A Some Clients Are Stupid story
In what I hope will not be a series about the stupid things that clients complain about.
The background
Several years ago I had the pleasure of building an e-commerce site for a long-standing client. The site has run smoothly ever since, despite what has now become legacy code, plus the occasional tinkering by several different developers. That was until today.
Today
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The phone rings. It's my client.
Client (angry voice): I'm not receiving any orders through my web site.
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Malarkey: I'll look into that right way.
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After half an hour of checking the site, its code and the client's email server. (It's not like the web site has changed and it doesn't need oiling).
Malarkey: Everything seems to be working fine. I've placed a small order fifteen minutes ago, can you check your email to see if that arrived?
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Client: No, nothing here.
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Malarkey: Can you log into your Secure Trading control panel to see if the order has been processed. That way, we can isolate where the problem is occurring?
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Client: Hmmm. Secure Trading also seems to be down.
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Malarkey: Can you do one more thing? Can you type in g o o g l e . c o m?
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Can you guess what is coming next?
Client: Nope. That's not coming up either.
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Malarkey: So it looks like the reason you're not getting any orders is because... you are not connected to the internet.