FAQS FOR CLIENTS

All of our Internet marketing services begin with a Terms of Service contract that defines the scope of our agreed service offerings that "must be signed" for our project(s) to start.

1. Web Design Terms of Service
2. Internet Marketing/Social Marketing Terms of Service
3. Website Hosting Terms of Service
   Note: As hosting clients stay for many years, the original signed "contract" is still valid and does not need to be resigned yearly.  It remains in effect for all following hosting years paid.  Hosting services may be ended by either party with a two-week window that will be fully supported for migrating to a new webmaster or host server. 
4. Google Ads Terms of Service
5. Facebook Ads Terms of Service

We then proceed to our client start process, which involves a question-and-answer form for our team to understand your business, industry, and marketing goals.

• In most website projects, we require a 50% deposit before starting all projects and the remaining 50% at the completion of every job.  
• We also offer payment plans.
• We offer REDUCED RATE agile hourly retainer plans for ongoing support month to month that can be topped up when you run out of hours or require more marketing agency support. READ MORE HERE. 
• Our standard hourly rate is $150/hr(JANUARY 2025) Canadian + HST. NOTE: If two Gem Webb Inc. team members are in meetings, that is 2x the hourly rate, respectfully.  
• For monthly Internet marketing packages, we divide the total by the months performing the services to equal payments monthly over the project term. 
• If you are a client and require help with non-company services like Paypal, your domain Registrar, Google Apps Email, Zoho, etc to sleuth out solutions our Critical incident rates are charged on a per-call basis.  Note: It's also a higher rate when you want that day priority service if we have the available team to help.  Rates begin at $140 an hour for emergency day service of troubleshooting, phone support is at $150/hr(JANUARY 2025) on top of our service (min 2 hours will be billed).
• Website updating service plans do not cover phone assistance for non-service offered items and will be billed at our standards hourly rate or $150/hr(JANUARY 2025)
• Accepted payments are by cheque, Interac e-Transfer (send to hello@gemwebb.com) and all major credit cards through QuickBooks Cloud Online and Moneris PayD. There is an additional 3% transaction fee for credit card payments. 
• American clients are billed in American funds and request money transfers using a Swift BIC code to our American bank account (a form will be provided).

Once the 50% deposit is received, we roll into a start-up meeting for the team's ideas.  We review your industry, competitors, your old website (if applicable) to see the strength and weaknesses in Google Search. 

Once we've learned about your business from the perspective of what you'd like to achieve and what services you want, we then want to dive a little bit deeper into your day to day operations and how you hope your clients will interact with your website. This will be done in the form of a questionnaire that will be set up for you on a test server. Once you've completed our questions then the clock can start on our team to get things ready for you.

For small business websites, once the questionnaire is filled out, a complete build can take from 1 week to 2 months depending on the number of pages required and the amount of additional content that will need to be created.

For larger websites with more functionality, once your questionnaire is filled out the process can take anywhere from 1 to 4 months or more depending on the amount of functionality, the amount of content that needs to be created, and the ability of the client and their team to respond timely to requests for new content.

We offer full-service website updating packages for those who don't want to learn or don't have time to update their own sites that may include: blog posts, update text, images, and even layout changes at an easy to afford retainer rate.  We also offer the following website updating service packages.

Education Learning Sessions:  Every 30 minutes of a live, phone call or screen sharing session counts as 1 task.  IE: 1 Hour is 2 tasks.

What qualifies as a request?

A single submission for a change or multiple changes to the physical appearance, text or updates/changes to existing website functionality. If you have multiple changes at once (up to 10) we will count that as 1 request. The new functionality will be subject to review before we can count it within web concierge as some functionality could come with significant development costs. We promise to work with you to find the best and most cost-effective solution.

1: Company hourly standard rates are normally $150/hr(JANUARY 2025), so the above packages reduce clients yearly service rates.

2: We do not charge to repair anything that is broken or not working, please contact us immediately if there are any issues with your website and we will work to resolve them as soon as possible.

All projects are assigned by the owner, Gem Webb, to a specific team member once a foundational understanding of the client and project scope is acquired. 

At Gem Webb Internet Marketing & Web Design Inc., our agency works during traditional business days. We grant access of the team to our clients via a variety of channels, including but not limited to, email, text, cellphone, social media messaging, etc. Although we are accessible, it should be noted that we may take up to 24 to 48 hours to follow up with a client's request. This gives our team the opportunity to coordinate the best path to move the project forward. 

Client Project Management & the Gem Webb Team

Please be respectful of your access to our team during evenings and weekends and contact us only in urgent situations. 

As there are many channels of communication available, please note that messaging our team through text or social media does not constitute providing us with project direction. Please email project-specific directives to the appropriate team member. This will ensure that your projects proceed most smoothly. 

Behind the Scenes: How we Coordinate as a Team Internally

Please understand we handle many clients and keep our team in the loop as communication progresses within an a-synchronous project management environment.   This takes many internal meetings on our end to keep everyone in the loop so that fact that you might have communicated with your account manager or lead on social media might not have been reported to the owner or the lead web developer until our internal end or mid-week meeting or other various department meetings. 

Positive client and team communication a must

We are an enthusiastic team that is focused on client goals and deadlines.  We ask that all client communication be positive in nature, non-pushy, and highly communicative without any negative behaviour.  If negative communication takes place, it will be noted internally and resolved through positive communication.  If it cannot be resolved and there is an underlying issue, we will terminate contracts respectfully for all parties to be happy and safe from abuse.  

Proper Client Direction is Through Email or Basecamp

Messaging our team through texting or social media does not constitute providing us with project direction.  We must receive your project direction within an official email written messages or within BASECAMP(one point of contact email required) to work with your project.   The activity of copy/pasting from text to our project management systems does not integrate with texting nor social media and is simply is too personal a way of communicating for professional projects.  We are not responsible for any projects not proceeding if you the client sent direction through text messaging or social media messaging as it will be on the client for not adhering to our clearly stated process of doing business. 

As a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) agency, we are regularly approached from similar industry clients that may know we are behind the success of their main competitor. In the case of conflicts of interest, we offer transparency to clients onboarding of other similar industry clients we currently are working for with similar target markets. We now offer "Exclusivity Contracts" if you want to have us solely marketing for your business within a renewable yearly term.

We will always contact our current industry client and offer an Exclusivity Contract prior to signing a similar industry client.  

Target market similarities could include, but not limited to.

1. Physical Geographic Location
2. Industry Function
3. Industry Keywords
4. Demographic Targets
5. Geographic Keywords

Please read this article we believe makes a good case for how each client can be marketed differently. https://cloud9marketing.ca/blog/agencies-deal-competing-clients/

We offer a $100 commission for every website delivered to us as a lead.  Upon successful signing of a Terms of  Service contract with the client lead plus a paid initial deposit, we then will e-transfer the $100 Canadian to the affiliate email address within 30 days.

REFER A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING LEAD

We offer a $100 commission for every signed and started quarterly social media marketing contract given to us as a lead.  Upon successful signing of an Internet & Social Media Terms of  Service contract with the client lead plus a paid initial deposit, we then will e-transfer the $100 Canadian to your email address within 30 days.

We work very hard to ensure that all of our clients are completely satisfied with our services. 

Please consider leaving us a review on Google Business, sharing your experience of working with us. 

Resolving Disputes. While we will do our best to ensure that you will be pleased with your experience as a Company on every project, not every project or client relationship will work out. If that most unfortunate reality should occur, we agree to work out any problems in a friendly manner that prevent the project from moving forward successfully. However, if that process is ineffective, either you or GEM WEBB INTERNET MARKETING & WEB DESIGN INC. may cancel this agreement for a good cause by sending written notice to the other person and have two weeks to leave with the support of the Gem Webb Inc. team for a smooth transition.

Amount Due after Cancellation. Upon cancellation of this agreement, you will be billed for the number of hours, weeks or months we have spent on the project at our standard hourly rate. This also pertains to leaving our hosting packages billed yearly and reviewed during a 12 month term.  If this amount is less than the deposit, or first month billed, you will not owe any additional funds. If this amount is more than the deposit, you will be billed for the outstanding balance.

Continuing Effect. All rights to indemnification GEM WEBB INTERNET MARKETING & WEB DESIGN INC. company and team will continue after the cancellation of all Agreement as signed in the original contract that stays in effect every year a client pays a new bill for ongoing services and hosting.

Continuing Effect. Business changes of ownership, contractor issues on the client's side, website updates and passing of ownership email and phone, etc changes upon any sort of client business dissolution.   A minimum charge of 2 hours at our standard hourly rate $150/hr(JANUARY 2025) to update and change will be billed to the client for any of these client updates to control all assets.

Release of Liability. You agree to release Gem Webb Inc. from any liability for all spelling or content errors that are submitted from the Company.  Also, you agree to release us from any liability and to indemnify us against any claims or lawsuits from a third party arising from any elements and upon leaving the company + you provide to us to complete this project.  GEM WEBB INTERNET MARKETING & WEB DESIGN INC. is not responsible for changes made to the Company’s website (s), social media network(s), hosting issues by other parties that adversely affect the search engine or directory rankings of the Company’s website(s).

Abusive or Harassing Behavior

• If a client engages in bullying, verbal abuse, or harassing communications, we can terminate based on the right to maintain a safe and respectful working environment that will document incidents of abuse or bullying to establish a clear pattern.

Unreasonable Demands or Interference

• If a client’s actions significantly disrupt our business's ability to deliver services (e.g., excessive demands, micromanagement, or unjustified legal threats), we can terminate on the grounds of interference or inability to maintain a constructive working relationship.

Legal Threats or Hostile Conduct

• Threatening legal action without basis will be cited as creating a hostile and unworkable relationship, as this behaviour/communication undermines mutual trust and goodwill necessary for continued collaboration on all projects and ongoing hosting.

Violation of Acceptable Use Policy

• Our terms of service include a clause about professional behaviour or prohibit abusive actions, invoking the clause to terminate.

No Fault Termination Clause

• Our contracts also include a clause allowing either party to terminate without cause (with proper notice) and exercise this option. This avoids needing to list specific reasons in unfortunate situations.

Best Practices for Termination:

1. Document Everything:
   • We keep a record of all instances of bullying, abusive communication, or unreasonable behaviour.
2. Consult a Lawyer:
   • We will review the contract and termination process with a lawyer to ensure compliance with Canadian law and avoid potential disputes.
3. Provide Written Notice:
   • We will issue a formal termination letter outlining the reason (if necessary or leave it to our lawyer's recommendation and review first) and reference the relevant clauses in the agreement once we have spoken to the legal counsel.  Please be patient with the Gem Webb Inc. team, as this unfortunate outcome is a speed bump to our other important client project that always takes priority first.
4. Maintain Professional Tone:
   • All clients must avoid personal attacks or emotional language. Stated the decision clearly and professionally or will be terminated.

We have a zero-tolerance policy here at Gem Webb Inc. for abusive clients; prioritizing our team's mental health and well-being is #1 important.

A straightforward termination approach may minimize further conflict while maintaining legal and professional integrity. On that unfortunate note, we have law firms that act on our behalf in situations that cannot be resolved professionally and amicably.  Please contact your Gem Webb Inc. point of contact if you require assistance.