What’s it like to work with a boutique website design agency?
Website design projects are a LOT of work. And as a business owner, you want to make sure that you work with someone who understands your vision, has the time, skills and passion to turn that vision into something exceptional and is going to make the entire experience as stress-free as possible.
We’re often asked what it’s like to work with a website design agency – but, we think the question needs to go a little deeper than that. Because not all website design agencies are the same. From the ginormous, to the teeny tiny. From agencies with a niche focus to ones with a broader palette. The drag and drops to the totally bespoke, coded and developed lowdown.?
Today, we’re going to guide you through the role of a boutique website design agency – as, ultimately, that’s what we are here at Littlebigbox! We’ll also give you a bit of an insight into what it’s like working with #TeamLBB, as well as thoughts and feedback from some of our much loved clients.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
What is a boutique website design agency?
First thing’s first – what is a boutique website design agency??
A boutique website design agency is a smaller website agency that is able to deliver a more customised, specialised service to their clients.
Their USP is the ability to deliver just as epic a job as a big-time agency, but with more personality, more customer service and more heart.
Boutique website design agencies tend to be:
Sounds good, doesn’t it? And that’s just for starters…
What’s it like to work with a boutique website design agency?
Remember – your website is your shopfront. Get it right, and you can expect:?
AKA, all of the good stuff.
Plus, because a boutique website design agency is totally dedicated to your project, with one point of contact and a customer service that goes above and beyond ChatBots, blanket emails and a zero face to name policy, you’re going to achieve your goals so much quicker (and easier!).
In a nutshell, working with a boutique website design agency is fun. It’s empowering. It’s exciting. And it gets the job done.
AND
Littlebigbox: doing things our own way.
Where does Littlebigbox come into the picture?
As a boutique website design agency ourselves, we pride ourselves on working in collaboration with our clients. We make it our mission to get to the heart of what you want and need out of a website, how this aligns with your business vision and ways we can combine all of this to speak to your dream customers.
But don’t just take our word for it. Zoe – from Wellgood Wellbeing – had the most amazing things to say about her time working with LBB.?
“Before working with April, I was about to give up in all honesty! I’d been let down by multiple people when trying to pull the platform together, and it felt like such a huge lift to try and pull it together. I nearly walked away on multiple occasions because I thought what I wanted to do was too out of reach. I’m so glad I didn’t.
领英推荐
‘The experience with Littlebigbox was amazing. April is an absolute legend. She’s a calming and level-headed presence. She helped to temper my ADHD brain explosion of ideas – and made them into a reality!”
(Psst – you can find out more about what we did with Zoe here).?
We also aren’t afraid (actually, we relish it!) to bring in experts from outside of our agency. We’ve got a little yellow book full of branding experts, copywriters, marketers, VAs and everything in between. This means that despite being a smaller agency, we’re still able to take on (and smash!) the high end, high scale projects.
But, how do we actually go about it?
The Littlebigbox process.
We have a four-step process at Littlebigbox. And while this can shift and adapt based on the project, it provides us with a strong foundation upon which to guide our client through their website design journey.
Stage 1 – DISCOVER.
It all starts with a conversation. Before we even contemplate a project, we encourage people to book a free discovery call so that they can tell us more about their needs and we can start to get to know one another. This is super important to us and, where possible, we love to make that discovery call an in person natter over coffee and cake. We love the personal touch and we always try to make these meetings as relaxed and informal as possible. No pressure, ever.
If off the back of this they think we’re a good match, then we’ll put together a proposal for them. We offer COMPLETE transparency with our proposals. Any questions, at all, we answer with the utmost honesty. Nothing is hidden from our clients.
Stage 2 – PLAN.
Next, we move on with the real planning. This is when we map out what the client needs out of a website, what we require from them and the type of aesthetic they want to go for. We’ll also give them a timeline and a list of key deliverables. It’s SO important to us that we spend a good chunk of time in the planning stage, rather than rushing straight in with the design. And it works in our favour.
“April and her team have done a fantastic job with building us our own bespoke Training and Personnel portal to run alongside our website. April took the time to get a good understanding of what we required, and had a lot of patience while we tried to explain it! And now the portal is up and running and it looks brilliant, very professional. We are really very pleased with it.” – Skill Scaffolding (check out their full case study).
As part of this stage, we love recommending other small businesses who we think could be a good fit for the project: anything from branding, to copy, to photography. We only ever recommend companies that we truly believe would be a good fit. This way, we get to keep everything in blissful harmony.
Stage 3 – DESIGN & DEVELOP.
Then it’s our fave part – sprinkling in some creative magic. We’ll start off with a design mockup so that we can show the client the vibe we’re going for and (once we have got the thumbs up from them) we’ll get to work designing and building their beautiful new website. Throughout this, we keep a steady line of communication going with the client to make sure they’re happy and that we’re on hand to answer any and all questions along the way.
We give the client the option to keep an eye on how things are progressing with a bespoke demo site link – we’ve found that this gives them peace of mind, as well as an easy, efficient way to provide feedback in real time.
Stage 4 – LAUNCH & SUPPORT.
Once the client is 100% happy with their new website, it’s time to send it out into the world. We will manage the live launch of the site (and be on hand for any hiccups!) and deliver one-on-one user training which we record so that they can refer back to it whenever they need. In addition, we share a website ‘how-to’ guide with every single project. We want our customers to feel confident when it comes to managing their own website – and this is definitely the feedback that we receive, time and time again.
“Our new website has definitely made us understand the patterns of behaviour of our users more, particularly when it comes to donations. We’ve been able to see from the users point of view who do not know anything about us, versus looking at it with all the knowledge about our organisation that we have, which – in our business – is invaluable.
We cannot thank April enough for her expertise and patience. Due to our previous website being hacked more than it was live and working, we unexpectedly moved forward the launch of our website by several weeks and – without April – we couldn’t have done it. From every design change, paragraph change, confusion on our end she was always extremely professional and went the extra mile to make sure we were happy.” – Youth Options (you can read their full case study here).
Plus, they have the option of rolling straight into our Technical support plan if they want ongoing, personalised maintenance and support. Whatever their choice, we don’t just disappear once the project’s finished. We’re there to help and provide support and advice even once the website is complete.
Sold on the LBB experience? Let’s chat.
We were hoping that would be your response! Here at Littlebigbox, we’re kind of the experts when it comes to WordPres.
We’ve created websites for everything from scaffolding companies to wellbeing communities with a big dose of estate agents, creative business owners and beauty therapists in between.
We would love to talk to you about your business and how a WordPress site could put it on centre stage. Book in a cuppa and chat here.
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1 年Yes, website design projects are definitely a lot of work! especially when there is a lot at stake on how designing a site would impact their brand. As a tech agency owner myself, I know how important it is to understand clients' vision, goal, and brand appeal before putting things in play for them. Love the insight into the role of #TeamLBB, as well as hearing from satisfied clients. Great post!