When you are in a service business like managing websites, it is inevitable that once in a while you will lose a client. We understand this, and are proud at our retention rate which is in the very high 90% range. The thing people should remember is to be very careful when starting with a new provider, as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But then you get there and the grass is burned out and looks like crap.
I recently had this happen. I had a client for a while and built them a custom site which was built 100% to the specifications of their designer. Fast forward a couple years and they left, unhappy with of all things the design (which came from them). Their other complaint had to do with the content. Funny, the content came directly from their marketing people. So the two reasons they left had nothing whatsoever to do with us.
Now, in their defense they were probably told by some quick talking salesman that he could achieve everything they didn’t like about their old website. Sure enough, I checked it out and not only did they not fulfill any of the things they thought were missing from our site, the site was built with a cheap e-commerce product and lousy looking theme. They basically went from the e-commerce pinnacle used by Nike and other world-class companies to the cheapo e-commerce platform chosen by Joe’s Hemp Jewelry Stand. No one in the world could possibly look at this website and say “wow that’s much better”.
So they went from a custom designed very cool site to quite frankly something that makes you want to quickly go elsewhere.
Now, I am a big enough developer to realize that there are times where somebody builds a better site than I may have. It has happened once or twice. LOL. I also have to say, there are times where personality wise you just don’t click with someone. And they will find any excuse to go elsewhere. My approach is to just wish them the best, and send them on their way. Nine out of 10 times they will come back as they realize not only is the site inferior, the service they are receiving doesn’t come close to matching what we gave them. We answer every support ticket on the same day. No one else in the industry comes close. This people find out very quickly when they’re waiting two weeks on a minor text change.
Bottom line: When you are thinking of leaving, make sure the company you are going to provide you with an ARL. This is an approved requirements list that they need to approve and deliver on. So they don’t come back and say “oh we can’t do that”. “Oh, that’s extra”. “Sorry that will take another three months”. Etc. etc.
Your Thoughts? Let me know your thoughts on the subject. Either fill out the comment form below, or contact us.
We did a post a while back in which we shared some tools we use on a daily basis to make our lives managing websites easier. We have an updated list and hope you find these time saving/helpful sites as beneficial as we do. Best of all, they are free to use.
1) Embed Responsively – This is a great site for those of you who are embedding video and want to make sure it is responsive. This not only works for YouTube, it embeds all different types of video.
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2) Character Count Online – This easy tool is great for writing tweets. It counts characters including spaces, words, paragraphs and whitespace.
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3) ConvertCase.com – This site saves me time as some clients love the cap lock. This site converts case and has several options.
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4) Text Fixer – This site can do a variety of tasks to help you on a daily basis. It can alphabetize things, put in numerical order, remove dupes and more.
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5) Am I Responsive – This cool little site shows what your site will look like on various devices, from desktops to pads and SmartPhones.
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6) LastPass Password Generator – In today’s world, it is no longer ok to have easy passwords that hackers can figure out. This tool will generate long, safe passwords with a variety of options.
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7) PHP Beautifier – If you code your own PHP or just have a WordPress site that others write code for, one thing is for sure: At some point you or someone else will need to go into the code. Many programmers are great at writing code but do not format their code properly. This makes it hard for those who come afterwards. This tool will beautify your code and make it easier to edit for the next person tasked with editing.
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8) Unsplash – We all at times have to use stock photos. Some sites are so full of overused images, you cringe just looking at them. This site offers 10 free images every 10 days. And they aren’t your typical shots. They are spectacular and can be used for any project. I used one of their images for this post :).
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9) Lorem Ipsum – When we build websites, we don’t always have the text we need to complete the pages. Rather than have blank pages, I prefer to use placeholder text. This tool allows you to generate words, characters, bytes. The text is derived from Latin literature from 45 BC. It is the perfect placeholder as people don’t get caught up reading and commenting on the words.
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10) SSL Analyzer – This tool will tell you if your SSL certificate is valid and also will give you a lot of information about your certificate.
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Have any great time saving sites you’d like to share? Add a comment below.
