Small Business Success Network

The business world has always existed but how well a business does and how long it will survive depends on multiple factors; such as quality, customer service and standing behind their product. In the world of internet business, it is even more important than ever to be personal, know the demographics of your target audience and provide excellent support.

International competition is huge and right at the fingertips of your customers. It is up to you and your business policies to keep your current clients as well as attract new ones. How can you do so in a manner that keeps people coming back for more though?

• By implementing the same policies you would expect a company to follow if YOU were the user.
• Clearly stating the benefits, features and any drawbacks that could result in disappointed customers on the product page.
• Name your links wisely so that your customers can easily locate important information.
• Post your refund and return policies in your terms of use, on your checkout page and even on your sales page in plain view.
• Maintain a friendly and approachable attitude, even when the feedback is negative.
• Never promise something to a client that you cannot deliver or that is conditional of a third party.
• Create a user friendly, non-cluttered web experience.
• Go the extra mile to provide outstanding support.

I am the victim of bad business policies and as a business coach, web designer and professional internet marketer I feel it is my responsibility to share my experience with you. We can all learn from the bad business policies that caused this incident and if you use the information I'm going to share in this article you can protect yourself from the same problems and prevent your business from receiving bad reviews.

The incident I speak of is with the company CorePhp. They create extensions for the popular content management system (CMS) Joomla!; which I personally swear by!

Upon building the Small Business Success Network website I was looking for a multi-user blog solution to enable each of my radio hosts to have their own personalized blog within the site and utilize the benefits of Joomla!. There are multiple options out there. Some of them are free and some are commercial but the one I chose to go with was from CorePHP as they have an extension that merges Joomla! and WordPress - which I also swear by.

By my calculations of logic, this would enable me to create the ultimate blogging system on a secure and flexible platform. Little did I know that CorePHP was not playing on a fair battlefield. Their sales page for WordPress barely mentions the multi-user possibility and their demo page was only for a single user blog. I bought their product in good faith, as we all do when we step out on the limb and purchase a new product.

Upon purchase, it took 2 hours to setup using their documentation due to the complexity of the installation. It did not work through the normal 'plug-and-play' type installer other Joomla extensions use. It requires you to also use FTP and have enough programming knowledge to edit php files as well as having knowledge about how to use htaccess files in order for the extension to function. After following their directions explicitly, I discover there is still a problem and contact them for support.

At first, their support team was fast and polite; it made a good impression - although a false one. After a few posts, their support team started complaining over using a single ticket to continue my corresponding, even though the topics were related. When my support requests were split into multiple tickets responses started to get confusing for both the CorePHP team and myself. This resulted in some requests taking days to get replies and others never getting answered.

After 3 days of constant back and forth support tickets, the CorePHP team informs me that, it this extension doesn't work as it should with certain other extensions. This particular problem was minor but CorePHP never addressed it again and I had to hire a third party to fix the issue.

In addition, WordPress multi-user and Joomla! did not integrate as one would expect. Their sales page states "Now you can use what the pros use (WordPress) AND enjoy everything Joomla! has to offer at the same time." however this is a bold lie.

I expected the integration to do what it advertised but to my dismay that wasn't the result. The multi-user function doesn't work with the internal linking system of Joomla!. As a result, you cannot take advantage of your Joomla! template and module layout with the multiple user blog.  You cannot add blogger pictures, links to your guest bloggers pages, use individual templates or a number of other Joomla! features due to this extreme restriction.

When I approached CorePHP to once again attempt to find a solution they sent me the following response. "In Wordpress for Joomla 2.x we did have each individual blog operating on separate Joomla pages however that prevented us from being able to use 90% WordPress themes and plugins with WordPress for Joomla."

In my opinion, this completely voids the integration of WordPress and Joomla since the CorePHP claim that you can use WordPress with "everything Joomla! has to offer" isn't true. As a result, I requested a refund. CorePHP replied with a link that they do not offer refunds. I was shocked and asked why they did not state such an important alert on their sales page or during checkout. At which time they informed me their refund policy is linked on the bottom of every page. I went looking for it as it was NOT on their support ticket pages and found it in a list of 22 other links, their affiliate club and newsletter sign up form.

Since they denied refunding my purchase I contacted them again and stated that I was willing to sacrifice WordPress functionality in order to "enjoy everything Joomla! has to offer." At that time the CorePHP team informed me that their development team is working on developing a module to enable this functionality for another client and suggested I subscribe to the blog RSS feed so I know when it is available.

After three months of waiting I contact them for an update and I am informed that the client who was paying for the creation of said module has cancelled the project but if I want to pay for the development, they will finish it.

I once again complained about their false advertising and misleading statements. They responded by sending me another link to a 'WordPress for Joomla Considerations' page that states "if you want to link to different blogs from your Joomla! menu, you will have to do it through external menu link types. This also means that you cannot have different modules on different blogs." I had no clue that this page was buried in some side menu and was going to tell me their product will not do as it was advertised. I read all the information on the WordPress page but I did not click through every link on their website.

I told them I had not seen this when I made my purchase, as I had not seen the refund policy (or lack thereof) hidden in their list with 22 other links. CorePHP then informs that there is a menu on the left of the sales page titled 'About WordPress for Joomla!' and in this menu is 8 links and the sixth link from the top says 'Considerations'. This page contains the limits of WordPress and Joomla!. They might as well have tacked it on the moon as far as I'm concerned, it would have been just as clearly stated there as it is in this menu with installation directions, the demo and testimonials.

Who knew that "everything Joomla! has to offer" was limited? I didn't! So now I'm stuck with $129 useless product, poor support, false advertising, and CorePHP trying to get more money out of me for a fix that they had stated would soon be available on both Twitter and in my support ticket.

CorePHP is a fine example of poor business practices. They put important information on separate pages, link to them from areas that have unrelated information. They don't have a guarantee, they do not stand behind their products, and they will not offer a refund while shamelessly using false advertising to make a buck. Their site is poorly organized and hard to navigate. They also make false promises and try to take you for every dollar you're worth. They also do everything the opposite my suggestion at the beginning of the article. So will CorePHP survive long in today's economy? It's hard to say but in my professional opinion they have one foot out the door already and have no chance of survival without changing some of their poor business policies.

I know that I will not make another purchase from them, I will not recommend any of their products to anyone. In fact, I will STRONGLY discourage anyone from making purchases from them as well. I intend to do this by sharing my story with you, the press, my clients, other fellow business owners, web developers, Joomla! specialists and by posting my review on the Joomla! site to discourage anyone from falling into an unnecessary trap! I will also report my experiences to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) as I will not stand behind a company that will not stand behind their own products.

UPDATE: After the publication of this review CorePHP refunded my purchase in full.