances, mentioned that customers had found their business through their Fixya Pro Ads and the answers they had posted.

Naturally we are super excited to hear that some of our Pros are receiving business through Fixya. Solving our users product problems and driving more business to our Pros have always been our two main goals when creating Fixya Pro for Local Business. (We are actually working on several new features that will help streamline the process for users to connect with our Fixya Pros, but we will get to that in the coming weeks!)

Many of the Pros we talked to also mentioned that Fixya was their favorite platform because it allows them to help people, while also promoting their business specifically to users in their area. Our Fixya Pro Ads (which are completely free) allow you to target your advertising directly to those users in your area that need help with a product problem.

And with our recently launched Local Pro Reviews system, users can now post reviews praising your business for your help. These star-ratings will help rank your business in our directory and show everyone that you are the best expert in your area.

The best part of the Fixya Pro for Local Business, it is entirely free! Just by signing up, you immediately get a free listing and local advertising on a site that attracts over 30 million visitors a month.

Our Fixya Pro for Local Businesses has been growing significantly over the past few months, as more and more local professionals want to promote their business quickly and easily. If you are a local repair business, you can join the hundreds of other Fixya Pros utilizing our free targeted advertising.

Learn more about becoming a Fixya Pro.

Introducing: Local Pro Reviews

It’s been awhile since we last updated you on what’s happening with Fixya, but we have a pretty good reason for our silence.

Over the past few months, all of us here at Fixya have been hard at work designing and building several new features and tools that we know will improve your Fixya experience. We are super excited to start rolling out these new features in the coming weeks, so be sure to continually check back here to stay up to date on what’s new.

To kick things off, we want to introduce our first new feature: Local Pro Reviews.

Local Pro Reviews: a new way to show your appreciation

Fixya Users, you love learning how to identify and fix your product problems as much as our Pros love helping you.

Now it’s time to share some of that love back to the Pros. With the new Review system, you can give direct feedback to Local Pros who may have helped you in some way. Whether they have aided you in person, via phone or email, or simply posted the perfect solution to your problem, Local Pro Reviews allows you to show them your gratitude.

And of course if the Pro has not been very helpful, you can let other Fixya users know to tread carefully with that particular Pro’s solutions. A Local Pro’s star-rating will help rank the best and brightest Pros at the top of the Local Directory, making it easier for you to find the best service professional in your area.

To review a Local Pro, simply go to their profile. Right below their Logo and Name, you will see the “Rate this pro” form. Simply select your star rating to get started!