XHTMLFactory

Absolutely terrible. I emailed them on the 17th of February to have a site coded in order to help out with the work load we had on at the current time. I received an email back on the 19th of Feb stating that they could turnaround the site in 4 business days and they were ready to start straight away. This looked great, so I gave them the go ahead. Upon sending the files, I received another email saying (a direct quote!) "Being honest I haven't expected such quick answer and decision, so likely we'll be able to turn things even a bit quicker, say by Saturday. But this is not guaranteed, just an estimation. Guaranteed delivery - by 9am UK time, February, 25. Of course I'll keep you posted with daily updates about our progress.".

Obviously by this point, I was pretty impressed, so I waited and let them get on with it. I received a quick email on the 20th saying "Just wanted to confirm that we've started coding yesterday as promised. So far we don't see any troubles or questions. Work goes smoothly.". I then received another email on the 22nd saying "All is fine, Monday is good for delivery".

On Monday the 25th, I receive the email I was waiting for - "We're preparing to roll-out theme today. Will let you know when you can check it live.".

From then on, I didn't receive any emails. This obviously got me wondering if they'd hit any issues. I emailed them, but didn't receive a response until the 27th of Feb - "Actually expected time was Tuesday morning, but coding took a bit longer and we haven't even passed full set of testing, but I think that we'll get it during a Wednesday.".

Without copying and pasting every email, this went on for many days. I then stopped receiving emails for 4-5 days at a time and things started slowing down. Eventually, It got to the point where I really needed the files, so I was sending emails hourly for updates. One of the members of staff sent me a message saying "Trying to keep calm, but it's very hard. We're working whole day with these issues and you're constantly pressing on us. Please wait, otherwise we'll restore backup and let you to do the job!".

Normally, I would expect an email like that to be a fair comment, as constant emails can be distracting. Though, this was on the 21st of March, 1 month after they had 'Guaranteed' delivery of the project.

Needless to say, I have pulled the plug on these files. It's absolutely appalling customer service and I honestly would have preferred them to just say 'We can't do this project'. Instead, I was promised deadline after deadline which they failed to reach. Because of this, I have lost a client, will face a very large loss on the project we were working on and will never recommend XHTML Factory to anyone.

I understand that delays can happen, but bad customer service and delays of over a month are not acceptable.

XHTML Factory initially told me my site would be done in 6 days -- by July 5,2011. They missed that deadline and gave me another. They missed that deadline and gave me another. Then they missed that deadline and gave me another. They miss their own deadlines over and over again. They keep telling me an update will be posted by such and such time and then nothing. They are dragging it out forever. It is now August 4th. The site is about 90% complete but they have now stopped responding to my emails. These guys are very frustrating. I was hoping they would finish it soon because they would start working on it a little bit and I would see some parts completed, which was promising, but then nothing would happen for days. I'm torn because it is almost done but there is no telling when they will actually finish it.

It was so bad that I made my own site about it:
http://xhtmlfactorysucks.com/

Awesome work, i really impressed by these guys work and i recommend xhtmlfactory for there time line and quality of work done.

My special thanks goes to my project manager - Xenia. Thank you for your quick and helpful responses. I really appreciate your time.

I'm quite happy with results. I've got my completely redesigned MODX site is up and running within a week, however project delivery been delayed for 2 days. Guys were friendly and in constant contact.

Doubts about quality? Not with these guys - they did absolutely perfect job, despite of the delay. My old site had about 40 Kbytes of the page size and was done year ago with another PSD-to-HTML firm and with new site page size reduced to some 20 Kbytes for far more complex design. At the same hosting new template has noticeable faster load times and looks good both on my macbook and Windows desktop.

I've also got even few Javascript effects implemented, that's really was good surprise. I'll use them in future project, just I will add some time as reserve for possible delays.

Thanks, guys