Web development has changed drastically through the years.

Many clients have seen these changes by graphics and functionality. However, it has become clear to me in the past few years that the way businesses are run under IT needs to also change as what the customer expects has changed significantly with the progression of on-line functionality.

As a business we have decided to restructure the whole of our policies and procedures and roles to fit in with these new times. It has become clear to me that the old ways of doing business in these new times no longer works.

Our company has now adopted a completely custom infrastructure which is unique to us and means that we can work more efficiently, and give the very best to our customers.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and expectations about delivering a website has change beyond belief in the past few years. I am sure, like many other companies out there, they have had problems with clients where they have built a site and delivered it, and then the client changes the specifications drastically – costing more time and resources. Some companies charge extra for the changes to be made and this normally leaves a bad taste in your mouth as a client when you are unhappy with the work you are paying for.

Customer needs

It has become evident that clients in this day and age have no comprehension of time frames, skill requirements and costs involved when conceiving, designing and developing a web site.

Although we try to satisfy customer demands up to the point when the website is built, the client invariably requests opinion from other sources which in turn means that the brief we were given has changed out of all proportion to the original specifications.

This is why we want to deliver a product or service which our clients 100% want.

Pricing and Contract

Most companies/individuals designing websites use the fag packet method of pricing. This means that as a client you are not really sure what you should be paying for and therefore you can get wildly different prices for something you believe will be delivered from any company. This is a common mistake, and our industry does little to help.

Basically, there should be a proposal given to you outlining the scope, the aim of the site, the colour schemes, target audience, contact mechanisms, data collection aspects. This should have come from you through a pre-delivered briefing document.

In the proposal there should be options, time lines, expectations for both parties to deliver on promises (from the client end this would normally be images, logos, photos or copy).

Pricing should be based upon estimated time of completion, level of site, type of site, resources required and other circumstances which may be unique to your project.

It is reasonable to guess that if a project has a quoted time-line of over 3 months then this is not going to cost you £1000. Nobody works for nothing and the old saying "you get what you pay for" should apply, but sometimes client’s aren’t even getting that, and we have an average of 3 companies a month who contact us because their web designer has either disappeared, not delivered, changed parameters and pricing, or a combination of all of the aforementioned.

All work should be governed by a legally binding contract which covers both parties, and which carries the scope of contract and all particulars laid out in the original specification to ensure security for both parties, and ultimate satisfaction too.

Business efficiency

Metalfrog Studios has introduced a new efficient way of working. All pages are now designed and 100% finished for visual representation of the site prior to any development work being undertaken. We have been amazed at how much time this has saved us in the overall project roll-out schedule because of the many small changes which were taking up a lot of time to rectify. So now we can deliver your project much quicker and exactly to your expectations.

Project control and planning

Project control is critical when running a web site company. Before, the old way you worked with the developer and he built your site. Our new way is that there is a project controller responsible for every aspect of the site, from graphics to content and on to development. Making sure that the client gets their project on time and exactly to their specifications.

Delivery of end product

In the delivery of any website there is always a concern that the client will not like the final product. This new way ensures that they have seen a true graphical representation of the site, down to the pixel, of exactly what their website will look like on every single page. This means minimum development time and therefore cuts the costs on development to the bone.

I would recommend every website company follows this course of action, to ensure success for themselves and their clients.