problems with web developer

[jollygreengiant]

I am looking for advice on how to deal with a problem that I am having with a web developer.

I have just had a website developed for a new product that I am producing and selling through self employed agents.

When I first spoke to my web developer I gave her all the info with regards to what I wanted with my site including a specific way for customers to find their nearest agent.

She quoted me a price of £750 which was a lot cheaper than any other quote that I had been given and said that all the brief for the site was ok. She has now completed the site but has not done the find an agent part the way I asked for it to be done. She is now saying if I want it done the way I mentioned in brief it will cost a lot more money. The rest of the website is done corrctly and I am happy with it except for this one bit..

My question is should I be looking to get some money knocked of price, if yes how much as i have been told to get the agent finder done the way I asked would cost double the total website price that she quoted.

If your a web developer what would you offer your customer if you had make such a mistake?

 

[Merchant UK]

if your sure that the whole job would of cost a lot more and your happy with everything then pay her a little bit more to get it right 100%.

if you don't want to go back to her, see if you can get a quote for someone else to do it, but i would imagine that since she did the main site she's be the one to complete it to what you want even if its for a bit more.

I don't think people realise just how much work is involved in getting a customers site done to what spec they want. To be honest its a good job she didn't charge by the hour

 

[degadar]

I am looking for advice on how to deal with a problem that I am having with a web developer.

I have just had a website developed for a new product that I am producing and selling through self employed agents.

When I first spoke to my web developer I gave her all the info with regards to what I wanted with my site including a specific way for customers to find their nearest agent.

She quoted me a price of £750 which was a lot cheaper than any other quote that I had been given and said that all the brief for the site was ok. She has now completed the site but has not done the find an agent part the way I asked for it to be done. She is now saying if I want it done the way I mentioned in brief it will cost a lot more money. The rest of the website is done corrctly and I am happy with it except for this one bit..

My question is should I be looking to get some money knocked of price, if yes how much as i have been told to get the agent finder done the way I asked would cost double the total website price that she quoted.

If your a web developer what would you offer your customer if you had make such a mistake?

Have you already paid for the work done so far?

 

[jollygreengiant]

I have not paid her any money yet. I have just called her about it and she is saying she would have to out source it to another developer as she does not have the knowledge to do it the way I wanted.

 

[degadar]

I have not paid her any money yet. I have just called her about it and she is saying she would have to out source it to another developer as she does not have the knowledge to do it the way I wanted.

In that case both of you have a good reason to keep talking to each other and find a solution between you. You can either do that and sort it between you or fall out and start all over again from scratch.

Remember if you go elsewhere and start the conversation with - “hi, I fell out with my last designer and didn’t pay all her bill and now she won’t talk to me …” then you’re not going to get too great a reception.

Better to keep working together and bring in a third party. It could be that there is less extra needs doing than you thought.

 

[Deleted member 154900]

but has not done the find an agent part the way I asked for it to be done.

I am guessing she is using a cms and is working within the constraints of the available plugins, this will explain why she has not done it how you want,

custom development is expensive and I doubt weather it was included in a 750 price, even if you can argue it should of been included it probably wasn't
ask how much for the work to be completed 100%,

Then ask if one of the developers on here will have a look at the site for you and assess if what she has done is worth the 750

good luck with it

 

[cucumber]

Has she acknowledged she's fallen short of what you asked for and what she promised she'd deliver?

What sort of amounts were the other quotes?

 

[jollygreengiant]

Has she acknowledged she's fallen short of what you asked for and what she promised she'd deliver?

What sort of amounts were the other quotes?

She has acknowledged that she had agreed to do it my way in original quote and she has said she cant do it now.

she quoted 750 and others were quoting in region of 2000.

I did check out other work she had done and they seem happy using her, its just this one bit thats problem. Developers are now saying it will be around 1500 to add on the bit i originally wanted.

 

[kerrylinux]

... she is saying she would have to out source it to another developer as she does not have the knowledge to do it the way I wanted.

She should have known that when she quoted you, unless you were not clear about what you requested. I would ask me, if you could have produced a misunderstanding and jumped on the inexpensive quote without the necessary clarification.

Not paying her for the work she's done is unfair at least and if she can't do it because of lack of knowledge, then ... she can't do it. You need to get an independent estimate of the missing bit by someone who can do it.

 

[jollygreengiant]

She should have known that when she quoted you, unless you were not clear about what you requested. I would ask me, if you could have produced a misunderstanding and jumped on the inexpensive quote without the necessary clarification.

Not paying her for the work she's done is unfair at least and if she can't do it because of lack of knowledge, then ... she can't do it. You need to get an independent estimate of the missing bit by someone who can do it.

I feel that I explained exactly and clearly how I wanted it done. I even gave her a link to another websites page that is done exactly the way I wanted mine done

 

[degadar]

I feel that I explained exactly and clearly how I wanted it done. I even gave her a link to another websites page that is done exactly the way I wanted mine done

I don’t doubt it - unfortunately this sort of thing happens all the time. Contractor, afraid to lose the job, covers their eyes and ears when it comes to thinking about the tricky bits and the customer, pleased with having been quoted considerably less than elsewhere doesn’t say ‘hang on - are you sure you’re charging me enough and quoting for everything? - because that sounds a bit cheap’.

This is, in fairness to the contractor, why we get multiple quotes - not just to find the cheapest, but to learn what the true real value of the job is.

 

[123Simples]

So let me get this straight?
You asked a web developer (or is she a web designer as the two are very different) to do a website for you

She quoted you £750 (notice the word quoted)

She completed everything except this one bit you are disputing now

And you want to knock some money off a figure you have not even paid her yet?

If I was her (and you) you really need to check exactly what each of you wrote in emails or contracts and then see what it is you and her actually understood from all of this

 

[jollygreengiant]

They stated in the contract that it would be done in same way as the other site that I had referred to.

 

[cucumber]

She's made a pretty severe mistake. What's her attitude to this? What does she think should happen? It would be unfair to not pay her. You should be able to come to some agreement with her. A discount seems reasonable to me.

> I feel that I explained exactly and clearly how I wanted it done. I even gave her a link to another websites page that is done exactly the way I wanted mine done

I'm curious, what is the functionality you're after?

 

[Mark_Williams]

With web development, even if you are copying exactly another feature, there will be tweaks to the code before the customer is satisfied. This is completely normal.

However, in this case it seems as though she's not fully understood the brief. What feature is it that you are trying to copy?

 

[kerrylinux]

I even gave her a link to another websites page that is done exactly the way I wanted mine done

That should be enough.

So try to find a way of payment on the base that you have received a misleading quote. If you think your website is unusable due to the missing bit, that would be a different question.

 

[Deleted member 138423]

A business transaction is a business transaction.

You asked her to do something, she quoted a price and you accepted. End of! However, she has now not done what you got the quote for and as such stalemate may ensue.

I would sit down face to face with her and ask her how she thinks that if it was the other way round, how she would then feel. She needs to understand that she made a contract with you to do a particular job, and because she hasn't done it, you cannot be expected to pay for that.

She has also admitted that she doesn't have the experience to do what was aksed finally, she needs again to be aware of what was originally agreed!

You will have to steer this one by the sounds of it. She has done the core web for you, but now she either does the rest herself or gets someone else, of you agree how this is to be fixed for the price she quoted. Oh and by the way, if people start saying that it was only a 'quote' then remind them that the whole world revolves around that word and that a quote is enough to consider it a final price!

Is she point blank refuses to fix this, walk away and don't pay a penny, but if she is willing to help, work out the solution together!

 

[BoltPeter]

This is quite common between the developer and the client its important that you have some sort of agreement before starting anything I have the same issues but this time the other way around as a web designer and developer I tend to do more work for the client. That's because there is no agreement.

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Sadly this kind of thing happens a lot with IT projects, usually due to there being no clearly defined project specification prior to work starting which states exactly what needs to be delivered. On larger projects this can be based on stages with payments made after each stage is delivered.

You mention the developer you went with was a lot cheaper than everyone else, this really should have sounded alarm bells at the time and you should have clearly defined what you expected for your money, not just provided a link and said "I want that" as that leaves far too much open to interpretation.

How much additional will it cost to get the site working how you want ? If that added to the £750 works out about the same as the original quotes you got, then you haven't lost anything so go with that option.

However as the developer has stated they don't have the skills to actually provide what you want, then you have to question the other work they have done, whilst it may look like what you want you may find issues later on due to poor coding so ensure you have safeguards in place that state if in the future the site suffers issues with the code provided, then these are to be fixed without additional charge.

 

[soapmedia]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. If she has put it in the contract then she has been a bit naive in estimation and her project evaluation - I think this is apparent in her cost being much, much lower than everyone else's.

More than likely through a lack of experience as opposed to wanting to pull a fast one I would suspect? Consequently you could argue that asking for a partial refund while being perfectly legally acceptable is it the right way to resolve this? You have saved alot of money because of her mistake/naivety in comparison to someone who has priced it fairly and correctly.

I'm sure you could work together to get this resolved. The agent lookup you mention is something we've written many times before and I wouldn't expect it to take more than a days work.

As a suggested resolution maybe you could ask her to outsource this aspect of the website and she manages it via elance/odesk and you pay for the additional work which I would imagine would only cost you an extra $100-$200 at most.

 

[FIZIX Agency]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. If she has put it in the contract then she has been a bit naive in estimation and her project evaluation - I think this is apparent in her cost being much, much lower than everyone else's.

More than likely through a lack of experience as opposed to wanting to pull a fast one I would suspect? Consequently you could argue that asking for a partial refund while being perfectly legally acceptable is it the right way to resolve this? You have saved alot of money because of her mistake/naivety in comparison to someone who has priced it fairly and correctly.

I'm sure you could work together to get this resolved. The agent lookup you mention is something we've written many times before and I wouldn't expect it to take more than a days work.

As a suggested resolution maybe you could ask her to outsource this aspect of the website and she manages it via elance/odesk and you pay for the additional work which I would imagine would only cost you an extra $100-$200 at most.

And that's what causes problems like the one the OP has fallen into; saying "that's easy; 200 bucks" based on a sentence and not knowing jack about the company, their needs or the solution they require.


Anyway, OP; personally I would discuss the issue with her, pay her for her time (up to a point you are both happy if you can, a discount is reasonable if she hasn't delivered everything you need) and either work out a solution with her or someone else.

And make sure whoever fixes it isn't the cheapest offer, understands it fully, discusses it in detail and does it properly. As a rule of thumb, never take the cheapest offer in this game. I know very few savvy people who will do that, they would rather not do it/shelve it than go with the cheapest.


Out of curiosity, what is the feature? People here may well be able to advise you.

 

[soapmedia]

And that's what causes problems like the one the OP has fallen into; saying "that's easy; 200 bucks" based on a sentence and not knowing jack about the company, their needs or the solution they require.

Thats a fair comment. A lot of reading between the lines on my part.

The reason I suggested this route was that he was basing his decision on price, so I assumed (wrongly maybe) budgetary constraints and thus proposed a way forward that would allow him to engage more experienced proffesionals who have done similar tasks for what "sounds" (as you rightly put it) like a relatively simple task at a price point to suit his budget.

Ive never used those outsourcing services but I know other agencies who have and have had excellent results.

If budget is not an issue then as you rightly say he should engage a more experienced agency/person to discuss the requirements, have SRS documentation drawn up and follow a more defined development cycle - as we do.

 

[RedEvo]

Buy cheap buy twice. Nearly always the case IMHO. Anyway, as others have said, get a quote for the missing link, negotiate with her for the completed work and move on. She can't do it, it's that simple.

d

 

[ITsoldUK]

With Dave on this one...cheap and all that.

That said, as you do move on a good, hard thought for anyone reading this is to ensure YOU as the customer fully understand what you want and how you want it to work.

Then convey it to your tender suppliers and ensure THEY fully understand what it is you are after.

Once they do, chose one and get them to sign to confirm what they are supplying in detail.

As a sub note, when asking for something to be actioned of this ilk. Research what needs to be done FIRST (I take endless calls everyday asking how is this done...) and then (using this topic as an example) ask them how they intend to achieve it.

Professionals won't mind explaining so you understand (after all, a project/hourly rate needs to be justified) and it will soon sort the wheat out from the chaff.

Regards
Daren

 

[RedEvo]

Then convey it to your tender suppliers and ensure THEY fully understand what it is you are after.

Once they do, chose one and get them to sign to confirm what they are supplying in detail.

Bang on. Common understanding is vital. Projects involving the web/IT/software can be complex and clients don't know what they don't know, that's where the suppliers expertise comes in, but it's always possible to create clear terms of reference and common understanding before a project starts, even if that means agreeing there are some grey areas!

d

 

[DanSoftBridge]

I am looking for advice on how to deal with a problem that I am having with a web developer.

I have just had a website developed for a new product that I am producing and selling through self employed agents.

When I first spoke to my web developer I gave her all the info with regards to what I wanted with my site including a specific way for customers to find their nearest agent.

She quoted me a price of £750 which was a lot cheaper than any other quote that I had been given and said that all the brief for the site was ok. She has now completed the site but has not done the find an agent part the way I asked for it to be done. She is now saying if I want it done the way I mentioned in brief it will cost a lot more money. The rest of the website is done corrctly and I am happy with it except for this one bit..

My question is should I be looking to get some money knocked of price, if yes how much as i have been told to get the agent finder done the way I asked would cost double the total website price that she quoted.

If your a web developer what would you offer your customer if you had make such a mistake?

I have so many feelings about this, but I'll keep it real simple.

In it's simplest form, you bought a product. You pay money, she delivers a product. She hasn't delivered the product. Don't pay the money/get it back.

If a formal spec was signed but not complied with, you have a legal leg to stand on.

 

[horsehead101]

Hey, software developers have to face some problems just like the codding and other designing part.

 

[serendipitybusiness]

She quoted me a price of £750 which was a lot cheaper than any other quote that I had been given and said that all the brief for the site was ok.

Hi unfortunately you have your answer there. I am pretty sure she came in cheaper than everyone else because she didn't consider this part of the brief, the custom development. This is the thing that can trip a lot of developers up that don't investigate/troubleshoot a brief fully before returning a price. The littlest things in concept terms can have a huge impact on the development and can easily be missed unless you go through it with a fine tooth comb.

I am not defending her I am just saying what I am pretty sure has happened, I don't think she was trying to rip you off from the sounds of it. Yes you are unhappy because she over promised and under delivered. However I think this is down to a lack of attention to detail from her part and the deal was too good to be true in the first place which should have thrown up warning signs for you. I am not saying it is your fault either as you gave clear direction from what you said.

I personally wouldn't waste too much more negative energy and time on this, you say it was a lot cheaper, now you know why, if you are happy with the rest of the site I would say, save your time, cut your losses (which aren't really losses as you would have had to pay this anyway with someone else) and move on. You don't want her to manage the custom part of the build if she doesn't have clear attention to detail anyway as that could end in disaster. I would hire someone else to do the custom part and concentrate my time, energy and money to getting the website finished, live and making you money.

Hope this helps

 

[fisicx]

You aren't going to get the functionality required without spending more money. So all you need to do is decide whether to use your existing developer or find someone else.

I suspect that the quote of £750 was based on the hope that they would be able to install a free plugin. As this isn't the case you may well end up spending more than the £2000 the other developers quoted.

 

[Alan]

If you want to PM me the original spec for the 'special' component, I will give you a realistic independent estimate. It will be independent as I have no interest in doing custom coding for other businesses except mine, but I do have a zillion years coding experience so I can at least give an idea what you should have paid for the functionality.

 

[Suzuki]

I suppose it all depends how you want to play this. If you have a contract with her to provide it and she's now saying she can't, you could pay someone else to complete it and force her to pay for it. So she does the work she has done for you, gets credited £750 and then pays £1500 to finish it, leaving herself £750 out of pocket...

Or you could come to some sort of agreement. If it was me, at an absolute minimum I would want to be put back in a position where I hadn't lost money working with her in comparison to the other bidders.

So she charges £750, and you need to pay £1500 to finish the job. £2250 total... but other people bid £2000 so she needs to give you a £250 discount to put you back in the position you would have been in.

You could demand she gives you all the work she done for free in return for not taking legal action against her. Then you get the job done for £1500 total and you avoid any expense or hassle of chasing it up.