When we receive an initial inquiry from a marketing agency, they often have many questions about our services. These questions range from our working process to how we accommodate the agencies and beyond. These questions have given us a great perspective as to what agencies deem important to their working relationships and what they need in order for an outsource relationship to be successful.
Starting to source a new outsourced web development partnership? Here are 10 important questions marketing agencies should ask outsourced developers.
Where are your offices located?
Does location matter to you? Are you interested in working within in-person meeting distance with your outsource partner or are you comfortable with virtual calls and a country in between you? If you’re trying to find the right fit with an agency sometimes what you think you want may go out the window but, it’s always helpful to be able to place the location of your partner.
Will you provide a no obligation quote?
Seeking a quote for your projects, is a no-brainer. With a scope of work, and a vision for your project your outsourced team should be able to look at the project and provide a quote or a proposal, dependent on your wants.
Will you do project-based work?
Walking into a contracted partnership can feel risky, often before you commit solely to an outsourced developer you will want to try that developer out. This is the optimal time to send the developer a small piece of project work to test out their work style to see how they mesh with your agency. Finding an outsourced team that can work on your projects as needed moving into that contracted relationship will be beneficial to the business of your agency.
Do you offer a warranty for your work, and how many revisions do you offer?
There is nothing worse than getting burned by your outsourced help. Have you ever ran into a situation where you request one thing of your developer and then later realize that it just doesn’t work for you or your client? Then to get that fixed you must again pay? This is partly what you request and that comes with experience, but it can be avoided most times if your outsourced partner is willing to guarantee their work and offer revisions.
How do you typically communicate with your clients?
This will give you an idea of the outsourcers communication style and whether or not they are willing to absorb your style. Will you be provided with an account manager? Do they work on a ticketing system? How do they determine project importance? Will they work on your own project management/collaboration platforms?
Can we see examples of your work?
You want to ask to see work that is similar to your own project requests. Or perhaps the work that they have done for other agencies and explanation or breakdown of that work. An outsourcers best work may not always be featured on their website due to confidentiality reasons, it’s always best to ask for relative examples.
What is your idea of “done”?
When you deliver campaigns and work to clients, you often want to deliver it when it’s done. You want to show your work in its best light, and if that is your policy shouldn’t you want the same thing from your outsourced developers? There are many ways a developer may define this, if they are agile developers this may mean many steps of reflection along the way to reaching done or it may be build or application delivered, washes hands.
Will you sign an NDA and Confidentiality agreement?
If this is important to you, it shouldn’t be a problem for your outsourced development team.
Essentially what you are looking for from your outsourced partner is an extended member of your team, one that produces the quality of work your clients expect from your agency. The more diligent you are in your search the more that working relationship has a chance to thrive and ultimately drive the growth of your agency.
