written by Hanna81 on 06/07/2015
Wasted a lot of money and time with this company. I think they may be ok for websites without shops. So many things left out of the training video. To cut a long story short...both myself and our young employee (who's more IT savy than me) had lots of trouble and paid lots of extra money for added features that are free as standard with self build sites. The stress of it started to make me ill so I complained to customer services and received an email threatening us with their legal dept and offering a few pound off the next lump of money they wanted us to pay. This was for work that should have been standard. I decided for the good of my health to just put it down to experience and looked at a self build website. I can't believe that I am actually enjoying the experience of building my own website. It's really quite easy and only costs a small fee each month for a really good ecommerce site with all the features I need already included.
As rated by our community of reviewers
Benmidson's Comment
Written on: 31/03/2017
Hi there,
I'm in the process of contacting everyone who has had an extremely negative experience with this company. I would appreciate it if you could get in touch with me just to explain your story.
Thank you.
Shammaarb's Comment
Written on: 03/04/2017
Hi, I read your review on another site and saw your comment here as well. My experience with SMG was dreadful. Lost around £2,500 in 2013.
I signed off on a design but I had a feeling that it wasn't truly bespoke so I asked him whether their company uses templates. He started to beat around the bush so I asked him straight...do you use templates. He admitted that yes they do have preset designs that they edit and customise for the client.
I signed off anyway because I was happy with the design. I noticed the deeper we got into the project the less talkative and kind they were with how they dealt with me. He was very abrupt on the phone and in the emails.
Then one day I called up and apparently my project manager had left (I had to call up, they didn't let me know) and my new project manager was nicer than the other chap and stuck to the estimated build time.
Eventually when the site was built, before it went live they sent me instructions to this content management program where I could add things to the site. It was very confusing and there were too many bugs in the program like it randomly signing me out and not saving my work.
Called up over and over and they kept referring me back to the instructions. I told them it's not about the instructions, the actual program is terrible and I cant add to my blog. Admittedly, I should have chased them up more and more but the whole thing was so stressful that after several months I gave up. I got an email a couple months later saying that if I didnt put the site live, everything would be deleted.
Wait...I just paid 2.5k so it's MY site. You cant tell me when I need to go live. Called up and a rude woman on the phone told me that once a client doesn't put a site live within X amount of time, they remove that person from their systems, which then blocks access to their sites login details. I''m 80% sure its the same lady that you mentioned in your review.
I decided to accept my loss and let my registration with them expire. I didnt want to deal with them. I didnt want to talk to them. I didn't want to use their massively flawed CMS (content management system). I felt cheated out of my money. They built the site, yes, but put me through hell to get it up and running. The process sucked the life out of my it was that fustrating.
Sorry for the long comment, but believe it or not I've actually left quite a few details out. Now they've rebranded themselves to this hospitality company. I hope peoppe take note of the bad reviews and choose another company or freelance developer.
Loveisall83's Comment
Written on: 05/05/2017
So similar to my experience. So sorry you went through this too. Surely they don't understand how much stress and upset they cause(d). Anyway...it's behind us now. Thank you so much for your comment. Xx
Loveisall83's Comment
Written on: 05/05/2017
My review says it all really. Why are you contacting everyone and how do I get in touch?