When a web design agency gets a job from a client that they have never dealt with before, they go through a very specific process in order to fully satisfy the client. If you are thinking about starting a web design agency and you want to offer your services, your main focus will be on gaining a solid reputation and maintaining it. So, follow the steps that hundreds of agencies have followed in the past in order to provide your clients with exactly what they expect and need.
The first important thing is to establish exactly what you will do and what you won’t do. When clients go to web design agencies, they usually expect to be presented with a fully functional web site. But many design agencies don’t offer coding services, and simply offer design. This has led to many conflicts in the past, and it is a good idea to make it clear what you are going to give them when you’re done working. It may even be a good idea to draw up a legal contract that you can use for all your clients, and change small details within.
After you’ve established what you can and can’t do, you’ll start to gather information about the project that they need done. Different objectives for the web site should change the design considerably, so make sure to ask them all the important questions before you get started. Around this time, you should also get a feel for how hands-on the client is (IE, whether they will want you to present them with options the entire time, or whether they want you to take charge of the whole thing).
Now you should have all of the information that you need to get started and build them a killer website. While you add every feature of the site, you’ll probably have several different ideas that can’t all fit together. One good approach is to create all of these ideas as mockups, and show them to the client before you do any more work. Have the client pick one to build on, and work from there. That way if they’re dissatisfied with the final product, it isn’t your fault, and they can’t ask you to rework the whole thing for free. Just make sure that you cover all your bases and act professional when dealing with clients, and you’ll have a successful design agency soon enough.