Heritage Web Solutions is not a company i would recommend to anyone... They do not care about customer service in any way what so ever. They give you cheep pages and low initial sale and once you purchase you are obligated to either pay a bunch more for minor upgrades or have a cheep looking website.By the TOS you are obligated to keep the website, and anything you add on after that will cost you a arm and a leg.
I was a employee for Heritage a few months back and was appalled by the way that they treated their clients that i could not do it and feel good about it. Some of the many things i saw go on a regular basis and even did myself due to manager pressure to do so is:
1) One time a client wanted to ad a feature that was available... Because we charged so much and were ridiculously overpriced he looked elsewhere. Found a company that did the exact same thing but for free. He provided a HTML code for the designer to place in the website (takes a matter of seconds... No work at all included) Because he refused to pay the money and found the same thing for free else where, my manager made me charge him a $300 integration fee for pressing ctrl V on the keyboard. My manager told me strait up that he was going to have to pay 1 way or another.
2) When we initialy work with clients as a company they call them 2-4 times a week and try to "consult" with them... When in reality they are trying to up sell products. That is all they care about. If employees of Heritage try to do customer service we would get in trouble for wasting our time when we could be selling. Many issues on a daily basis go unsolved cause they are customers that will not purchase anything.
3) we have many products that are overpriced but a lot of them are plain scams. There is a gallery that we can include for free in a website it is called the standard gallery. We are told to try to sell it before we give it for free for at lease $100. There is also a rollover gallery that cost $200 what is the difference from the free gallery and the $200 gallery? You just have to change the code that is pre done from "no" to "yes". It is the exact same product. You use the same codes and same format but have to type 3 letters instead of 2.
4) By Terms of Service which most clients do not read you are obligated to host with heritage web solutions for at least 12 months... They say it is cause they do not make money off the design process that all products are at cost basically. This is what they teach employees and tell them to tell the clients. But that is not the case. A typical sale cost $120 per page $10 going to the sales person that leaves $110. They pay the designers per page of $40 which leaves$70 a page that Heritage is profiting. They do have expenses i understand but they are far from designing websites at cost. The 12 months TOS is so you are stuck for 12 months. If you say you do not want to deal with them or found somewhere better you have to pay the first year of hosting to be released from the contract. And that is where the sucker sales come in. If you want a decent website you are forced to at least spent $500 additional... And that is for a basic site with minimal flash. Once you spent the thousands of dollars or keep the cheep looking one you have you are forced to host for 12 months.By that time most people will not be as upset and will just continue to swallow it. There are some that refuse and pay the fee and leave. But at that time Heritage already has your money.
What to do if you find yourself in these situations
1) any client that goes to the Better Business Bureau and complains will get treated better by the CEO of the company. Only because they need to have all issues with the BBB resolved. And make sure if a offer is made or BBB contact you that you stay in contact with the BBB rep or it will be closed to no contact and resolved.
2) Make sure you talk to the right people. The problem with Heritage is even the managers will refuse to help you with any problems unless you purchase things since they are being hounded by upper management to sale just as bad as they hound the employees. You will need to specificly ask to speak with someone in the Priority Accounts Department, they are actually retention agents who are more open to helping you solve issues cause they are graded on a save ratio.
3) make sure you have EVERYTHING purchased before you agree to the terms of service. If you do not agree to the terms of service they have nothing to bind you by. Talk with your sales agent or the manager of your account and make sure all flash, galleries, databases... Everything you want is purchased. Then sign the Terms of Service. I would suggest you never sign them and work with someone else but at least make sure you have everything before
4) you can expect after you have bought everything to have less contact. You will not be contacted from your manager. Your designers all work from home all over the US and do not have schedules so they will be very hard to get a hold of. You will need to exert patience cause once you have spent all your money you go an low priority.
5) any feature or enhancement that is pitched by an agent if you negotiate will easily be brought down $100-$200. They will place you on hold saying they need manager approval but only in rare cases will they talk to a manager. Be sure to negotiate price and not settle.
I would not recommended this company to anyone. I have friends that still work there and they have informed me that the company is not doing good. They are falling behind with the cash flow. They were forced to cut all employees pay by 10%. Multiple times in the past few months my friends direct deposit was not able to be put in on time due to lack of funds. And the hosting is way over priced. You will pay $20-$60 a month for the exact same thing you could get for $9.99-$19.99 even though they will tell you it is different!
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