Trust is important, right?
We can’t ignore that trust in a company is based on how it looks meaning its design. According to Stanford University, 75% visitors make a decision of credibility of a company by looking the website design. Also, 38% of visitors might leave the website after the glance. Choosing right colours for your website can boost brand recognition by around 80%.
Most marketing leaders know they need the help of a good design team. But finding a design agency that’s the right fit for your company can be tricky. Many companies say that they can create best logos, build amazing websites, and produce content long-term.
But, What is the surety? What is the guarantee that the design agency is right to meet your needs?
Hiring an agency should be given as much thought as you would to hiring a full-time employee. So here are the important considerations you should look for when it comes to selecting the perfect agency.
Understanding Your Project Needs
It is important to have clarity on the project’s purpose. When considering hiring a design agency, you should know specific needs of your target audience, and their demographics.
Prepare outline what the agency will handle, for example, the website redesigning, mobile app design, or a full product build. List out the deliverables that you are expecting such as wireframe, prototypes, high-fidelity design, and final assets.
Set specific user actions (easy navigation, quick transactions), business outcomes (higher engagement, conversions), and KPIs (retention, load time, user satisfaction).
Define brand standards (color, typography, tone), necessary features (sign-up, profiles, payment), aesthetic preferences (modern, minimalist), and technical constraints (platform limits, performance, compatibility).
Outline user flow steps (entry to goal completion), key interactions (searching, filtering, feedback), and scenarios for adaptable design.
Set project milestones (wireframes, mockups, prototypes), plan for usability testing and feedback, and define final deliverables (design files, style guides, assets, documentation).
Set timeline with phase deadlines, outline budget (including testing and revisions), and plan for scope changes. Define communication channels, feedback loops, and key contacts. Outline post-launch support, performance review, and plan for future updates.
What does a design agency do?
What does a design agency do?
A design agency with versatile, skilled designers focuses on products or brands visual appearance. They create design and communication material (the path users need to communicate with the website).
The services a design agency can provide are:
- Web Design
- User Interface
- User Experience
- Lodo Design
- Print Design – Eg: Packaging
- Digital art
- Animation
Cost of hiring a bad agency
It’s obvious that if you hire a bad agency it will make you lose some money.
However, that’s not the worst part. There are some other hidden costs that might have a long-term impact on your business. I have mentioned a few of them below.
1. Losing Time
If you hire a bad agency, there will be no progress and will be losing out to your competitors. In the world of business, time is costlier than money.
2. Bad Online Reputation
Whether it’s digital marketing or a creative agency, they can tamper your online reputation. Imagine a situation where the agency is a novice in your industry and is using you as a test client…
3. Unnecessary Headaches
Sooner or later, you will get frustrated. If things are not working out as they were promised by the agency then it will lead to frustrated calls & headaches.
4. Increased Budget
A bad agency can overspend your Ads budget, and keep asking for more working hours (than the agreed). All this will lead to an increased budget.
5. To & Fros
If you hire an agency without evaluating its expertise, you might end up in the feedback tunnel. This will lead to multiple emails exchanged with never-ending calls.
6. Unexpected Results
You hire an agency with some expectations and desired results. However, if you end up hiring an agency with no industry expertise or an experienced team, the results will be unlikely.
Factors to consider before hiring an agency
Well, the good news is that this can be avoided.
If you are planning to hire an agency in the future, go through the list of factors to consider before hiring an agency added below:
- Process & Commitment
- Clients & Testimonials
- Case Studies & Results
- Team & Experience
- Costing & Price Breakdown
- Industry Expertise
- Eat Their Own Cooking
PROCESS and COMMITMENT
When it comes to digital or creative services, the commitment to the results can only be justified with a robust & effective process.
In fact, this is one of the most important factors to consider while hiring an agency. The process must be industry-approved and results-oriented.
Also, client collaboration is a must to get the expected outcomes.
While hiring an agency, request them to demonstrate their process and final results using one of their previous projects as an example.
Questions to ask:
1. What are the different phases involved in your process?
2. Do you favor more and more client collaboration between phases?
3. How long (usually) does your process take for an ‘XYZ’ kind of project?
4. Is there any industry-approved methodology used in your process?
5. What will be the expected results or KPIs if we hire you?
6. Is your process transparent, can we be part of it?
CLIENTS and TESTIMONIALS
You must always hire an agency that has got some past experience. Do not look out for a cheap and novice agency with no idea of the next steps (once they get stuck).
The question is how do you verify their experience, it’s simple.
Look out for the reviews and testimonials that came in for them in the recent past. Also, sometimes reach out to their clients (of course with permission) and get a review about them.
Questions to ask:
1. Can you share your Clutch or Trustpilot profile links?
2. Is it ok if I reach out to a couple of your clients for review?
3. Do you have any audio or video testimonials?
4. Can you name some of your tip clients?
5. How many clients have you had in the past?
CASE STUDIES and RESULTS
Another important aspect of validating an agency is ‘Case Studies. An agency with experience and proven results must have a few detailed case studies online.
Go to the agency website and look for a relevant case study. Don’t forget to match the results online or cross-check them with the client (of course with permission).
You need to make sure the problem statement, challenges, solutions, and final results are explained clearly in the case studies. This way you can also put trust in their process.
Questions to ask:
1. Can you share some links to your case studies?
2. Will you be able to demonstrate a case study on the call?
3. Do you mind if I reach out to one of your clients for confirmation?
4. Are we going to follow the same process for our project?
5. Any examples of projects that you failed to execute?
TEAM and EXPERIENCE
It will not be the sales guy who is going to work on your project so look out for the team. Find the agency team on LinkedIn, and explore their profiles for experience and certifications.
If required, connect with the agency team lead or the project manager to clear your doubts. Do ask some relevant questions regarding the process, industry expertise, past projects, etc.
Also, watch out for their team size, work experience, completed projects, office locations, etc.
Questions to ask:
1. How big is the team and what’s the hierarchy?
2. How many team members will be involved in the project?
3. Have they worked on similar projects in the past?
4. Do you have any certificates or awards from the past?
5. How old is your company?
If you validate the above four factors and are happy with them then the agency is reliable and you can choose to go ahead with them. However, there are a few other factors that you may or may not consider before hiring an agency.
These factors are not as important as the ones mentioned above but if you are still left with few agency options after evaluating them then finalize the one based on the factors below.
COSTING and PRICE BREAKDOWN
Well, if the service is of top-notch quality the price will be high. However, it’s good to know if the cost of hiring a particular agency falls within your budget.
Try evaluating proposals from multiple agencies with the same level of expertise to get an idea of the pricing as per the market standards.
Sometimes saving a little early might be costlier later. So, I will leave this up to you.
Questions to ask:
1. Can you share with me a price break?
2. How do you justify such high pricing?
3. Can you tell me about your payment terms?
4. What payment methods do you prefer?
“If a person sounds trustworthy & reliable, pay some extra amount now and save in the future.”
INDUSTRY EXPERTISE
There are 100s of industries out there and it’s not necessary that an agency will have expertise in all of them. However, if they have worked on similar projects or industries in the past then just go for it.
The reason is that you won’t be paying for their learning as someone in the past already did it.
In some unlikely cases, give priority to the agencies with better results and processes instead of industry experience.
Questions to ask:
1. How many projects have you completed in our industry?
2. Do have any in-house industry experts?
3. Can you showcase an example of a project from our industry?
4. You are not an industry expert, can you really do it? Explain
5. What knowledge do you have in our industry?
EAT THEIR OWN COOKING
This is a no-brainer. If you are hiring a UI/UX agency, check out their website or if you are hiring an SEO agency, check out their rankings and if you are hiring a social media agency, check out their followers.
It’s very simple if they are good at something they would have done it for themselves. If not, skip and go to the next agency.
Questions to ask:
1. Can you share your social media profiles & website traffic?
2. Do you run ads for your own business?
3. Have you built a brand reputation for your business?
4. Why have you not used your services for yourself?
