Leap Creative/48 press

[Jonny Boy]

Blimme Moses, people. I write a post and go offline for the weekend and......

Do you know what guys... I'm sorry to say this but I'm quite appaulled how quickly some people on here have been quick to presume the worst and start raining down castigations on Lee & his business.

I only asked the OP question as I know some people have got more than one contact point with Lee or have better 'intel'.
I never intended this post to open any cans of worms: I feel I need to apologise, Lee, that this thread had brought this unfair criticism to you.

I'll admit I initially feared the worst, (I'm a natural pessamist!) but never *expected* the worst....everything I've hear about Lee & his company and everything I've experience contradicted this.

I am compelled to say Lee is one of the hardest working, most dedicated and affable business people I've come across. I'm pretty confident with my first impressions and await being proven wrong.... but I doubt it. I had a personal call from Lee as soon as he was able, and a revised timetable for the work underway.

I know how distraught *I* feel when even the smallest thing goes wrong with my admin, staff (ok, roadies!), or health that affects the service I can provide: I'm can pretty much empathise with Lee, for whom everything has fallen down at once.
Life's a bit shizzle like that sometimes.
I can imagine the catch up has been enormous and subject to HIS service providers I'm confident Leap's service will be back up to its usual exemplary standards soon.

I know it's happened to all of us: events where everthing seems to go wrong...just go back and read some of the Heaven or Hell posts! So - and I'm sorry if this is against the zeitgeist - cut the guy some slack!
How would you like it if your clients posted their complaints on a public forum before having dealt with you personally?

Lee : best wishes that everything's back on track soon.

[hammy]

Awesome post there from Johnny Boy

[SC Events]

Top post Jonny Boy!

[Shaun]

Without taking sides (because I'm really not). I personally don't feel it's entirely fair to tell people to "cut some slack" when they have a genuine grievance with the service they've received. Had it been forum members just jumping in on the conversation and just adding their opinion without personally being let down, then I'd agree with your post Johnny. However, I really do believe those that have commented saying they're not happy are more than entitled to do so.

That said, I have no doubt in my mind that the guys from Leap will sort it out and restore good faith.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Sorry, but I disagree. If people are unhappy and not getting answers or emails or phone calls, then they are going to post their dissatisfaction on here as this is where Leap Creative advertise. No-one has slated the company, but people have just posted their unhappy experiences. I have seen some of the product that Lee produces and it is indeed very good, but there is no excuse for not contacting clients. Phones going down and problems with staff is not a reason for a business to not be able to carry on running. There are mobile phones, mobile broadband, answer phones, voicemail, tablets, smart phones etc. I don't understand why there isn't some kind of communication.

[DazzyD]

After the last few posts, I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

As someone standing on the outside looking, and having no contact nor emotional ties with Lee or Leap Creative, who only has a B2B head on, I would expect Lee to lose clients and business because of this. The situation, as I see it, is that good customer service here has been sadly lacking. When customers are not getting their orders fulfilled and the company then fails to respond to concerns, be it over the telephone or by email, then the customer-supplier relationship is as risk of breaking down. We have a case here of a customer who has spent money on marketing material for a specific event that points to a website which isn't live yet. He can't use that marketing because when a potential customer goes to check out his fantastic new website only to find out it doesn't exist then it's pretty obvious what their opinion of his will be. To be fair, I've seen suppliers getting sued for lost business in similar situations.

As for Lee's health problems, to me as a businessperson, that would be totally irrelevant. All I'd want to know is that my supplier is capable of getting my order to me correctly and on time. There's no denying, from what I've read on here, that Lee and his team have done sterling work in the past but this counts for nothing if that standard is not being continued in to the present and, indeed, in to the future.

I think Leap Creative's biggest sin here is not keeping it's customer's informed. Customer's can be very understanding and sympathetic IF they are given the chance. From the no responses that customer's enquiries have had, how can they be understanding? As for the problems with BT, I cannot believe that, or understand why, so many businesses put their faith in to a company with such as appalling customer service record. Where is the contingency plans when the inevitable happens (and, with BT, it will!!)? I'd have used mobile phones and emailed their numbers to all of my clients so that they could still get in touch with my company. In this email, I'd have explained that there were issues and thank all of my customers for bearing with me as we work to resolve them. This hasn't happened. Is it any wonder some clients are a bit disgruntled?

I won't apologise to anyone who thinks my comments are a bit harsh. This is business, after all. When faced with this standard of customer service customers will walk. They will remain loyal to a business they trust but that trust is very fragile and easily broken. This is why the very best customer service is so very important in todays highly competitive marketplace.

Also, I'm not having a personal dig at Lee, here. This is strictly business and is not personal whatsoever. And I hope things pick up for Lee with regards to his health quickly.


EDIT:

I'd started typing this post before Shaun and Darren added their comments. So, just to make it clear that I'm not a Leap Creative customer, have had no personal dealings with Lee or the company and was simply offering an opinion based on a business perspective.

[Jonny Boy]

Some good counter-arguements there. Sometimes however we can't plan contingencies for everything - especially with compounded problems faced by small-to-medium businesses, who often need make eggs-in-one basket decisions. (eg all IT with one provider....)
Am sure there's been some serious lessons learnt, nonetheless.

Apparantly I'm not very "hard-nosed" in business (often to to my detriment), and try to deal with others as I'd like to be dealt with. Benefit of the doubt and all that...however this probably explains why I'm nowhere near being a millionaire. :-D

In my book, it's the actions that a business takes to rectify failures in service that also build loyalty, balanced against examples of exceeding expectations...like a sliding scale. My loyalty isn't fragile, if earned.
If my first, 2nd & 3rd experiences are above excellent, then even a fairly significant breakdown will pretty much break even on my patented kudos-o-meter. :-D

[DazzyD]

Some good counter-arguements there. Sometimes however we can't plan contingencies for everything - especially with compounded problems faced by small-to-medium businesses, who often need make eggs-in-one basket decisions. (eg all IT with one provider....)
Am sure there's been some serious lessons learnt, nonetheless.

Apparantly I'm not very "hard-nosed" in business (often to to my detriment), and try to deal with others as I'd like to be dealt with. Benefit of the doubt and all that...however this probably explains why I'm nowhere near being a millionaire. :-D

In my book, it's the actions that a business takes to rectify failures in service that also build loyalty, balanced against examples of exceeding expectations...like a sliding scale. My loyalty isn't fragile, if earned.
If my first, 2nd & 3rd experiences are above excellent, then even a fairly significant breakdown will pretty much break even on my patented kudos-o-meter. :-D

That's the best bit of advice any business can take onboard and act on. We all know things can go wrong and mistakes happen - show me a businessman who says he hasn't made any mistakes and I'll show you a liar!! But it's what the business does from that point to put things right. Take, for example, Dragon's Den investor Peter Jones. He's been bankrupt, was made homeless and ended up sleeping on his office floor. But he learned from his mistakes, put them right and he's now one of the most successful entreprenuers this country has ever produced. And I'll bet he still doesn't get everything right first time!!

As I said, my opinions come from someone looking in - but I could easily be a potential customer. Unlike you, Jonny Boy, I've no previous dealings with this company to look back on and compare. What I see is a company that didn't deliver and left it's customers in the dark. Which, to me, is a huge shame as, previous to this thread, I've heard nothing but glowing reports about the work of Lee and his team. I'm not even a Leap customer but what I really want to see now is them putting things right and the freshly-satisfied customers coming back on here and posting about what a great job the business has done in the face of adversity. When I'm researching a new service provider for something that I'm needing, I'm not looking at references from happy customers were nothing has gone wrong. I want to look in cases where things have gone wrong and what the company has then done to put them right. I can them make a more informed decision of where to place my trust as I know the company I opt for has the ability to put things right when something's gone wrong. And this info can be found on many consumer forums on the internet - it's just a case of looking!

[Shaun]

I'm not even a Leap customer but what I really want to see now is them putting things right and the freshly-satisfied customers coming back on here and posting about what a great job the business has done in the face of adversity. When I'm researching a new service provider for something that I'm needing, I'm not looking at references from happy customers were nothing has gone wrong. I want to look in cases where things have gone wrong and what the company has then done to put them right. I can them make a more informed decision of where to place my trust as I know the company I opt for has the ability to put things right when something's gone wrong.

[Jonny Boy]

+1