#18 No Business Ts & Cs? What's the worst that can happen?
In this season of the podcast I’m focusing on giving you real life examples of my clients to help bring some context around the recommendations that I’ve been making throughout the last 2 seasons. A lot of these clients unfortunately engaged my services when they found themselves in sticky situations but hopefully their experiences can help you avoid the same pitfalls.
In this episode, I talk about the all important Terms and Conditions and what can happen if you don’t have them in place. I discuss how having carefully prepared Ts & Cs makes it easy to navigate through payment disputes, refund and cancellation policies and what your obligations are under the Australian Consumer Law.
I share the example of a client of mine who, having no Ts & Cs in place, relied only on emails and phone conversations to provide a service to her client. You’ll hear what happened when a misunderstanding took place and how it cost her not only financially but also the loss of a business relationship.
As I always say, prevention is better than cure. You’ll never regret doing the work up front to get your business documents in place. And hopefully, you’ll never have to call your business lawyer to get you out of a sticky situation.
TOPICS DISCUSSED AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:
[2:00]: Terms & Conditions are the basis of how you operate with your client and you must have these set out properly in writing and issue them to your clients in advance of the client engaging you
[3:20]: Having Ts & Cs in place makes it easier to get paid should there be a dispute
[4:00]: Additional fees for customer delays can be outlined in Ts & Cs
[4:40]: If you don’t have Ts & Cs in place, enforcing cancellation fees for service based businesses is extremely difficult
[6:00]: A lot of business owners rely on phone calls, emails and messages but they don’t outline variations to the scope of works
[6:30]: Case study: A misunderstanding that occurred because the scope of work was determined through emails and phone calls and the client expected more for what she was expected to pay
[7:50]: When you don’t have Ts & Cs in place, you can’t simply refer to the schedule of services to be provided. Lawyers have to trawl through emails, messages and rely on memory of conversations.
[8:30]: The situation was resolved, but it cost time, energy and money and they are no longer working together because the relationship soured
[9:00]: This could have been avoided if she had her Ts & Cs prepared properly and issued them to her clients with the services outlined clearly
[9:30]: With Ts & C’s now in place, she now has peace of mind knowing she never has to face the same scenario again