Are You A Bad Web Design Client?
Have you been having bad experiences working with creative agencies to get your website up? Are you still unhappy with your current website? Maybe the problem is something you have more control over than you know. That problem might be you.
In this article, we will be sharing with you what makes a bad client and how to avoid these things in order to work closely with your web design Singapore team.
What Makes a Bad Web Design Client?
We love to build relationships with every single client. However, once in a while, we do get a bad client who makes us reconsider our relationship with them. If you are in the same industry as us, you should have a fair share of such clients too. If you are a client and hates all your web design vendors, then perhaps, you are the bad client.
There is a long list of characteristics of a bad web design client, but below are just a few to share with you:
- You want more design work than what you paid for
- You are a scope creep
- You bargain for a price far less than the quoted amount
- You want your web designer to be a psychic
- You disappear for weeks or months without notice when designer requires your feedback
- You think you can design better than the designer
By now, you should see the idea of a bad web design client and you might be guilty of committing the points above. Below is a video that shows how funny it will be if the same type of negotiation in the design industry is used in the context of brick and mortar businesses. And you will see that it is really weird how people perceive design industry differently from other brick and mortar businesses.
Jokes aside, we believe it is about “give and take”. Usually, web designers are able to accept a little variation to their scope of work or put in extra effort to please their clients. A bad client is one who abuses those goodwill gestures and demand for more.
How To Be a Good Web Design Client?
However, sometimes a bad client is cultivated by the web designers too. If you are working with a really experienced web design company, they will be good in managing such a project and make sure you stay within the agreed scope. But maybe you have a tight budget and engage a freelancer or an inexperienced web designer, you might end up being a bad client.
To help both clients and designers from falling into such scenario, below are some tips to follow in order to have a good relationship and getting a great website.
1. Request To See Web Designer’s Portfolio
This seems pretty obvious to everyone in the design industry. Everyone wants to see the designer’s portfolio. However, there will definitely be a few projects that look bad because of their clients’ bad taste. So you should focus on the featured portfolio that the designer wants you to see and ask questions about how he or she gets the inspiration from. You can tell if the designer is good or not from their thought process.
2. Make Sure You Clearly Understand The Deliverables And Costs
When presented with a quotation, be sure to ask as many questions as possible to avoid having any misunderstanding during the project. Do not assume you are entitled to any feature that was not reflected in the quotation. As a client, you can always request the web designer to put in specifically the feature you want into the quotation and do your best to explain clearly. When the quotation is signed, anything that is not listed in the quotation will be considered as not within the agreed scope.
3. Be Responsive
This applies to both the client and the designer. A web design project is a collaborative effort and requires both parties to put in the time to work together. A client who is decisive and quick to respond will be more likely to motivate designers to put in more effort in your project. If you want the other party to value your time, be sure to value theirs as well.
4. Understand Their Process Flow
For most web design companies in Singapore, they do not go in depth on their process flow for the web design project. If you have engaged a “bad” web design company before, the process you experienced should be:
- vendor getting your requirements
- vendor getting your design preferences based on a few examples you provided
- vendor confirming the sitemap
- vendor waiting for your content for every page
- about a month later, the vendor finally received your content and then begin working on the design
- about another month later, the vendor comes back to you with a design
- you most probably hated the design and thought the vendor had totally missed the point and added too much of their own ideas
After this point, you then start becoming a bad client to the vendor by requesting them to redo for free.
To avoid this from happening, you have to make sure they have a good process in place to facilitate the information gathering process from you. At Puzzle Hive, we have a thorough process that starts with finding out your brand attributes first and then creates stylescapes to make sure we are always in line with your vision. We also understand that everyone has a different preference for design and our goal is to make sure the design looks good for the client and not necessary for us. We, however, do provide suggestions to improve the user experience.
So, a good process flow will be able to ease most of the conflicts that arise from a typical web design project. A web designer needs to be good at managing expectations in order to produce happy clients.
The Takeaway
At the end of the day, no one wants to be a jerk and we want to get the most out of every dollar spent. However, if you do not put in the due diligence to find a good creative agency to work with, you will most probably end up being a “bad client”. Do not be penny wise, pound foolish. A good website is definitely a good investment.