Excellent post includes
To promote your business for free – check us out at here
Cliff
Traveljunkies
Hello bloggers.
Are you making a living from your blogging or is blogging a hobby for you, at the moment?
I’ve added “at the moment” to my question because what often starts as a hobby can become a business and this has been the case for me.
I still blog here, although I was rather quiet during the pandemic when travel and tourism was badly affected, but my blog connects with my main business which is promoting small businesses in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries.
So, if your blog is your business and you’d like a free advert, yes completely free for as long as you want, then please take a look at www.traveljunkies.com and tap Free Advert to send us your details.
And while you’re there, please have a look around Traveljunkies where you will find loads of adventure and travel ideas that you’ll rarely find anywhere else (including Google).
And if you’d like to pass Traveljunkies on to your friends and colleagues, that would be great.
Thank you
Cliff
Traveljunkies
I’ve not named the company in this article – instead I’ve substituted the company’s name with (company)
I entered into a Website and Internet Marketing Partnership with (company) in December 2020 to update my website and provide marketing support for two years.
The mistake I made was not appreciating what Clause 4 in their Terms and Conditions allowed (company) to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the time came to upgrade my 5 year-old Traveljunkies.com website, I chose a company that was forward looking and had a good reputation. I’ve been customer of this company for many years so I knew who I was dealing with and felt I could trust them.
That was another mistake.
After discussions and agreement on what was required, (company) started work in January 2021 to upgrade my website, or so I thought.
All went quiet and on 4 March 2021 the Account Manager presented her website.
It was a not an update to my original website as we’d agreed but a completely different website with so many mistakes that it was unusable. She did this without my knowledge or agreement.
At a review with the Account Manager and her boss on 4 May 2021 I was assured that the website they had produced was good for my business and the errors would be corrected.
A year later this work was still not finished.
The website developed by (company) still contained errors, the most serious being the Account Manager had failed to correctly load nearly 2400 customers from the .csv file I had provided.
Instead of showing 2635 customers, only 252 were in the All Customers list.
When (Company) saw the errors the Account Manger had made, they replaced her.
In August 2022 following a phone call with (company’s) management, I called a halt to discuss when (company) would finish the work and what was the best way to move forward.
Without answering my questions, (company) made an offer that was far from acceptable and meant I would have to continue to work with them and pay them. As I no longer wanted to work with a company I couldn’t trust, I asked for a refund.
(Company) said they were not prepared to refund me because of the the work they had done.
What they failed to admit was that most of the work they had done, and charged me for, was to correct their own mistakes caused in the first place by their Account Manager.
I then sought the opinion of two other companies and they both told me the website developed by (company) was for travel agents, and not suitable for my business. Traveljunkies is a marketing company, not a travel agent.
Both companies felt that (company) couldn’t be trusted and I had been treated very badly. I passed this comment on to (company’s) management.
Clearly worried about their competitors comments, (company) told me that all future correspondence would be handled by their solicitors.
In their email to me the solicitors warned me about making these comments known and quoted Clause 4 of (company’s) Terms and Conditions.
( Company Headline )
WEBSITE AND INTERNET MARKETING PARTNERSHIP TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Clause 4. Refunds for all or some payments made are not permitted under any circumstances including business downturn, closure of business, ill health or family issues. You are free to cancel this agreement anytime and you agree not to pursue any back dated refund or indemnity claims against (company)
(company’s) solicitors added … Consequently, (company) has no obligation to pay any refund and you have agreed not to pursue any claim for a refund or an indemnity. Any claim made would be struck out accordingly.
This should be a warning to anyone dealing with a company who has Terms and Conditions like this which are totally one-sided with no regard of their customers.
It means a customer can’t claim a refund even if (company) screw up or are in default when they don’t even do their work defined in the contract.
This is the case here.
What has (company) failed to do?
The Agreement says that in addition to hosting and managing my website for two years the following eleven clauses, in bold below, will be performed by (company).
These are the tasks in the Agreement that (company) should have done and for which they have charged me.
Only three were even started and my comments are in italics beneath each item.
> Our media team will produce a home page video.
A video was produced for the first website but I no longer have access to it.
> Create up to five additional web pages each month for two years
This hasn’t been done
> Produce up to two additional videos for you each year
This hasn’t been done
> Install the (company’s) Email Autoresponder on your website.
This may have been done but I’ve not seen it nor used it
> Create or re-design your Facebook business page
They have not done any work on my Facebook business page.
> Create or re-design your Linkedin business page
They have not done any work on my Linkedin business page.
> Create or re-design your Twitter page
They have not done any work on my Twitter page.
> Write and post weekly posts for two years on Facebook
Posts were posted for 6 weeks then cancelled because the website produced by (company) still contained errors. I wasn’t prepared to promote my business with a website that was unusable and, quite frankly, an embarrassment.
> Write and post weekly posts for two years on Instagram
As above. Posts were made for 6 weeks then cancelled because the website produced by (company) still contained errors.
> Write and post weekly posts for two years on Linkedin
They have not posted anything on Linkedin
> Write and post weekly posts for two years on Twitter
They have not posted anything on Twitter
I can post the full copy of the Agreement if required.
(Company) then decided to produce a second website but this still contained the same errors they hadn’t corrected in the previous website, most importantly the omission of 2380 businesses in All Countries Worldwide. This alone made the second website unusable.
I haven’t named the company in this document but as I’m now having to pay another company to do the work (company) failed to deliver, I expect (company) to step up to their responsibilities, act honourably and refund money they have taken from me for work they did to correct their own mistakes and for work they haven’t done.
(Company) and I have exchanged more than 100 emails and they have the .csv file which contains the full list of 2635 customers, all of which support my story. These and screenshots of the websites (company) produced are available.
I’m still waiting for (company) to do the right thing and refund the money I have paid.
Cliff Chapman
Traveljunkies
Helping you find customers by helping customers find you.
I have been a long time customer of an established UK company and I’ve bought several of their products and watched their marketing presentations.
When the time came to have my website and my marketing plan updated I went into partnership with this company.
This was an expensive mistake.
In summary:
After eighteen months I called a halt to the project and asked for my money back.
What I hadn’t appreciated was that Clause 4 in their T&Cs prevented me from claiming any refund even when the company made mistakes and failed to correct them, and didn’t do some of the work in their agreement.
Then they got heavy. Instead of answering my complaints, their their solicitors emailed me quoting Clause 4 of the Partnership Terms and Conditions which said:
Clause 4: “Refunds for some or all payments made are not permitted under any circumstances including business downturn, closure of business, ill health or family issues. You are free to cancel this agreement anytime and you agree not to pursue any back dated refund or indemnity claims against XXXXXXX XXXXX”
(I have removed the company name).
The also warned me of the consequences if I made the company’s mistakes public, and this has put me off taking it further, at this time.
I haven’t named the company yet but some of my customers will know who it is.
Why have I posted this?
> To encourage he company to do the honourable thing and refund the money they’ve taken for not doing the work we agreed. viz
> To show how some supposedly respectable companies protect their own interests with little regard for their customers. Quite frankly, this is a disgrace.
> To warn other small businesses to be wary of working with companies like this.
This company now just ignores me.
Their time will come.
Cliff
How could your business survive if my customers couldn’t trust you?
It takes a lot of time and effort to build a business people can trust but it only needs one unhappy customer who you’ve let down that can undo the years of work you have put in.
And in todays world where the power of social media is available to everyone, it’s essential your customers feel they’ve been treated fairly.
“Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, no one really notices; when it’s absent, everyone notices.”
That quote from Warren Buffett introduces a professor at the top-ranked Kelley School of Business at the University of Indiana, who says ….
“Trust is essential to creating relationships with buyers and sellers that leave both parties better off. However, building trust is easier said than done.”
You can read the full article here … https://bit.ly/3nKVA4s
For the past two years we haven’t been very active promoting small travel businesses with free adverts in Traveljunkies.
Instead, we’ve been looking ahead to when travelling gets back to some kind of normal so you’ll be pleased to know that you’re still here with us and your free advert in Traveljunkies.com is still alive and well.
We’ve made some changes which we think will help visitors better understand who you are and what you do, which in turn could create more traffic to your website.
So my message to our customers, old and new., is please keep watching as we roll out the new Traveljunkies Adventure Travel Directory and thank you for continuing to trust us to help you grow your business.
Best wishes
Cliff
Hello Real People
Unless you’re under a rock you will have heard of Artificial Intelligence
A company called openai.com has developed something called chatGPT
It does lots of things so I gave it a try to see what it wrote
Here it is …..
Note that, these methods may not be as effective as paid advertising in terms of reaching a broad audience, but they are cost-effective ways to promote your business and build a loyal customer base.
Amazing
Cliff
Traveljunkies
For Facebook, the ideal image size is 1200×630 pixels. And on Instagram, images should be 1080×1080 pixels. Use the correct size images so your pictures and photos look their best and your followers can see them.
Check this out for more info
2023 Social Media Image Sizes for All Networks [CHEATSHEET]
The most recent image size specifications for different social media networks, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-image-sizes-guide/
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