We have a new small business and needed a sign. We...

We have a new small business and needed a sign. We contacted Kort to make our sign. Staff was nice and reviews were good. Kort contracted our sign work out to another business because they do not make large illuminated signs themselves. We started the process in May 2017 and received a usable sign in December - 7 months. We paid a lot of money on this sign to market and advertise for our new business. We needed the world to know who we were and was not able to fully express that due to the delays (which meant money lost on our end).

The company Kort contracted was overwhelmed with other work from large company contracts as well as they appeared to be understaffed. This resulted in 5 either same day cancellations or just not showing up without a notification when we had scheduled the sign company to show up. When they missed their scheduled appointment with us or the sign still didn't work after "fixing" it, we would be scheduled on the next opening which would sometimes be 3 weeks out. We are extremely understanding but not as much when the communication felt at times careless on their end. If mistakes happen, we get that but then there needs to be care, communication, and responsibility, then we are cool. That happened in spurts with both Kort and the contracted company but wasn't consistent. It felt like Kort did not advocate sternly for results from this company, rather I had to take a lot of my time to follow up with their contracted business when no shows occurred or the sign that was installed still wasn't fixed properly after efforts of fixing it a few times, it was really me trying diligently to resolve it. We feel that we may still not have a working sign if it wasn't for my work. From our viewpoint, Kort wasn't proactive in asking if their contracted workers showed, if the sign was ever fixed, or asking about our satisfaction (in fact, after the 4th and final effort of the contractor working on the sign, we never heard from Kort to inquire or check in with us about that end result).

So - I'm sure Kort does great in-house work and if you need a larger illuminated sign and they need to contract it out, perhaps talk through expectations more. Kort staff are truly pleasant people. I never write reviews but felt I needed to inform other small business owners that are just starting - funds are tight and time is limited. Our mistake was not securing a signed contract with expectations and paying the final portion of the cost before we knew if the sign fully worked (we couldn't hook up the sign until a month or so after it was mounted and then found out the sign didn't work... the long/dark winter nights weren't forgiving with a sign that wasn't lit up... it was dark in our corner). We figured it worked and fully paid before the electrical hook-up. Our mistake on that because we may have been less of priority without financial leverage. Headache is beyond us and we are now happy with the final result.

** Kort - we are sorry you re disappointed in our post, we were trying to be as fair and responsible as possible in writing it. Re: the sign you are correct we chose not to turn on the sign when it was not properly built because you could clearly see the black grid through the entire white sign, it had evident black lines through the white sign when lit. I think most business would have chosen not to use it in that form. The main issue was the communication consistency and follow-through, we are happy now with the sign and appreciate it and the contractor, they did finally go out of their way to correct their error which was cool. We wish you well also and trust you do great work, your previous reviews display that.