A Story We’ve Heard Too Many Times Before
All too often, our clients tell us their own version of an all too familiar story. It goes a little something like this…
Once upon a time, our client hired another software developer or a single freelance developer to create a piece of custom software. The developer completed the project, but then left abruptly, perhaps to move on to the next client or the next job. Our client was left high and dry, without any documentation and no open line of communication. It’s always at this point in the story when our client becomes our client by reaching out to us here at Zelifcam.
What happens next, you ask? Our team dives right in, of course. At Zelifcam, we relish the chance to save the day. We set up an initial meeting with our new client to discuss the full scope of the situation. We talk about the software so we can get a complete picture of why it was developed, how it’s supposed to work, and what is needed from it. Then, we’ll jump into a conversation about the issues our client is having and what it will require on our end to fix it. More often than not, our clients are experiencing an emergency; their software is completely broken and their business is suffering for it.
Once we get on the same page as our client and formulate a plan of attack, we provide our client with either an hourly or fixed rate proposal for the project that is accompanied by a statement of work. If our client accepts, we send a formal contract. As soon as it’s signed, we get to work because there’s never time to waste. We fix the software, solve our client’s issues, and most importantly, we build documentation around the software if it’s necessary. Even if our clients never use it, we feel better knowing that we’ve lowered the cost of future emergencies or software development.
It is then, and only then, that we all go on to live happily ever after.
Business Continuity
When we inherit a project, we think about it as inheriting an opportunity. We have the chance to further business continuity for our client, because when software runs seamlessly, businesses thrive. We focus on ensuring the stability of the software, and we provide reports detailing any oddities we may discover along the way. Most importantly, we provide remediation recommendations, because at Zelifcam we are all about solutions.
When we’re searching for discrepancies or abnormalities, we know exactly where to look. We check for server issues, including RAM usage, disk usage, and disk health, as well as software issues, which include uncaught errors or exceptions, reliable deployment methodology, and backups, among others. At the end of each project, we’re delighted to present these issues to our clients with our proposed solutions and it’s up to our clients if they’d like to extend our contract to allow us the opportunity to fix them.
Just because another developer created a piece of software doesn’t mean that Zelifcam isn’t ready, willing, and able to fix any issues that may arise. Our priority is solving problems for our clients, regardless of where those problems originated. Project inheritance is a specialty in which we excel, and we look forward to the opportunity to not only resolve our clients' issues, but improve their software products for the betterment of their business.