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Every business venture has policies and guidelines that determine how business is conducted, the terms of payment and delivery of product or service, and the period of time required to fulfill a contractual obligation, plus any warranty or assurances of satisfaction. Your policy also gives your business credibility and is a statement that you are setting the terms that you are willing to stand by, so don't include impossible to deliver terms, be reasonable with your policy outline to include your time and obligation requirements. Your policy must clearly define your terms, if this includes the customer providing all graphic and text material be certain to state it clearly. Where you are willing to do consultation with a client, make certain that any fees that apply are outlined, as with any creation, photographic, or programming fees. You must have a refund policy if you are unable to complete your obligations, and must state any portion to be paid as deposit, and if any amount is retained. The same terms have to be determined for the possibility of customer cancellation. You should also protect yourself from liability by stating that your client is entirely responsible for the content provided in the web page. You cannot spend precious construction time researching whether content provided to you is factual or copyrighted to another person, and should not be responsible for typo's and other errors that were provided to you. Where photos and other images have been provided, you must declare that you are not liable for posting of the images, or their content or subject matter. You may even wish that your client provide signed release statements before posting images of people, products, or other potentially sensitive matter. Your policy should fairly outline the manner in which you conduct your business and what considerations have been made to protect the customer from loss. You should be prepared to stand by your policy firmly, including any reparations that are due to your clients for failure to complete a project. Abiding by your own policies will prevent you from tarnishing your business reputation and protect you from litegation. HEY! - Set reasonable policies and don't place high expectations on your customer or his finances. A balanced set of policies that represent fair value to both parties is the only policy a customer will accept. |
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