Hi Folks,
A part of me was going to let this thread tail off, but I've decided against that and to address quite a few of the points made.
Firstly, I agree entirely on the need for contingency plans and we did in fact have plans in place. Unfortunately they didn't cover 3 or 4 fairly large problems all hitting us at once and we found ourselves fire-fighting just to keep things ticking over. However, as has been rightly pointed out, this has been a learning experience for us, from which we have built a stronger set of contingencies, built a stronger team and ensured that the communications problems couldn't happen again.
A few customers did experience delays, which I have openly admitted were predominantly down to me not being available. I would like to point out at this point that I haven't once used my health as an excuse of any kind, but as context to the reasons behind some of the problems. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my first post, most clients from here have dealt with me directly and not with any other members of the team, so some projects weren't followed up in my absence. We've since added a preventative measure of shared inboxes to ensure all communications are dealt with swiftly by one of the team.
We are now in the process of catching up on backlogs caused by staffing problems, as we have now taken on two additional developers and another designer. I'm pleased to say that all outstanding projects are due to be completed by the end of this week. I've also been in touch personally with many of the people who've posted in this thread to apologise for the problems experienced and to get things back on track, and will continue to do so until we're completely clear of the recent issues, and have a much stronger business going forward.
Myself and the team are working extremely hard to get things back to normal, and whilst this may not be an overnight solution, we're making very good progress.
Finally, I would like to thank the members who have emailed with good wishes regarding both Leap and myself - it is very much appreciated. Thank you also for all of the constructive comments here - rest assured, they have all been taken on board and acted on.
