

Hello Santa - jordanlyall
https://www.hellosanta.com/?utm_source=hacker_news&utm_medium=link&utm_content=1&utm_campaign=hacker_news

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HorizonXP
I'd love to use this, but I agree, I need to know the pricing up front. Also,
can we see what a video message might look like? I'd like to evaluate the
quality of the message before I send it to my friends kids.

Edit: never mind, you do have some edited samples. It's the same Santa
throughout (which makes sense) so we have to take your word that the message
we get will be of the same calibre. But that's the risk we take I suppose.

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hoopism
My deceptive senses were tingling... but for 20 and 10 bucks... it's a pretty
nice service.

I can see why they wait on the price... probably converts better by getting
people little pregnant. Maybe HN crowd is too sensitive to the practice.

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Jeremy1026
I don't like that you capture all my data before even mentioning pricing. I
get that you want to build your email list, but it is a bit backhanded to hide
pricing that far in.

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jordanlyall
Thanks for giving us a shot. We've found that by having parents make micro-
commitments then hitting them with the price we convert better.

Did you really think it would be free? How can we better present the value of
delivering high-quality theatrical performance on demand?

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deckar01
Santa call center in India?

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jordanlyall
Of course, there's only on Santa. ;)

However we do have a distributed network of hundreds of highly trained, pre-
screened performers all across the country.

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hoopism
Anyone go through the hurdles to get price? Not interested in the product...
but am interested in what they charge.

Show HN seems misleading... says it's from the jib jab guys... isn't that a
fairly established entity?

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jordanlyall
We're charging $19.99 for a live video chat with Santa plus a recording of
your call. We've also introduced $9.99 for a video message from Santa.

Last season was our first year. This year we teamed up with JibJab to help
bring HelloSanta to the masses.

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pietro
Put it on the front page. Not mentioning the price up front is creepy.

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airjrdn
Can I do more than one child at a time? I'm not trying to be cheap, but it
would be odd to have one leave the room for 5 minutes, then switch them.

The information you ask for obviously assumes one child.

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airjrdn
I'm replying as a follow-up after having used the service.

I ended up having to reschedule due to my internet connection going down an
hour before my first scheduled call. It ended up coming back up (Comcast was
working in the area) in time, but I didn't know if it would and decided to be
safe rather than sorry. The reschedule process was flawless.

My boys are 7 and 8 and still "mostly" believe. They were the ones I did this
for. My girls; 11 & 12 don't, so I didn't involve them.

The "Facetime" style live video option was, without a shred of doubt, worth
every penny. The boys absolutely loved it. Santa was awesome, and him knowing
their teacher's names was a convincing little tidbit of information. There
were a couple of odd-placed "dings" during the call that I'm still not sure
about (what they meant), but other than that, it was flawless. My older son
was so excited he could barely sit still. He did throw Santa a curve ball at
the end asking if Santa had anything for his sisters, but Santa was able to
think on his feet and get through it without a hitch.

The only suggestion I can come up with is possibly providing some method of
testing the live video feed 24-48 hours before the call. I had no issues on an
iMac which has a good built-in webcam, but as a primary Windows user, I would
have wanted to test things before the call to make sure it would work if I
were using a Windows box.

Overall - great service, thank you for posting it, and if they still believe,
I'll be doing it again next year!

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planetjones
What does a highly personalized video message mean ? Some of these things I've
seen just follow a script and add names of the children and family members in.
For $10 will your santa read a full script ?

