In the five years I have been running this business, never once has a customer not paid.

Every now and then, we run into issues, but every time, we have managed to come to an agreement that works.

We are a design company. I accept that sometimes the designs we do don’t fit with our customers immediately. That is why I stress to them from day one to be blatant with their feedback and give the guarantee that we will rework our designs until they are 100% happy.

Currently I have two customers who are refusing to pay me.

I know it is because they either have no money or the money they do have, they’d rather keep for themselves.

These two customers went the entire way trough the design process, they signed off on the designs, they used words like ‘happy’, ‘this looks good’, ‘yes lets proceed’. I keep a good record of these conversations for exactly this reason.

Because several weeks after they were meant to pay, they still haven’t.

The initial excuses were over the arrangement. So I reproduced the proposals and quotes they signed off on. These contained the full fixed quote and our payment details. No fine print.

Now, and this is what kills me. They are both claiming that they were ‘unhappy with the work’. This is the first I have heard of it, and comes several weeks after the project was completed on the basis that they told me the EXACT opposite.

Neither of these companies is based in New Zealand, both owe me several thousand dollars and I suspect neither was ever planning to pay it.

What can I do? I have tried talking to them, I have shown them everything they wanted. Now I am stuck in a position whereby they can attempt to ruin my reputation, while also walking away with hours and hours worth of work that I produced for them (There is only so much in design that you can NOT deliver before payment).

While the rest of you were sunning yourselves (I love Wellingtonian’s unblinkable belief that there WAS sun even when there is no proof or evidence), a group of us were busy putting the final tweaks on our launch version of All About the Story.

All About the Story is the brainchild of Julie Starr, its a marketplace for QUALITY news stories, images and (more recently) cartoons. The point being that in a media world that is increasingly dominated with freelancers and an internet world that makes bad content easy to come by, we fill a vital piece of the puzzle by enabling great writers to connect with high quality publications.

It’s still early days and we know there is a lot more we can do, but we’ve got some pretty cool publications keeping tabs on the articles that are listed, and some pretty nice articles and cartoons on offer.

Would love to hear your thoughts on anything from the design, to your browsing and listing/purchasing experience.

I just read Rowan Simpson’s post on the pitiful number of people who actually know what a browser is:

It got me thinking about jargon.

A while back I talked to an interior designer. I LOVE interior decorating and while I know it’s a different kettle of fish, I was fascinated about what she did day to day. When I asked about what she did, she kept saying ‘first we create a story’ or ‘then the room has a story’. Eventually, I had to ask what exactly a story was in relation to interior design. Apparently, she wasn’t too sure (either that or the concept of a ’story’ is very hard to explain).

I HATE jargon. Jargon is such an easy thing to hide behind. All it does is make your customers feel stupid and you feel smart. Which, in my opinion is not a good balance when they are paying you.

Our customers are an even split of really onto it web people, and people who couldn’t really care less about how the internet works, they just use it (i.e the people in the video). I often find myself explaining the basics, and I can’t use jargon. It makes you question how much you know and how well you know it – if you can’t explain a term simply, then my guess is you don’t really understand it yourself.

I know ‘browser’ is not jargon as such, but my mind works in funny ways.

Because I know everyone loves it when I blow my own trumpet :)

“Had some great feedback on the site. Was in a meeting this morning and was told by a potential client that they had looked at all my competitors and it was clear from our site that we are streets ahead of the rest!”

This was for Paraplanplus, who, to be fair, ARE streets ahead of the rest, but I’m happy to take any compliments that come my way :)

P.S Happy birthday Mum! We can’t believe you are still in your thirties ;)

I had a conversation last week about two competing businesses. One with substance, but no PR machine, the other with great PR but not a lot a lot behind it. The one with good PR is currently winning out.

Having come into contact with PR based businesses, I feel like I’ve seen first hand how vulnerable the smoke and mirrors are but how good they look from the surface. I’m a firm believer that in this case ’slow and steady wins the race’ and startups have a tendency to boom and bust because they focus too much too early on convincing the world they are more successful than they are.

It’s a good strategy to put your competitors off, but don’t businesses need to focus on growing their customer base, not playing mind-games with other businesses?

After going to Verity’s birthday party and winding up today with a sore throat and a longer battle with this stupid flu, I was feeling quite sorry for myself.

Until Dave, one of our awesome customers walked in with a PRESENT!

You will never guess what it was….

A whiteboard eraser and whiteboard pens! Two things we do not have on hand, and two things that apparently really annoyed Dave.

I LOVE getting presents. So far we have received wine, breakfast and chocolates, never before have we received whiteboard stuff.

Sometimes, even while battling self inflicted sicknesses, I have to sit back and smile at how lucky we are to work with such awesome people,especially those awesome people who not only pay us, they BUY US STUFF!

Anyone else who would like to buy us a present, we all decided unanimously yesterday what we want

So yesterday I bought an iPhone. I’ve been putting it off for a while in the hopes they will invent a pink one, but in the end, the practicality outweighed the aesthetics.

I’m not normally one for gadgets and the major benefits driving the change were the Vodafone iPhone plan (which is cheaper than my current plan AND includes data), the fact that unlike my pink phone, I can check email on the go, and it just doesn’t LOOK good these days to use a normal cellphone ;)

My flatmates disagree and took great joy showing me this picture last night:

So I joined the gym a week ago today.

At the moment I can’t walk properly, dress myself or do an awful lot really. I blame the lethal combo of ‘Body Pump” and “Body Attack” and those weird human beings who take the classes with such unnatural joy.

The one-week report is that this could be a great thing. I really like:

• The ability to go out AFTER work for a drink or two knowing that I have already done my exercise
• That if I get bored of something there are tonnes of other options
• The unnaturally happy people who remind you at exactly the right moment that the pain you are feeling is directly related to improvement in your bum and thighs
• That the classes have loud music so worst case scenario, you give up on the proper moves and just have a boogie for a bit

I don’t like:

• Those gym bunny types who must live there!

So, by in large, I think this is a good decision :)

I wish I could say that this blog acts in much the same way as a public name and shame on Fair Go does.

However, at the end of this conflict, I certainly don’t feel like Vodafone comes out smelling like roses, or even neutral.

After several looonnggg and heated conversations with a Vodafone rep, I suggested that I had never intended to NOT pay any bills I owed, but it was difficult to pay something you have never been invoiced for (especially when someone else was accessing the account and I had never had anything to do with it post signup). I would be happy to pay the bill if they could please send me an invoice for it and wipe the debt collection record.

Vodafone begged to differ, claiming it is the customers responsibility to ensure they pay for a service regardless of whether or not they have received anything from them about payment. Apparently they had invoiced me religiously (who knows where to as their address on file was correct) and even when they hadn’t received payment, apparently following up with a phone call to the cellphone number they hold the account for was not a part of their debt collection process.

At this point, I was stuck. Not too keen to start paying through the nose for a lawyer just to prove my point, I rang the Citizens Advice Bureau. Charming people. They called me back within an hour and noted several people have called about telecom companies, with (shock horror) virtually exactly the same problem. Their solution: Bypass Vodafone, go direct to the debt collection agency with a firm letter about the disputed debt and their irrelevance in the picture. Apparently, you can’t pass a debt onto debt collectors without the customer ever receiving an invoice (funnily enough) and they will put it straight back on Vodafone.

In the meantime, The Vodafone Rep must have realised the same thing and did just that. Phew. So I call to pay the bill and…

“There is not debt here” says the new rep

“Oh yes there is!” I say and DEMAND to pay the amount I got invoiced and NOT, as requested ring the debt collection agency (Which had already confirmed they had wiped their debt).

So I pay up and ask for the set of notes she has written (apparently Vodafone reps have writing difficulty and often do not note down what actually happened) – so low and behold, I receive the notes and they are missing the whole part about me saying ‘CLOSE THIS ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY AND WIPE ALL ACCESS TO EVERYONE’

Oh the joys.

Lessons learned:

• Always get emailed a copy of any notes from a dispute phone call and keep them on file with the name of the person who you spoke to.
• Use the Citizens Advice Bureau, they are aware of these issues and have dealt with them a lot
• Cross your fingers and hope that we double in population size so that another cellphone company enters the market

So lat last year I got a call from Vodafone saying that I owed them for an overdue, unpaid internet plan.

Seeing as I never signed up for an internet plan, I questioned it.

Apparently the plan was signed up for by someone who USED to be on the account but at that stage had no authority at all.

Once they realised they had illegally allowed someone to signup for plans under MY account they sounded a little apologetic and agreed to can the whole thing (In my opinion they got off lightly).

So when I went to sign up for Orcon Internet and got declined for credit reasons because of a default from Vodafone, it took me about 2 minutes to realise they had mucked up again on the SAME incident.

Another few phone calls later and the Vodafone rep claimed there was absolutely nothing wrong with my account. At this stage I was furious (what a PAIN for a Monday morning – on top of the fact I’m still a little unnerved that they are letting people signup for plans on my account).

The frustrating thing is WHAT can I do about it? Just spend another couple of hours on the phone ’sorting it out’ again?