Be Careful Who You Work For: Contracts Don't Mean Much Anymore!

Earlier this week we received an email from one of our dealers, and it was one that we definitely didn't see coming!  This particular dealer, who I'll call John for simplicity, had called us a month or so ago to tell us one of his customers was launching a lawsuit against him--because his Sierra Stone had cracked!

Now, I should make you aware that John has used or at least based his contracts on the standard contract we use in our office.  In the warranty section of that contract it clearly states that there is no warranty either expressed or implied against cracking because we can't control the movement of the substrate.  If my memory serves me correctly, in this particular circumstance the Sierra Stone was applied over existing cracked concrete near a body of water that was known to hit the concrete fairly hard when high winds occurred.  I'm also fairly confident that John made the customer aware that it was extremely likely that the Sierra Stone would crack under those conditions.  However, the customer insisted and they did the work anyway.


As expected, the Sierra Stone cracked in the same way the customer's concrete had, but--with little or no regard for the limitations of warranty stipulated in his contract--the customer launched a lawsuit for damages.  In the email we received earlier this week, John told us that it appears the courts are going to rule against him and he is going to have to pay to have the Sierra Stone removed and replaced!  As I said before, this is all in spite of the fact that the contract very clearly states we do not warranty cracking due to substrate movement and the customer's verbal consent to that aspect of the contract!!


Due to the severity of the lawsuit John now faces, and the fact that it appears to defy any form of common sense, I want to pass along a bit of advice to all of our dealers:  choose your jobs carefully.  I know that--to some extent--we can't be too picky about the applications we choose, but we need to balance that with a willingness to walk away from potential headaches.  At some point every one of us has done a job that we knew would be a headache from the moment we pulled up to the house.  Sometimes those jobs come out OK, but sometimes they end up costing more than we can handle.  For some of the jobs we can keep the Rubber Stone in mind because of its increased flexibility and compressibility; but even Rubber Stone can't go over everything.

The Pitfalls of Technology

As many of you know, all but one of the telephone lines that we use at the Sierra Stone Head Office are internet-based, voice-over-internet-protocol (i.e. VOIP) lines.  We implemented the VOIP system a few years ago because we needed more lines due to higher call volumes, and being in a rural area made the cost of getting more land-lines put in far to expensive.  Voice-over-IP services have proven to be both highly effective and extremely economical for many companies in recent years, and I had hoped that ours would benefit as well.


Over the years we've fought with inconsistent internet service and slow internet speeds more often than we would have liked until the last few months.  We switched internet service providers and now have a very strong and consistent internet signal.  However, now our VOIP provider has decided to change over its billing system which means creating new accounts and changing our settings.  This has led, at least in part, to a barrage of persistent (and extremely frustrating), technical problems which have lasted for a good portion of this month.  On Thursday the problems peaked when our VOIP provider attempted to do a "simple" account upgrade which has resulted in an almost complete lack of VOIP telephone services in our office:  we can call out, but our customers can't call in.


We all know what an office space can be like when important pieces of technology aren't working, and our office is no exception.  All of us have been frustrated at the current situation, and the most frustrating part about it is that we are essentially at the mercy of technicians who are a very long distance from our office.  The frustration and pressure from within the office have prompted me to switch VOIP providers, so we are now using the services of a company that provides VOIP for Delta Airlines, IBM, StateFarm, and a number of other large companies.  HOWEVER, it appears that we have run into a similar problem during the setup process:  I can call out, but our customers cannot call in.  The symptoms of the problem are different than those with our other provider, and I am relatively certain they should have things up and running by Monday at the latest.  


In any case, we ask that you be patient with us as we try and work this out.  Believe it or not, we're as frustrated as anybody about this whole situation.  Hopefully this new service provider will be the last step in perfecting our system.


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UPDATE:  As of August 22, 2011 our 1-888-799-3960 number has been call-forwarded to our new provider so we are up and running again.  Now to see how reliable the service is . . .

Website Modifications

This morning I got an email from our dealer in Calgary about the twitter page he has set up for Sierra Stone.  I had completely forgotten about that, but now a link to it has been added to our homepage as well.  I'll add a link to the other pages shortly, but it will take a little time.  The main problem with updating our website continually is that it was created using Microsoft Notepad back in the 90's, and that means that I have to edit each page individually by copying and pasting in the new code.  Now they have new scrips like PHP which allow you to use a standard template for the site so you can edit all the pages in each step.  At this point that would be nice since we've got 8+ pages for me to edit.



In addition, I'll be making the following changes to the website over the next while:

1. add a sample of our Grey Blend stone color to the Sierra Stone colors page
2. setup slide shows on our colors and pictures pages so the images are larger 
3. add downloadable MSDS sheets for safety
4. add a separate page for downloading brochures and viewing our YouTube videos
5. adding a link to this blog to our pages

I'll probably do more than that, but it's a start.  I also have to add EnduraFlake Floors and RubberStone Mats to our website soon.  I guess I'd better get started, but if you have any ideas for the site please feel free to email them to me!

Blogging for the Top Spot!

Well, I've finally decided to start a blog about what's going on at E.W. Industries Ltd:  the home of Sierra Stone, Rubber Stone, and EnduraFlake Floors.  Admittedly, I've been boycotting things like blogs, Facebook, and other social networking concepts because up until now I've been of the opinion that I don't need to let the whole world know my business.  I've been happy talking to friends and coworkers, but to put things on the internet for all to see is a big step up from there!


However, over the past year or so I've heard a lot about using social networking sites in order to increase a website's ranking with Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.  At this point my understanding is that once I link our Facebook Page, this blog, and our main website together, when each one is updated it helps to increase the ranking of all three.  Apparently, one aspect of the page-ranking process includes how often a webpage, and the linked pages within it, are updated; so blogging and creating Facebook discussions can help.  So, here it goes:  from now on there will be opinions, bulletins, and other information posted within the pages of this blog and I'll be watching our sites to see what happens!


Now . . . to link this to our webpage and our Facebook page.  This will be fun . . .