Episode 3: Website Development Brisbane

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[00:00:00]  Saul: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Web Design Business podcast. This is episode number three. Today's episode is entitled Website Development Brisbane. My name is Saul Edmonds, and as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith.

[00:00:12] Gillian: Hello Saul. 

[00:00:13] Saul: Hello, we are the co-founders and creative directors of roundhouse the creative agency, a local business with a passion for helping our clients grow. We service clients in Brisbane, Australia wide and around the world, growing their revenue with strategic website design. Over to you, Gill.

[00:00:28] Gillian: Okay, well, today we'll talk about website development and have a closer look at the qualities you should look for when choosing a web development team for your next project. Our goal here at Roundhouse is to help small business owners start-ups and entrepreneurs in the city of Brisbane, Australia, take their opportunities to the next level with brilliant website design. If you're from another location, or city, welcome. Thanks for joining us today and we hope that we can help you grow your business in the online space. Now, today, there are many web development companies out there, but what qualities should you look for when finding the right website developers for you, your business and your website.

[00:01:11] Saul: Yeah, good question. Gill. Let's get started to find out some of these points.

[00:01:15] Gillian: Well, what are the top seven qualities you need to look for in a professional website development company? Well, the first one is a dedication to customer service. 

[00:01:25]  Saul: Yeah. Okay. So why was that actually important? That's important for any business, I think, really, isn't it? But especially, I guess, some of the website development industry at large. Let's be honest, it hasn't got a great reputation. in terms of customer service. I think that primarily is because web developers are usually.. 

[00:01:54]  Gillian: IT guys?

[00:01:55] Saul: Yeah, but  they aren't on customer facing, because they don't have to be and people don't have to do that so in one sense , it's fair enough to say if they're not, then customer service isn't important, because they're not dealing with customers, but at the same time, of course, then when they are dealing with customers, then customer service is probably even more important, given the nature of how a lot of development has to be discussed with the client, people want to know what is happening and even if they don't understand all the ins and outs of how something is to be made. It's important and everyone needs to be communicated too as well. 

[00:02:43] Gillian: But when starting a new website development project, you want to make sure that you enjoy the journey. And if you can work with a partner with an agency or development team that offers good customer service that they're not they're attentive to their own work, and that you're going to get a better website result. But and you can also enjoy their journey and communicate with them as a far more positive experience all around, there's nothing worse than frustration at the basic point of lack of customer service from your website development.

[00:03:14] Saul: Yeah, that's right and from our point of view, too, we know that there's a lot of companies that just do website development, and a lot of that just do website design. But we really think the sweet spot for clients is to have those two in one package. The reason being is that if you've got that flow through any missing parts that can often happen when you've got two different groups of people doing those two things, unless they work really well together, which isn't there's always there's always things that fall through the cracks. If you got it all in one company, you've got a much more cohesive experience for a client. What's number two, Gill?

[00:04:01] Gillian: We want to make sure that your chosen website development company has extensive professional experience.

[00:04:08]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. So that really comes down to the work that they’ve done before, though. So professional experience might mean their qualifications but really, when it comes to what people have actually done, that's not always as relevant as just the work that they've done, and the work that they've had to do either for similar projects, or things that show their expertise.

[00:04:33]  Gillian: For me,  the professional experience is more about what clients have they worked with, and what projects have they participated in and so that's really good to have an understanding of that right at the start.  

[00:04:43]  Saul: And what else? 

[00:04:44]  Gillian: That brings us straight to a quality portfolio. How good is their work? 

[00:04:47]  Saul: Yeah, that's right so obviously, how good it looks. But, then how well it works so when it comes to development, the quality of the coding, and the experience that people have put into it, and the effort that they put in, but then also, how well just going back to customer service, how well that has been relayed to the client themselves too about how something has been achieved, then how well ultimately it works. and then for the future, then what sort of support there is there too. 

[00:05:23] Gillian: Okay, well, the next one to look for in a website development company, is a collaborative process. I'm looking at a collaborative and generous spirit, to working as a team towards one goal so unify with your team for that purpose.

[00:05:39]  Saul: Yeah and unify with your client, too. They're part of your team. They're not obviously a part of the team of actually doing the work. But, once again  just returning to that idea of customer service of being able to  share ideas and to work with them for a common goal is, is often underestimated.

[00:06:03] Gillian: And so that brings us to number five. You want your website developers to be totally committed to achieving their goals, project milestones and deadlines.

[00:06:12]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. Deadlines.

[00:06:17] Gillian: They messed up

[00:06:18] Saul: Yeah, they do matter. If for any reason that there's not too many web development, web design, or development projects in general, that don't have some point in them where, a deadline might be pushed out or might be changed so even if that does happen, what is really crucial is to have good communication with your client as to why that is the case. Development is a  very organic sort of process. There's a lot of moving parts to it, things change, and sometimes unexpected things happen, but even if and probably when those things happen, you just need to have good communication with everybody in the team and your client about what is going on so you can get to the end goal. 

[00:07:15] Gillian: Okay, well, number six is you want to ensure that your website developers are partaking in an organised and accountable web development process. 

[00:07:24]  Saul: Yeah. So how do we actually do that? There's a couple of tools that we use, and I guess, most agencies would use to manage projects. And in order so that you can set tasks and everyone is able to see what the account, project managers and participants are doing.

[00:07:46]  Gillian:  Able to monitor progress too. 

[00:07:48] Saul: Yeah, that's right, that you have regular updates for whatever stakeholders are actually involved and when you hit certain points, or certain milestones, or you're nearing them, or post them, or at whatever point during the project, you're able to manage that with the people that are responsible for individual tasks, and actually, make sure that those people also know what they're doing too, because being accountable is fine. But people can't be accountable. If they're not 100%. clear about what they're supposed to be doing. Yeah, that's right, their roles in the process and that is often just not the broad accountability of you're responsible for your part of the project. It's about what is expected as well.

[00:08:44] Gillian:  Transparency. 

[00:08:45] Saul: Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:46] Gillian: So what are some tools that people and agencies use to monitor the process and the progress?  

[00:08:53] Saul: Yeah, so we use project management tool called basecamp, which has been around for many years. Other people use other tools like Asana, and Trello and there's a whole host of other online solutions that people use to manage their teams and their projects, and communication with clients as well. They all come down to what people prefer really. A lot of them are quite similar. Some of them have slightly different tools, but ultimately, they all have the same goal.

[00:09:26]  Gillian: Okay, well, that brings us on to our seventh point here, which is wanting what you want from your website development company, you want them to deliver on after sale service.

[00:09:38]  Saul: Yeah. So after sale service will, will usually be ideally established at the beginning of the project, as to what you're going to actually do for somebody after the project so well, at the end of the project, what is actually expected, that comes back to accountability to because accountability and knowing what somebody is meant to do was that you might not establish that, and you might then do it after the project. Sometimes it's not always practical to do it at the beginning, especially if the project changes and you need to, or the client wants you to have a particular sort of service after the project ongoing but it's important then to deliver on it. But everybody knows what they're meant to do.

[00:10:35] Gillian: So I guess the key takeaway is you're looking for a website developer that you can develop a long term relationship with, so you can trust, have a long term investment and your website development that you do is the investment going forward. You will need upgrades and so on over time, most likely, and so if you can all collaborate to ensure that stays on track for the long term. It makes sense in regards to the investment.

[00:11:02]  Saul: Yeah, that's right and that's actually a key point that you touched on Gill was when you've got custom, especially if it's highly custom development for project, and you've made that from scratch, and it's not based around some existing system where there's already existing support there. In order for something to be fixed up, then you're going to have to do it because you've been responsible for making that custom piece of development in the first place so that's a really key point because then..

[00:11:38] Gillian:  When we have a custom web development projects. There's always a maintenance component.

[00:11:42]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. And it gets back to establishing ideally what that is going to be for the client at the end of the project and then ongoing. So with that, guys, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. Before we go. Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe grow up to this podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. We're on a journey to help local Brisbane businesses grow their opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Thanks. 

[00:12:11] Gillian: Bye