Webware.io

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an independent electrical contractor and sole proprietor.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Webware.io?

Website design and SEO services.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I was cold-called by their sales team and promised a high quality, competitive website and SEO strategy.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

I have nothing good to say about having signed up with Webware for my web design and SEO services. They signed me to a 6 month contract, $1800 upfront and $600/month, for a total of $5400, which I thought was expensive, but for a competitive online presence and Google ranking, could have been worthwhile. First of all, they pretend to be a Canadian company. The sales team is Toronto-based, but once they sign you, all your web design and SEO services are outsourced to India.

They have a couple bulk email accounts you can contact the India-based teams through or you can schedule a phone meeting with about a weeks notice. Almost every time I talked with Webware, it was a different person. The website I got was template-based and consisted of different variations of the keywords I have given them. All the language on the website was either my own content, or clearly written by someone who didn't speak English as a first language.

A lot of the keywords and meta tags on the back end were incomplete or missing. The SEO strategy consisted of them finding written articles online from my industry and posting them to my social media sites and my website blog. When I went to cancel, they insisted I schedule a meeting first with their customer retention manager, who I had to hang up on because he wouldn't accept I was cancelling. This company is completely sales and customer-retention driven, their actual services are terrible and overall I feel my money was completely wasted. I'm in contact now with an actual web designer who doesn't have a bunch of sales people and overhead to pay.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

1 sales guy, 1 initial website planner, several website team members, 1 "customer success manager".

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I feel they do barely enough to legally meet the required obligations of their contracts. Having spent over $5k on their services, I have received nothing of value.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Really poor, I wanted a professional web designer and I got some employees in India that would input changes I dictated through email onto a templated webpage.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The audacity to pretend like they offered a quality product.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Yea, I mean they could restructure their company so that they aren't shady sales-based contractual fraudsters.