Terms of Service

1. About these terms

SouthEdge Solutions is run by Tom, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom. In these terms “we”, “us” and “our” mean SouthEdge Solutions, and “you” means the business that buys the service.

The service is for businesses, not for people buying as consumers. By asking us to start work you confirm that you are acting for your business and that you accept these terms.

If we agree something different with you in writing (for example in a proposal or an email confirming your package), that takes priority over this page.

2. What we provide

We set up and manage an automated system that responds to the enquiries your business receives, alerts you to new leads and follows up with people who have not replied. There are two packages:

• Basic: automatic detection of new enquiries, an automatic email acknowledgement to the customer, follow-ups at 24 and 72 hours that stop when the customer replies or books, a booking and calendar connection, and a managed, monitored workflow.
• Pro: everything in Basic, plus an SMS to the owner with the key details when a new lead arrives, automated review requests after finished jobs (section 10), additional workflow customisation and priority support. If you ask for it in writing, Pro can also send a text acknowledgement and one text follow-up to customers who give a UK mobile number (section 9).

What your package includes is confirmed to you in writing before you start. We look after the system for you: we monitor it, fix faults and make reasonable changes to wording and timing when you ask. Larger changes or new features outside your package are agreed and priced with you first.

3. Getting set up

To set the system up we need your help with a few things, including:

• access to the email inbox, calendar and other accounts the system will work with (where possible you connect them yourself through the provider’s secure sign-in, so you do not need to give us your passwords);
• the information we ask for about your services, opening hours, areas covered and what counts as urgent for you;
• your approval of the wording of every message before it goes live.

Any timescale we give for setup is our best estimate, not a guarantee. If we are waiting on something from you, setup will take longer.

4. Prices and payment

Our current prices are:

• Basic: £299 one-off setup fee, then £49 per month.
• Pro: £499 one-off setup fee, then £99 per month.

• The price you pay is the one we confirm to you in writing when you sign up.
• Nothing is charged through this website. We send you a secure payment link or an invoice; card payments are handled by our payment provider, Stripe.
• The setup fee is due before we start work.
• The monthly fee is paid in advance, each month, starting on the day your system goes live.
• We are not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to these prices. If we register, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice and show our VAT number on your invoices.
• If we need to change your monthly fee, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice. You can cancel before the new price starts.
• Any cost from another company that is not included in your package (for example an unusually high number of text messages) is agreed with you before it is incurred.

5. No minimum term, and how to cancel

The service runs month to month. There is no minimum term and no notice period. You can cancel at any time by emailing thomas@southedge.co.uk.

When you cancel, the service carries on until the end of the month you have already paid for and then stops. We do not charge you again, and we do not refund part of a month.

6. Setup fee refund

If you cancel within 14 days of paying the setup fee, we refund the setup fee in full, whatever stage the setup has reached. We pay it back to you within 14 days of your cancellation. After 14 days the setup fee is not refundable.

7. When we can pause or end the service

• We can end the service for any reason by giving you at least 30 days’ notice.
• If a payment is more than 14 days late, we can pause the service until it is paid. We will warn you first.
• We can stop the service, or the part of it affected, straight away if it is being used to break the law, to send messages people have not agreed to receive or have asked not to receive, to obtain or publish fake or misleading reviews, or in a way that puts us or others at risk.

When the service ends we switch the system off and remove our access to your accounts.

8. Your responsibilities

• The messages are sent in your name. You are responsible for the wording you approve, including anything it says about prices, availability or timescales.
• You must be allowed to contact the people the system contacts. That includes following the rules on marketing emails and text messages (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations), and telling your customers in your own privacy notice how you use their information, including follow-ups, the automatic sorting of enquiries by an AI tool (OpenAI, in the United States), any text messages and, on Pro, review requests.
• Respect opt-outs. If a customer asks not to be contacted, tell us or mark them “do not contact” in your lead record. Do not change a “do not contact” status to anything else, and do not ask us to contact that customer again.
• Keep your lead record accurate. The system acts on the statuses you set, for example won, lost or job done.
• Keep the connected accounts working. If you change a password, close an account or change your email provider, tell us so the system does not stop.
• Do not send us sensitive information. The system is not designed for health or other special category information, so do not ask customers to send it.
• Do not rely on it for emergencies. The system helps you respond faster, but it is not an emergency service and must not be the only way urgent or safety-critical enquiries reach you.

9. Messages and channels

• Email is used on both packages: acknowledgements, follow-ups and, on Pro, review requests are sent from your business email account.
• Text messages are used on Pro for alerts to you. The system can also send customers a text acknowledgement and one text follow-up when they give a UK mobile number; we only switch this on if you ask for it in writing and confirm you are allowed to text them, and we record the date you did.
• Every message template is approved by you before it goes live. Follow-ups, review requests and text messages include a simple way to opt out. A STOP reply to a follow-up or a text is recorded automatically and stops further automated messages to that customer. Replies to review requests come to your inbox: if a customer asks not to be contacted, mark them “do not contact” (section 8).

10. Review requests (Pro)

On Pro, when your team marks a job as done in your lead record, the system sends that customer one email from your business thanking them and inviting honest feedback on Trustpilot. Depending on your Trustpilot set-up, the email contains your Trustpilot review link, or Trustpilot’s automatic invitation service is copied in so that Trustpilot sends its own invitation. Our system sends one request per finished job. If you use Trustpilot’s automatic invitations, check its reminder setting and monthly limit, which Trustpilot controls.

• Your Trustpilot account. You need your own Trustpilot business profile. Your use of it, including any plan limits or costs, is between you and Trustpilot, under its terms and guidelines.
• Ask everyone the same way. Mark every finished job as done, not just the ones you expect a good review from, and at the same point for every customer (for example when the work is finished). Do not ask us to pause and restart review requests to avoid quieter or less happy periods; we keep a log of the requests sent. You must not use the service to invite customers selectively, to offer anything in return for a review, to discourage or divert negative reviews, or to post or arrange reviews that are not from genuine customers. These are against Trustpilot’s guidelines, and fake or misleading reviews are banned under UK consumer law.
• Customer permissions. Review requests can count as marketing under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. You need the customer’s consent, or to have given them a simple way to opt out when you took their details, and you must tell them about it in your privacy notice (section 8). Every request we send includes an opt-out.
• We can pause review requests if we reasonably believe they are being used in a way that breaks this section, and we will tell you why.

11. Your customers’ information

The enquiries that pass through your system contain your customers’ personal information. For that information you are the “controller” and we are your “processor” under UK data protection law. We will:

• use it only to provide the service, and only on your written instructions;
• keep it confidential and make sure anyone working with us does the same;
• take appropriate steps to keep it secure;
• use other companies to handle it only where they are needed to run the service, under written terms that protect it. We will tell you at least 30 days before we add or replace one, and you can object;
• transfer it outside the UK only with a safeguard UK law recognises, as set out in the data processing agreement;
• tell you if we think an instruction from you breaks data protection law;
• help you answer requests from people about their information;
• help you keep it secure, deal with any breach and carry out any risk assessment you need;
• tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a data breach affecting it;
• delete it or return it to you when the service ends, unless the law requires us to keep it;
• give you the information you reasonably need to check that we are doing all of this, and allow reasonable audits, including inspections, on reasonable notice.

Before your system goes live we will also ask you to sign our data processing agreement, which sets these commitments out in full, including the details of the processing and the companies involved. How we handle information about you and your staff is explained in our Privacy Policy.

12. Confidentiality

We each keep the other’s confidential information private, use it only for the service, and share it only with people who need it to provide the service and who are bound to keep it confidential. This does not apply to information that is already public through no fault of the other, or that the law requires to be disclosed. This section continues after the service ends.

13. Other companies’ services and costs

The system depends on services run by other companies, such as your email and calendar provider and the automation, messaging, AI and review tools we connect to them. We choose them carefully, but we do not control them. If one of them has a fault, changes how it works or withdraws a feature, part of your system may stop working for a time. When that happens we will tell you and do what we reasonably can to get it working again.

Accounts in your own name (for example your email, calendar, booking page or Trustpilot profile) are yours, and any charges from those companies are yours to pay unless we agree otherwise in writing.

14. Fair use

Your system is set up for the kind of enquiry volume we discuss at setup. If your volume becomes much higher than that and significantly increases the cost of running your system, we will talk to you before changing anything, and any price change follows section 4.

15. What we do not promise

• We do not promise any particular number of enquiries, bookings or sales.
• We do not promise any number of reviews, any rating, any change to your ranking, or that a review site will accept or publish a review.
• We cannot promise that every message is delivered or delivered instantly. Emails can be delayed or land in spam, and text messages can fail.
• Summaries, categories and urgency ratings are produced automatically and can be wrong. Always read the original enquiry before you act on it.
• We do not promise that the system will run without any interruption.

We do promise to provide the service with reasonable care and skill.

16. Our liability to you

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit.

Apart from that:

• we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, loss of goodwill, or any indirect loss;
• our total liability to you for everything connected with the service is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

17. Who owns what

Your message wording, your business information and your customers’ information belong to you. If you ask when the service ends, we will send you a copy of your lead records.

The workflow designs, templates and methods we use to build the system belong to us. You are paying for a managed service, not for a copy of the system.

18. This website and the live demo

The information on this website is a general description of the service and is not an offer you can accept without talking to us. The live demo is a demonstration. Messages it sends are examples and do not create a contract with you.

19. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows when they were last changed. If you are a client, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice of any change that affects you, and you can cancel before it takes effect.

20. The law that applies

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have the right to decide any dispute about them. Please talk to us first if something has gone wrong. Most problems can be sorted out quickly that way.

21. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email thomas@southedge.co.uk.