The number one inbound call I get starts with “My flakey website designer…” I spend a lot of time fixing clients “messes” from hiring the wrong website design firm. Here’s what to look for and what to avoid.
Stories from Clients about Bad Hires of Website Designers
- A client recently hired a website designer on Fiverr.com from the Philippines. He charged her more than she understood up front and when she wouldn’t pay he threatened to take down her site. He had all the passwords, he was perfectly capable. Plus, he put some PHP coding in the functions.php file that prevented anyone from deleting him as an Admin user. On top of that, the payment gateways didn’t work, the SSL wasn’t set up properly and the overall design looked like a 12 year old did it! Oh, and I forgot to mention all of the Plugins he used were pirate versions of paid Plugins so the client had no support when she ran into problems.
- A client engaged a local website design company with a “team in India” (ie: outsourced). After a year of website development the ecommerce website was not up and running. The design firm took $3500 up front and the site was nowhere near completion. The design firm did not set up the shipping methods properly; the products were imported directly from the client’s old site with little thought for SEO or proper categories. The site was not built mobile friendly and was a complete mess. When I highlighted everything that was wrong with the site, at least the design firm refunded the clients money and send her on her way. I was able to take over and fix the mess and get it up and running.
- A client hired a Canadian website designer from Vancouver. Things started out great, then the designer got more and more entrenched in her business getting access to here bank accounts and social media accounts. The designer helped himself to $30,000 from her bank account that her Grandmother had left her in her will to start her business. This one is particularly sad because it was a single mother wanting to start her own business to work from home with her children. He’s also suspectedly hacked her social media accounts and is posting on her behalf.
Signs You Have a Flakey Website Designer
- They start projects and don’t finish them
- They take most of the money up front and don’t deliver.
- They don’t return calls or emails promptly.
- They don’t know how to “manage the client” through the process and the relationship turns sour fast.
- They might know how to build a website but are terrible at running a business.
- No contracts up front or design specifications which leads to misunderstandings and problems.
- They know how to build a website but don’t really know marketing
- They know you do build a website but don’t really know SEO
- They know how to build a website but don’t really know web server security (or WordPress security for that matter).
- They do website design “part time”
- They don’t understand your business.
- They don’t really know website design, they farm it out to “a team in India”.
Note: not that there’s anything wrong with foreign workers, but in a design project, communication often suffers, time lag is an issue and it really is beneficial to have someone local you can talk to and sit with over a coffee to discuss problems and solutions.
How to Avoid Flakey Website Designers
- Get a contract up front spelling out costs, responsibilities and who owns the website when it is complete. (If you don’t have a contract, the designer may have creative rights to it!)
- Get a project specification up front detailing what pages are included, what functionality is included.
- Check previous projects the designer completed.
- Call and talk to references. You’re going to spend a lot of money what’s a few phone calls!
- Check their reviews on Google.
What to do if you’ve Already Hired a Flakey Website Designer?
Here at iGo Sales and Marketing we have become experts at recovering from these situations. We are a website designer you can trust. We can point out what needs fixing and fix it professionally and promptly. Contact us for more details.
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