Agencies come in all shapes and sizes but finding the right fit for your business isn’t always easy. Here are a few reasons why you should prioritise flexibility when hiring a new web agency.
Flexible & Agile Bespoke Services
What starts out as a small project occasionally develops into something much larger. Likewise, a simple fix might be all you need to make your WordPress site more robust.
Agencies worth their salt offer different packages of support at different price points. At Make Do we offer support either as part of a fixed-price project build or using one of our flexible support plans.
Make sure that the web agency you’re interested in doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. There’s no such thing. Every business is unique and has unique online needs.
Your agency should listen to what you need and understand your objectives before recommending any particular approach or service.
As the military quote goes “time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.”
Needs change over time
Expanding on the first point, the amount of help you require from the web agency of your choice will not be constant.
There will be periods where you will likely be on the phone to them every day (trust me it happens!), and others where you won’t even think about them for weeks at a time.
Make sure that the web agency you’re interested in doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. There’s no such thing.
Kimb Jones – Managing Director, Make Do
Agencies should recognise these different needs and the one you hire will need to be agile enough through the course of the relationship.
At Make Do we offer clients both low-cost and high-value starter packages with with no strict long-term obligations meaning we can ‘test the waters’ to ensure we are a good fit moving forward. This is a great way to build trust and accountability before large sums of money are laid out on long projects.
Working With Retained Time & Flexible Budgets
Ask your agency how it copes with the ebb and flow of customer work. It might have a solution that’s a perfect fit for your needs.
Does your agency allow you to roll support time over into the following month? Just because you haven’t used your allocated hours, shouldn’t mean you lose them! At Make Do we extend our packages to 6-months meaning our clients have plenty of time to define the scope of work that they need and allowing our team plenty of time to manage our capacity.
Just as budgets can vary wildly, so can fees depending on the work and the time and effort involved. So look for a website company that has different, accountable pricing models.
You might be happy commissioning a stand-alone project, or you may prefer to try services out by buying a block of hours.
Tracking Time & Effort
Good agencies (like ours) will track time and effort and you’ll not only get a good, demonstrable return on investment, you’ll be able to get your relationship off the ground slowly.
We always make sure that we track time spent on our support packages meaning we can generate transparent reports for our clients which outline exactly where the time & effort has been spent.
Check Out Our Example Client Report
Take a look at one of our client reports below (this image has been redacted to keep the clients details secure):
There are different ways to engage with an agency and it’s important you find the right fit at the outset. For example it’s easy to jump from a 40 hour package to a fully ‘fixed cost’ project several months down the line.
Knowing what you expect from the outset helps everyone involved so make you understand your budget and don’t be afraid to ask what you’ll get for it. It could differ enormously between agencies.
These are just a few reasons why flexibility should be a priority when hiring a web agency.
Want to know more? Just give us call on 0114 3606660 or email us at [email protected].
