An appeal to our future customers
Another year is coming to an end and in 2013 we want to create even better websites, further optimize processes and make customer contact and the process more pleasant. As a customer, you are also challenged or sometimes overwhelmed. And so it happens again and again that misunderstandings make collaboration more difficult, and this starts with the first contact. I would therefore like to make an appeal to you that could help our cooperation in the future.
One thing in advance: We are extremely satisfied with 95% of our customers and enjoy working with them. The next lines are for the remaining 5%.
Please inform yourself beforehand!
When it comes to buying a new car or a new television, we are usually better informed than when it comes to our future web design project. If we assume that cars and televisions are mass-produced products, this is even more astonishing. You usually know what you are getting, what the quality of the products is and how expensive they are to purchase.
When it comes to your own website, which now forms the existential basis for some people, in around 20-30% of inquiries, previous knowledge is very little or non-existent. We receive calls from customers who cannot articulate their wishes and remain vague on instructions. Sometimes many people don't know what Joomla actually is or that their site should be programmed with it.
Therefore, dear future customers, find out more, read about Joomla and CMS on Wikipedia or call us and get information. Ask us about the possibilities and the existing solutions.
Plan a reasonable budget!
There's not much to write here - plan a decent budget. If you really want to be serious about your website, you should budget at least €2000 - €3500 for layout and programming. Of course, it is also important to find an agency that delivers as much as possible for your money. But believe me, for €500 you won't get a decent website from any web designer that meets your diverse needs.
Get rid of old SEO myths!
Everyone has heard here and there how to optimize their website for search engines. Forget everything, because Google is doing a lot to make life difficult for some SEO agencies. Some well-known SEO service providers are already bankrupt or they are sticking to their dubious methods and are bringing the website operators to ruin. Others join large PR agencies that pursue a more comprehensive approach.
What you may not know and what SEO agencies don't like to reveal is that Google is trying to enforce personalized search. You can already notice that if you use a Google account, you will see different results if you are not logged in. In the future it will be much more difficult to improve your ranking using tricks.
Special customers: web designers!
This year we had a surprising number of self-proclaimed web designers asking us for help with their web design projects. From our point of view, these were simple things to solve, which for some represented an insurmountable hurdle. Now it also happened that "web designers" submitted offers for projects that they themselves were unable to implement due to a lack of knowledge and called us. Of course we could have helped, but our price expectations didn't suit some "web designers"! And why? Yes, because they make an offer for something that they don't have the slightest idea about realizing, but they promise the customer the blue sky for an apple and an egg. Then they try to drive down our prices. We would advise every "web designer" to only take on projects that can be realized, because that's how we do it ourselves!
Mistakes are allowed - assumptions are not!
Every now and then we make mistakes or our customers tear up their website. It happens. We just notice that some customers rely on “attack is the best defense” when making mistakes and sometimes claim absurd things. In order not to put a strain on the collaboration, objective communication would be appropriate and desirable. Because in most cases, you find out who is responsible relatively quickly and then things get unpleasant. Most errors can actually be corrected quickly and easily.
Don't be an asshole!
Last but not least: Please always be objective and respectful in your tone and manner. Many of our customers value our work and maintain an almost friendly relationship with us and it should and will stay that way (thanks to a very sophisticated system: people skills)!