Last week, I hastily bought ink for my printer in a rush to copy some important documents on my home computer. Later, I unfortunately found the ink cartridge box and packaging had already been opened! I did not notice at the time of purchase that a previous person had used clear tape to reseal the box.
Essentially, what I thought I was buying brand new ended up not working for my printer. I thought I was getting one thing, but unknowingly received something completely different.
This reminds me of when a client calls our office, jilted by a previous design agency, and needs help to pull off an important creative project. It is painful to hear so many stories of people paying for a service, and then either never getting results or finding out they received a faulty product.
For example, recently we had the opportunity to help a client in the middle of launching an innovative service for start up trade professionals.At face value the website appeared functional, but once we dug into the back end coding of the site, we were astonished to find several security problems, database weaknesses, and poor coding methods. The client had no idea the site they had paid for was so broken down, it was unfit to launch it to the public. It was a very tough situation to explain to the client.
Despite this painful experience, the GOOD news is we were able to come alongside the client to revamp their design and security specs, and rework the code to make it a more sustainable site; and now the they are fostering new business partnerships and growing the site’s functionality.
So how do you avoid this kind of scenario happening to you? Unfortunately, you cannot always control what happens to you, but you can make sure you find a trustworthy team to work with. Be careful who you share you hard earned ideas and money with. Find a team who is experienced, has good references, get a contract on the work and don’t “rush it” when it comes to website design and development.
