In 2020 Armer Design created a fab website for my small cake business. The look and design of it…read morewas just what I wanted and it worked as per my request. I paid for the annual maintenance package for the following year, and for the year after that, and Armer were initially supportive and helped me to keep my website relevant and working well.
In 2022 however, they stopped being so responsive to emails and requests. I had a number of issues that occurred in the run ip to Christmas, and emailed a few issues to Armer to help look at. I also requested an updated user guide (I had received one when the website first launched, but there had been a number of changes since then so I needed a new one). I wanted to be able to fix minor changes myself (even though in an earlier email Luke had advised I could send through minor changes to be resolved, I wanted to be able to quickly update some things myself).
I eventually got an email back saying that my Annual Maintenance package was coming to an end, and I would not be allowed to renew it (in contrast to what my original proposal from them sent in 2020 said). So, the glitches with the website continued, but Armer would resolve them, but also didn't tell me how to resolve them. Then, out of the blue in early summer this year, they told me the would no longer host my website on their servers and I had six weeks to move it. Being a small business worried about my website going down I quickly found a new host and moved it across - with Armer providing the most amount of help in months - but still no user guide. The website does not work well anymore - the Cake Calculator that worked so well doesn't work at all - this is my main source of customer contact, but Armer have not told me how to fix it. I didn't m want to create a whole new website, I was happy with the one they designed, but as it no longer works and I can't find anyone who can help me fix it, I think I have to start from scratch.
It is such a shame - I was so pleased initially and was happy to recommend Armer in the first place, and what started as a great relationship has turned sour, presumably because Armer no longer care about the small businesses that came to them in the first place. I feel completely let down and unsupported. I'm not a website developer, I'm not good at this stuff - I'm a cake maker - but I'm not dumb. A little help and guidance in the form of a user guide, or a phone call which I kept asking for so Luke or someone with experience could have provided a little training,
would have meant I could have updated the little issues myself, and I was very happy to pay for maintenance and support as needed, but I was never offered that chance.
