Our Policies
Thank you for considering Oakes Creative House as a partner on your project. We understand the struggles of being an entrepreneur and business owner and appreciate that your time is valuable. I’ve found through my years of experience that operating in a gray area benefits no one! I prefer to communicate in black and white terms and with the intent of starting our working relationship off on the right foot. That being the case, I’d like to discuss a few things that I often get asked about upfront.
TLDR: We will make mistakes, after all we are only human. However, we will also promise to always do what we can to fix those mistakes and right any wrong.
Communication
Email is my most preferred method of communication. When my time is dedicated to a client’s project I am 100% focused on it. I often put my phone on “do not disturb” in order to complete my tasks and protect each client’s time. Therefore, I ask that you email me to set up a time for a phone call regarding your current or future project requests if you prefer to communicate via phone call instead of email. This way you can send me information about your project in the hours that are most convenient for you and lets me answer when my schedule allows.
Facebook messages, Instagram messages or any other forms of communication over social media will not be accepted as a form of project communication with Oakes Creative House. We understand that, at times, text messages are necessary, but please know that following up this communication with an email is the BEST way to ensure it doesn’t get overlooked.
If a phone call is required please reach out to our project manager, Evonne, at 405-512-4762.
Timing
Oakes Creative House’s official hours of operation are Monday-Thursday 9:00 am – 5:00 pm and Fridays 9:00 am – 12:00 pm CST. Our team has the benefit of having flexible hours and are great about getting their work done during the week. You may hear from our team outside of office hours, but, unless in case of an emergency, we certainly don’t expect an immediate response from you after 5. The same goes for our team here! As a business owner, we know you are occasionally working odd hours. Feel free to email us at any time, but allow at least 24 business hours for a response. Emails are frequently checked during office hours. If there is an absolutely urgent matter, call and leave a voicemail or send a text message. However, email is the best way to get a hold of anyone at OCH.
Deadlines
We work on a first come, first serve basis. This means that there could be a project (or a few) before yours that must be completed before we can move on to the next project. If you have a hard deadline, please be sure to communicate this information to us as early as possible, and we will do our best to work with you to achieve this deadline. Otherwise, please give us a minimum of 1-2 weeks to complete small projects. Large projects such as logo designs, websites, catalogs, etc… will be given custom timelines.
Revisions
As a creative agency, we leave room for you to have creative freedom! The price agreed upon for your project is based on the amount of time we estimate that we will need to accomplish everything you’ve told us you want to achieve, including the revision rounds. It is required that all revisions from each revision round are sent in a singular email or Google Doc, rather than individual messages in multiple places. We quote this way to keep your project as cost effective as possible. If revisions are not handled in this manner and require meetings, phone calls or piecing information together from separate sources, this will result in additional fees. If you need additional revisions outside of the number that was included in your project, no problem! We will bill at our current hourly rate to create these changes.
Tardiness & No-Shows
We kindly ask that you respect our time, just as we respect yours. We have a strict no-show and late policy. If you know you will be running late to a meeting, please email us to let us know. We are happy to wait a few minutes for you to join. If you have not emailed us, we will wait for 10 minutes on zoom. If you have not joined after that 10 minutes, your call will be rescheduled. After the second no-show, if you do not show up to the third meeting, the full hour will be billed at our current hourly rate.
Passwords
If you need to share a password with us, please send your username and password through One Time Secret. We will then save this to our secure password manager. We will not share your password with anyone outside of our team. Your password is safe with us!
Refunds
Oakes Creative House projects are non-refundable. However, if we need to pivot and use those funds towards another goal that discussion is always available. The details of that pivot will be discussed and will depend on how much time the Oakes Creative House team has already dedicated to the paid project.
The Creative Process
Honest communication is key during the creative process and is the biggest contributing factor for us to be able to create a finished product that exceeds your expectations. The more descriptive and clear you are able to communicate the message, look, or idea that you want to portray for your business, the quicker we can bring your vision to life. We will ask you all the questions to ensure that your message is being heard, loud and clear (I haven’t been dubbed the “Queen of Questions” for nothing!). However, if you don’t know the answer to a specific question, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer too!
Sometimes, the hardest thing to know is knowing what you want to say in the first place! If you find yourself in that boat, no need to stress, we have something just for you! We love to help you bridge the gaps between the known and the unknowns in your branding and marketing. I created this FREE brand audit worksheet to help you recognize who you are as a company and what you have to offer your clients that makes you stand out from your competitors.
Next, patience and understanding will be important components of the creative process. While we work hard to give reasonable deadlines and meet those expectations, there are times when creative genius might hit me in the 11th hour and, in order to bring you my best and most creative work, I will need to extend the deadline slightly to ensure we are delivering the best concepts to you. This is why it’s important that any hard deadlines are communicated upfront so we can make accommodations, if necessary. In the rare event we miss the vision you had for this project,we have included a limited amount of revisions into the pricing. By including revisions in the pricing you get to be more involved in the creative process and provide your input without having to worry about paying us on an hourly basis. However, just because you have revisions to use, doesn’t mean you have to use them! If you think we hit the nail on the head, then why tinker with something that isn’t broken? Every so often miscommunications can come up but with some patience and understanding from all sides everything will work out in the end.
Ultimately, if we have clear and honest communication, as well as patience and understanding from all parties involved, the creative process will go smoothly and result in some amazing visuals for your brand!.
