Re: UKNM: Incorrect Use of Client Reference Sites

[Jonathon Dempster]

Kirsty  Yes !!!


Whilst working as a part-time consultant for Smartnet, who prior to their

demise, had done work for Jazzfm, Conde Nast, and Christie's, I happened

upon a small company based out of Essex,who had produced a mailer that had

been sent to an Ad Agency with whom I was also doing some work .

I was more than interested to see that said Company had also done

Jazzfm,Conde Nast etc. with Watches of Switzerland thrown in for good

measure. As you would expect I was more than a bit surprised to see this.

So with my Agency hat on I 'phoned the M.D, explaining that I really liked

the work he had done for Jazzfm and that prior to asking him to formally

pitch to me could he talk me through the concept, build, and strategy for

this project.

After 15 minutes of detailed explanation on how this project was pulled

together, I said that I was most impressed with his explanation, but he had

missed a few vital elements in the brief and that if he would like to see

the document that I had written with Jazzfm then I would be more than

pleased to show this to him- after the meeting that I would like to have

with him and his legal people the following Monday.


It turns out that following a brief discuusion regarding a Sales Agency

agreement with a junior memeber of the Sales staff, the MD had presumed that

he could present Smartnet work as his own. While this an extreme case

Kirsty's point raises some relevant questions.


1: If a Web house has done work for a client in the past and that work has

been superceeded by a re-build by another company, is the original companies

claim still valid?


2: Can a Web house who have been asked to re-touch a site that they had no

involvement with the main build of justifiably claim to have said company as

a client ?


3: Can companies who report that, although they have no major wins under

their belts,  have staff with extensive experiance of major site builds be

respected?


On points 1&2 my thinking is no. Point 3 is a maybe but it would need

careful investigation.

When instucting a Web house I would request to see live work, non-live work

and the specifacation and pitch documentation for that work, prior to

including them on a pitch list.

As well as the usual checks I would also ask for references from those


clients so that I could quickly check the facts if there was any ambiguity.

It is so easy to produce 'white lies' as to the amount of work undertaken by

a Web House, that these checks are the only way of cutting through the

dross.


Jonathon Dempster

Consultant

Purple Interactive- www.purplei.com

Tel 0181742 0607

Mob-0973 133375

l wrote:


> Just wanted to check with you guys to see if you'd experienced the same.

>

> We have recently found a number of web development companies who have

> been listing reference sites within the clients sections of their web

> sites, but actually not having done any work for them at all.  A classic

> example was http://www.zygon.co.uk, where they listed Thomas Cook (one

> of our clients) as theirs.  We talked to TC and they agreed with us in

> the fact that this company had never, done any work for them at all.  TC

> investigated this further and Zygon have now agreed to take the

> reference out.  In fact the only reason it was there was because Zygon

> had placed a sales call with Thomas Cook !! I am appalled that companies

> like this are getting away with it, and I wondered if anyone else had

> experienced anything similar ?

>

>

EMail : kirstieissolutions [dot] co [dot] uk

> DDI : 01932 893313

>

> http://www.issolutions.co.uk