The website project has been assigned to you. You are responsible for choosing the website design and development firm that will complete the technical work. BUT, this is not your area of expertise and you need help understanding the criteria to use.
Following are some ideas about putting together a list of criteria when hiring a design firm for your website project. There are common questions that get asked, and, then there are questions that you want to add and prioritize according to your industry, your business goals, and the personalities on your business team.
What about maintenance?
Will you or someone in your firm want to update the web content? Will your firm hire someone else to update the content? Will you use the same firm you are hiring to build the website? On-going website maintenance intentions need to be shared with prospective website design and development firms up front. Your on-going maintenance intentions inform and guide decisions made during the design and development phases of the website project.
On-going maintenance by non-technical people needs to be built into the website. If you are not going to maintain the website right now, but, think you might in six to nine months, mention your intention during the interviews.
Experience and Expertise: Try to determine whether they are ‘design’ heavy or ‘build’ heavy.
Of course you want to ask about their experience, number of years in the business, expertise in the platform that they will most likely recommend,
Which platform will be used?
Who will be working on the project?
The people with whom you are meeting, employees of the firm or a virtual team? Are you speaking to the sales team or the ones that will be responsible for successfully completing the website project? Are you going to be passed off to someone who is unaware of the conversation of understanding?
Team: It shouldn’t matter if it is a virtual team or a team of employees. The important component is that the technical team has good communication. My experience has been that the client (you) benefit most when the technical team members have worked together previously. They know how each other work, how to divide the tasks, and complete the handoff for the next team member. In that case, they have learned to work together and project tasks flow better.
For my money, the most important question is:
