Rant-sloppy business practices

OK - whether you are familiar with me or not, I am an attorney with a practice specializing in divorce and family law.

About 6 months ago I contracted with a new website design and SEO company to "take me to the next level" online...

Well, the website has been up for about 4 months and I had received no inquiries from potential clients - although I hounded them
about this, they stated that it "take a month or two for the search engines to rank your site" - ok, I'll buy that but, after four months
with nary an inquiry, I again inquired...
within 24 hours of my inquiry, I was sent an email with an attachment of all the emails that I should have received from potential clients.
In that email, my website people asked if I had indeed received those emails
My answer
... "NOPE!!!"


Approximately 15 emails from people who wanted to schedule a consultation with my office - gone, poof, goodbye!!!
Apparently, the website people found a "glitch" in the email server they had never seen before - UGHHHHHH!
Not sure if I believe it...nonetheless, 15 potential clients GONE!

---

Next issue happened today with my answering service...
I clicked on my calendar this morning to notice a consultation had been scheduled for 12noon...
Now, my answering service has specific instructions that I be contacted via email for all new consults and that
I must have 24 hours notice thereof.
I had never received an email. Their excuse - "We think this appointment was scheduled by someone no longer
with our company" HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!? as it was not on my calendar as of 11:30pm last night...did this person
schedule the consultation, then get fired minutes later?

If I was this sloppy in Court I would be disbarred.

" If I was this sloppy in Court I would be disbarred. " Or become a Judge.

Careful.

Some of those SEO specialists can make things worse for you.

And if you have some remote site that has an email form it is up to YOU to from time to time fill it in with some legitimate email address and concocted message to see if it ever gets to you and how long it takes.

Its obvious the answering service is lying to you. They will probably lie about the number of calls they intercept too. You had better watch them carefully too.

Quote: FleaStiff

Careful.

Some of those SEO specialists can make things worse for you.

And if you have some remote site that has an email form it is up to YOU to from time to time fill it in with some legitimate email address and concocted message to see if it ever gets to you and how long it takes.

Its obvious the answering service is lying to you. They will probably lie about the number of calls they intercept too. You had better watch them carefully too.

While that would normally be true about the emails - I gave them control of my email server as well.

Been fighting this fight for the past decade. PM me if you'd like and we can discuss.

I would suggest hiring a lawyer to sue them. That should make things right.

When I got divorced, I spent more than $36,000 just in legal fees, and I don't think I got my money's worth. So I feel your pain.

Maybe you can fight them in court and make things right. Our legal system is the solution to all of life's problems even though guys who make web pages just suck the life out of everyone.

Quote: aceofspades

While that would normally be true about the emails - I gave them control of my email server as well.

What does that have to do with your ability to validate the system by using the online form to try to contact yourself? Or making a call through the answering service to see how well they perform and how they treat your (potential) clients?

And for what possible reason do you have or need an email server? If you were big enough to have a dedicated server or be in a co-lo situation you wouldn't be dealing with clowns like this in the first place, you'd have your own IT people.

You sound a lot like the people I dealt with when interning building websites. You know some of the jargon but have no actual idea what you're talking about. I don't say this to insult you, but you need to become better educated in what you're buying. It sounds like you're getting taken precisely because of the imbalance of information.

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

What does that have to do with your ability to validate the system by using the online form to try to contact yourself? Or making a call through the answering service to see how well they perform and how they treat your (potential) clients?

And for what possible reason do you have or need an email server? If you were big enough to have a dedicated server or be in a co-lo situation you wouldn't be dealing with clowns like this in the first place, you'd have your own IT people.

You sound a lot like the people I dealt with when interning building websites. You know some of the jargon but have no actual idea what you're talking about. I don't say this to insult you, but you need to become better educated in what you're buying. It sounds like you're getting taken precisely because of the imbalance of information.

You are exactly right - I don't know if I have a server or what I have. I have an email through my website - so , whatever that is called, please insert that term "here"
Whatever it was, I gave them control.
If I am paying someone thousands of dollars to take care of something, I expect that they will take care of it - not that I have to babysit them on something I obviously don't have a clue about.

I would say screw all of that crap.

None of those companies have a horse in the race of AceofSpades, Attorney-at-Law. Who the Hell calls at 11:30p.m. to schedule a consult, anyway? It sounds to me like someone had a late night drunken argument with his/her spouse...or maybe caught them cheating...the latter case being legitimate. Still, who calls an Attorney's Office at 11:30p.m. expecting to schedule an appointment.

I would say that you should just hire a dedicated receptionist that knows a little something about web design. A dedicated wide-hipped receptionist with ample bosom and posterior, preferably blonde-haired with blue eyes and full lips...wait!

Sorry, I got off-track there a little bit!

Anyway, hire someone like that and pay them some kind of hourly rate with a stipend for their work on the website, or that can be part of their job too if you're not so busy as to need a receptionist just to do secretarial work. Make sure they have a horse in the race, too, do profit sharing on monies collected on a year-over-year or quarterly basis. Year-over-year is best if you have it end in December because that's a nice little check to help out with the Christmas bills. If you do that, not only will this individual do a good job, but she might also be more aggressive in making calls to collect your money. I've heard the payment rate on divorce lawyers isn't always the best, percentage-wise.

I would say that people understand that attorneys aren't available around-the-clock, so don't worry about that 24/7 horsecrap. I would say that when I call a lawfirm, I always ask something like, "During what hour in the next three days might I call and speak directly to an attorney?" They'll tell me, you guys are busy, but generally well-organized. I often have legal questions when I represent the hotel for something in Small Claims Court, and the attorneys are always really nice and helpful about it because they want to be the guy I call if I ever have anything that does go to Common Pleas where it would be illegal for me to represent the hotel.

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, I hope it works better than what is going on with your current services.

By the way, PM me your number for your practice and I will call on ten occasions to the answering service during off hours and will score each call pursuant to QAR Telemarketing Standards. I used to Supervise at a Telemarketing business, so I know my stuff when it comes to scoring these things.

Quote: aceofspades

You are exactly right - I don't know if I have a server or what I have. I have an email through my website - so , whatever that is called, please insert that term "here"
Whatever it was, I gave them control.
If I am paying someone thousands of dollars to take care of something, I expect that they will take care of it - not that I have to babysit them on something I obviously don't have a clue about.

My guess would be that you have shared hosting somewhere, hopefully on a *NIX/BSD platform and not some Windows POS, but in any case, sending an email from a website is very web development 101. This is not to say that there aren't ways it could get messed up, but if you don't test it, how will you know? The people you're talking about have built a business model and thrive because of the imbalance of information. You should know this, your business works the same way. They probably have very little interest in the problems you're experiencing now, they likely don't make money from maintenance work, they juicy scores are new development contracts.

As a practical matter I don't know what you can about your current situation. I probably wouldn't bother suing them, because you're just going to involve more people that don't understand what's in question and of course it will cost you more money and you're not guaranteed of recovering any damages.

Next time around ask for references and contact them about their experiences with the company, the same due diligence I'd perform if hiring an attorney. ;)

It doesnt help you in this situation, but you have to be aware that poor Customer Service is prevelent in every industry and Good service is the exception.

Just look at AC and think about how many times you have had good service compared to missed opportunites.

Or maybe, just maybe they hired some laid off Revel and Bally's employees who believe that people will flock in the doors no matter what you do to send them back out.

If you are paying more than $150 for the email and web service, you are being over charged. Especially if they "are losing emails". I've had one problem in an email server in around 15 years of paying someone to run it for my own domains, and that was solved in 24 hours, and the company knew about it before I did.

The set up costs and design and SEO work could set you back nothing or thousands, depending on your needs and the company involved. If you have web savvy friends, and want a simple set of pages, it's a cheap enough job. If it's just to generate leads, and say "I am here", it's a $500 job at a couple of the cheap'n'easy chop shops I know off. Search Engine Optimization is magic (in that it looks all clever, but a lot of it simple parlour tricks once you know how... but knowing how and be bothered by learning is the sort of thing many people quite happily, and sensibly defer to other people).

A domain costs $10 if you buy it through Google.

A book on basic HTML can be bought for $10 at a Half Price Books store. Or you can create the site in Word and save it as an HTML document.

$20 to set up your own website. Mirror your email to a gmail account, and check your email on your phone.

Problem solved, and you aren't bitching about someone else.

Quote: SACR

A domain costs $10 if you buy it through Google.

A book on basic HTML can be bought for $10 at a Half Price Books store. Or you can create the site in Word and save it as an HTML document.

$20 to set up your own website. Mirror your email to a gmail account, and check your email on your phone.

Problem solved, and you aren't bitching about someone else.

The problem with DIY is that it often looks like it. If I were aces I would pay for a professional job and expect it to be done right. Same thing when I hire a lawyer.

Something about a lawyer defending himself and having a fool for a client rings a bell.

Quote: skrbornevrymin

The problem with DIY is that it often looks like it. If I were aces I would pay for a professional job and expect it to be done right. Same thing when I hire a lawyer.

True. You want a lawyer who looks like a lawyer and has his offices in the "right" neighborhood, etc. This however simply requires a bit more time and effort and does not require surrender of technological control.

Supposedly getting fancy graphics is great ... but those email leads are valuable and time-sensitive... that is what is important.

A thick carpet is impressive but for criminal law a steel chair and linoleum floor may suffice. This was a divorce practice. It requires the image of thick carpets, resources, quick response, hard hitting and able to withstand a paper blizzard and foot dragging. Once the website has an appropriate image, its the calls and emails that are important. Losing control over those emails is bad for business and who knows how many more were actually lost somewhere in cyberspace.

One of the first things a divorce lawyer does after getting his retainer is to ask a woman where her old check stubs, tax returns and jewelry are located. Upon hearing "at home" the lawyer will hit the intercom button and instruct his secretary to call a cab for Mrs. New Client as she is returning home immediately. Lawyers know access to the records is important and that getting valuables out of harms way can be important. That Retainer Check and Asset Protection action can't be taken until a potential client comes in and blurts out their problems. That email is critical and control over should not be surrendered.

My costs to run goodshooter.com I think I pay $1.25/month for the web hosting and something like ten bucks a year for the domain name, I forget. The rest I did with my own labor and with free stuff.

I can do perl scripts and automated stuff, but nothing super fantastic, but as much as I need.

Basically if you do it yourself, websites can be very very cheap even ones that look pretty clean and professional.

But I think that there is a higher standard for a lawyer's web site. People probably expect it to look professional, and might have qualms about hiring a lawyer who had an unprofessional-looking website.

Also, as a software guy, I'd expect you to be able to throw something together than looks better than it would if a lawyer did it. Not badmouthing lawyers, but they are different skill sets. I wouldn't expect a lawyers to design and maintain a professional-looking website any more than I'd expect an engineer to do a good job defending me in court.

There's also the time cost. Just because you can do something almost as well as professional, it doesn't mean it's in your interests to do so. The time may be better spent on other aspects of your business.

I'd fire your current company and find a better shop.

Used to be you could contact the Better Business Bureau to check out companies before you try them. Not a sure thing, but flying blind is even less so.

BBB is online.

You can even buy a good rating with them, if you so choose...I don't.

deleted

Cool, I'll try out that answering service a few times over the next few days.

Quote: aceofspades

Show Spoiler

Website--did not want this tracked back here so putting in a spoiler tag.

I'm curious what you mean by the above comment. BTW, I have removed your URL from the quote and you probably should too. Especially if the above comment means what I think it means.

I'm curious what you paid for the site design and SEO work. You don't have to post it here, you could PM it, or not even do that if you really don't want to. I'm just curious how much money I could make by installing WordPress (free software) on someone's shared hosting server and applying a WordPress template (also likely free) and doing a few tweaks. I'd venture they have nearly an hour worth of work put into the job they did for you, and the lion's share of it was probably spent cut & pasting the content you provided to them. There's absolutely nothing I saw about they sold to you that required a web developer, a high school student with basic computer skills could have erected your currect site. I think you'd do well to have some analytics installed and view those reports on a very regular basis. In a perfect world you'd have done this before their SEO work so you could compare and see how much they helped you. However, if their SEO work is on par with their web dev skills I doubt you'd have seen much of a change in your traffic patterns.

Also, it may be worth noting that paying extra to register your domain privately doesn't make a lot of sense for a business. You just use your already freely available business address and phone number. You want people to have that info anyway, right?

Also, FWIW, I'd keep the old domain names (the one with the words Manhattan and Long Island in them) and have them redirect to the new website. Further, I don't think the previous incarnation of the site looked awful, but that horizontal blue bar was HUGE. And I'm glad to see you got off that Windows server.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what I was able to uncover using only your current domain name. I would seriously consider removing it from your post.

If you don't keep an old domain name cybersquatters buy them up, load up the site with pornography and then contact you about your buying it back.

Quote: Ahigh

When I got divorced, I spent more than $36,000 just in legal fees

Why is getting a divorce so expensive?

Because it's worth it!

Quote: Mission146

Cool, I'll try out that answering service a few times over the next few days.

Well I get charged by the minute they are on the phone

Quote: aceofspades

Well I get charged by the minute they are on the phone

You should still have someone that knows their stuff analyze the quality of the service a few times. It would be better for you to spend the $$$ on 10-15 total minutes on the phone now rather than hours on a shitty service over time. Also, if it turns out it is a quality service, that will put your mind at ease.

Quote: Mission146

You should still have someone that knows their stuff analyze the quality of the service a few times. It would be better for you to spend the $$$ on 10-15 total minutes on the phone now rather than hours on a shitty service over time. Also, if it turns out it is a quality service, that will put your mind at ease.

Are you up for the job?

Quote: aceofspades

Are you up for the job?

I'll absolutely analyze them Ace, and for you, no charge!

I think that I will call them 2x/day for the next five days. I'll also type up a Quality Assurance Review Table for each call and fax or E-Mail you the scores! If E-Mailed, would you prefer Microsoft Word or Google Drive?

Quote: rxwine

Used to be you could contact the Better Business Bureau to check out companies before you try them. Not a sure thing, but flying blind is even less so. BBB is online.

In many areas of the country the BBB acts like a shake down organization. If they receive a complaint about a company they send a salesman out to sign it up for membership. Usually the salesman gets fifty percent commission and later over-rides. Dues are often whimsically determined as what the traffic will bear.

Hire someone to do your website. If it costs a thousand or two, so what? I don't know how big you are so I can't comment on the need for around the clock phone lines. The work of the current third parties that you have hired is clearly unacceptable and you would be wise to dump them ASAP.

Quote: Mission146

By the way, PM me your number for your practice and I will call on ten occasions to the answering service during off hours and will score each call pursuant to QAR Telemarketing Standards. I used to Supervise at a Telemarketing business, so I know my stuff when it comes to scoring these things.

Now I understand why you are so willing to cold-call places!

Quote: tringlomane

Now I understand why you are so willing to cold-call places!

I always enjoyed that job, and would not be 1/2 the bullshitter I am without it.

You have to be good. If you have your employees complaining about how crappy a certain file is with respect to leads, and are an ineffective salesperson yourself, your only recourse is to say, "Quit complaining and turn your box back on!" If they complain about the leads to me, and I jump on their dialer and hammer out a sale within ten minutes, that calms them down and gets them focused on the task at hand really quick.

Actually, that's almost why I never ended up being a supervisor, it meant taking me off the phones!