Whenever I onboard a new customer, I tend to go over our processes and how we manage tasks and projects, and rather than repeat myself all the time, I felt it made sense to write it out here and then I can simply refer people to this post each time. It also gives anyone browsing for a digital agency to work with, and idea of what they could expect if they started a project with us.
Payments and Invoices
We invoice 50% of any project up front, and the remaining 50% when the website is ready to go live.
Additionally, we invoice all recurring invoices up front of the period we are entering into. EG if its hosting, we invoice for the year, at the start of the year. If its a retainer, then we invoice at the start of the period the invoice covers.
This approach means we are never left being owed money for work we have already done, which is better for our business but it also means we avoid having to have awkward conversations with our customers – so better for everyone, really.
Task & Project Management
We have worked with many task and project management systems, and most of them (in our opinion) are very bloated, very confusing for clients to get their heads round and they are generally just cluttered. We spent considerable time a few years ago, reviewing different systems and we landed on Basecamp.
Its one of the oldest systems available for this kind of thing, but is regularly updated with new features and we feel it does a fantastic job of what it needs to do, and doesn’t try and be a “jack of all trades”.
We add all clients into their own projects so they can see progress and add updates and comments along the way.
Communication
We are contactable via every type of method, however we are often very busy – so most of the time, any inbound calls will be answered by our wonderful admin staff who will book you a call with the relevant person here at dijitul.
Emails do get answered as quickly as possible, but by far the best way of reaching out is to add a comment, post or update into your Basecamp project. This way the whole team can see what you have added and your comment or request isnt sat waiting for one person to get round to replying.
Ownership of Things
This is a bit of a random one, but I can’t go a week without speaking to someone that has commissioned a website or eCommerce store, or logo design to be made by someone, only to find that the thing they had made will always be owned by the agency they worked with. So the website you paid £1000’s for, or the online store you are selling your products on – if you read the terms and conditions of your arrangement – you may find the “framework” or the “intellectual property” is owned in full, by the digital agency.
Shocking, right!
I like to make it clear to people we work with, if you pay us to make you anything at all – we never retain ownership and as long as all the invoices relating to that project are paid then it belongs in full – to you!
So if you are looking for a time-served, transparent digital agency to help you with a web project, then please get in touch today. 🙂
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