Are you outsourcing your web design but find out your design firm doesn't meet your expectations? Are you hesitant to take the leap? Avoid issues with your designer by doing the following.
Outsourcing web design work allows you to put this important job into the hands of an expert, freeing you to do what you love best - run your business.
However, outsourcing web design has its share of concerns and considerations. If you've outsourced in the past you probably have encountered one or more of these and may need to overcome the challenge. If you're new to hiring a design firm, be aware of the five most common complaints about outsourcing and how you can fix or avoid these issues.
1. "The Firm Doesn't Know Our Target Audience Like We Do"
This concern is remedied easily by making sure you, as the business owner, are truly clear on your desired target audience; from there, it's just a matter of communicating this effectively to the designer.
Your designer will want to prepare customer personas before starting design work, so be prepared to answer detailed, specific questions about your target audience. You might find during this process that you don't know your customers as well as you think you do.
2. "My Web Design Agency is Unresponsive"
It's best to hire a firm with a known track record for great customer service. If your current firm is not maintaining its level of assistance, you should communicate your customer service needs clearly and document this discussion in writing. If you don't experience a change in the response time, it's probably best to look for a new firm.
Most web design firms can tell you exactly how they plan to manage the relationship, what to expect, and can even tell you what things can go wrong.
3. "The Design Firm Treats My Job Like an Art Project"
Your firm might taking your work seriously, but is the work "too creative"? Many companies see clients as an opportunity to win awards for their work and develop new business from those accolades.
Making sure you have documented and communicated specific business goals before choosing a partner will help set expectations for the relationship. Being armed with specific metrics will scare off those designers that are more concerned with design aesthetic than the results you'll need to achieve from the relationship.
4. "The Agency Lacks Knowledge About My Industry"
I've said before that industry expertise isn't required to do a great job as long as the website design company has a process to learn about your customers and industry.
If an agency does strategy work up front for a project (such as customer personas), the team will naturally determine how to design and write for a prospect. If your firm will not take care of this due diligence for you, it's time to look for another firm.
5. "Redesigning Our Whole Site is Just Too Much Work"
While redesigning a large site may seem daunting, the truth is that it doesn't need to be undertaken all at once. Find out if your designer has the capability do the job incrementally, basing the updates on data. The most flexible and professional designers should have no problem with this task. For more on how incremental website redesign works, you'll find our article on Growth Driven Design informative.
What other potential concerns do you have about outsourcing your website?
