My Small Service Disabled Veteran Owned company reached out to Direct Line Development for a website build. During our experience working with them we received exceedingly disappointing customer service, project leadership, and design.
Upon our initial contact with Direct Line we explained that our firm was fairly new and was becoming an establish consulting force in the community. We needed/requested a website that was both professional, simple, and aligned with sites similar to those of our peers (examples were provided). It was also expressed that we were not technologically savvy and would need assistance in edits and template designs. Additionally, we informed Direct Line that our clientele was heavily based on government organizations and classified projects.
We were surprised to find out how disengaged, disjointed, and outright frustrating this process was while working with Direct Line Development. Throughout the 6 months we worked with them, a few experiences arose that made us uncomfortable with the product Direct Line was producing for us:
• We were assured that Direct Line would provide industry-specific assistance while providing editing and narratives based on an understanding of web design. This did not happen; Direct Line never truly understood our industry or vision.
• Habitually attempted to force us to pick a cookie-cutter design which they previously created that was NOT based on our recommendations or aesthetic examples.
• Direct Line agreed they would enhance logo, edit photos, provide expertise – However my company was forced to hire an outside source to assist with reworking the logo, and other design elements due to their refusal/lack of knowledge.
• It was never explained that our website design would be outsourced to a foreign country – ours specifically was outsourced to Russia – with our expressed cliental base this could be a potential classification violation – when we made mention of our dilemma, it was ignored and we were told that this is a normal practice.
• Communication was simply not at the forefront, many times we had to repeat our requests, do the work ourselves, or hire another industry professional to create the work to send to Direct Line resulting in a higher expense.
Touted as being “an experienced, dedicated, and results-driven web design company that stands behind our work. We are a team of professionals specializing in web design, development, animation, and SEO.”
We were under the impression that Direct Line Development would resolve our issues accordingly. Therefore we attempted to seek a resolution for our discontent and asked for a partial refund of some type – with the full knowledge that the man-hours put into our current product (though unfinished and not to our standard) was worth a portion of the funds spent. However, we were DENIED any refund and instead were offered a "credit" for "additional services" with their company; though we explicitly told the firm we were uncomfortable continuing to do business with their firm.
In the long run, our company spent slightly more than $12K with Direct Line Development and we were left with nothing that we believed was suitable both on a security level and aesthetic perspective.
Our small veteran-owned company will be pursuing a different web development team elsewhere and we HIGHLY suggest that any other business wanting to utilize Direct Line Development be made aware of their inadequate business practices and hidden outsourcing. The time and money spent collaborating with this company was a complete waste. DO NOT USE THEM…
