Straight North

13 August 2016

http://www.aerialassistant.com

Reviewed by Jeff Lane
— Aerial Assistant

I hired Straight North six weeks ago to create the web site for my company.

The sales associate Brian was very professional and reassured me that they would do an awesome job.  The words were followed up with cool examples and a straight forward on boarding process.  

I was confident after hiring them that they would do an awesome job based on my experience with their sales staff.  

Then the work began...

I received call after call and email after email from their project manager Ann who just couldn't get the project moving forward.  The final straw with her was when she called and notified me that they had used eight hours (at $150) to create the site plan for my web site.  So $1,200 to create a word document with the site plan I had already emailed them.  When I questioned how it was even possible to take so long and charge so much she responded "we bill what we bill" and the struggle continued.  I requested a new project manager.  

I spoke with Joe one of their managers or partners and he reassured me it would be done correctly and told me he would set me up with a new PM.  He never apologized for Ann being rude or for the delays.  The entire time I was left to feel like this was all MY fault.

Natalie was brought on to finish the job.  Natalie was professional, prompt and I thought we had just hit a speed bump with Ann and was hopeful we would get the result I had been promised by their sales staff.

Natalie checked in with me prior to starting the web development process and asked if I was OK for them to proceed - YES it had been nearly 5 weeks since we had started and I had been promised a web site within 2 weeks and under the $3,000 they had billed me.  I was told we would probably have money left over from the $3,000 I paid initially from the development stage and we could use this money for marketing.  

If I recall it was 48 hours later I was advised that they were out of money (they had used the full $3,000) and I was OK with that - fine you spent the entire budget but at least we have some results right?

NOPE!

The website she sent me was a Wordpress template that was literally a copy of my current web site design but somehow worse than my current design.  I showed the page to dozens of people who all agreed it was terrible and basically insulting.  No one could believe they were trying to charge me $3,000 a single page - especially one that looked this bad.  I advised the PM about my disappointment and asked them if they were happy with how it had turned out.  They wouldn't even respond completely mum.  Then I asked Joe if they would put this site on their homepage as an example same thing no response.  The interactions I had with Joe and Ann were terrible.  They will make you feel like you are the problem and they will act entitled to your money.

The most mind boggling part is that when I told them I wanted my money back they would not return calls or emails.  

I had to file a chargeback with my credit card company to receive a refund for services not rendered.  This company is a complete waste of time in my opinion.  There are plenty of other options out there.  Now I have to wait to receive my refund from the credit card company and I'm out six weeks of my time waiting for them to deliver.

I was referred to this company by a friend of mine and I even referred them to a friend of mine that needed a web site while I was waiting for them to begin on mine.  I'm shocked and confused as to how you can run a company like this.