i am just recently having to deal with the customer service side of formally designing websites and will really appreciate feedback from what other designers will accept and what they wont accept as part of the design contract.

How much changes do you allow,if any, before you require your client to start paying for changes??(due to several changes made by clients i believe it has really slowed down development)

How much percentage do you collect upfront??

since alot of clients dont really know what they want what steps do you take to clerify things AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE in the beginning to prevent changes during development??

Any other advice will be greatly appreciated

1. If it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. Now, if you happen to have a good relationship with a client, it's your judgment call if you want to get certain items into a contract or not, but ultimately, anything you don't have in writing can and will be held against you.

2. It's not uncommon to ask for anywhere from 20-50% upfront. If you are well-established, you may command even more than this. Personally, I rarely charge anything upfront, and I've even more rarely been burned. But this is very uncommon. Even a small retainer fee is enough to bind a contract.

3. Clarify everything in advance. Assume your clients know nothing whatsoever about the Web or the design process, and make sure your clients have no unrealistic expectations about what their sites will do for them in the future. You also need to educate them as to how to use the tool you've created for them most effectively if they don't have someone doing this for them already. The more you educate and clarify, the less you'll get blamed for something down the road.

4. If you're charging by the hour/you base your initial quote on estimated hours you'll devote to the project (a very good idea), then clients should understand that significant changes will result in a significant investment of extra time. Small changes will result in small extra bill. Some designers give customers a little leeway here. I know one designer who will give 10% of the contract in addition for changes. So if he charges $50/hr. and the quote is for $1000, he will give the customer up to 2 hours of free changes, after which billing commences. Always notify clients if they are going to incur extra charges!

No one wants to nickle and dime a client. So keep a log of changes you've made outside the scope of the original project. If each one takes two minutes, great! When you're done, tally it all up, and you'll be able to bill one time for a few additional hours (as you deserve to do), and you can show a lengthy list of items that took place in that time. It shows the client that the extra money (s)he spent accomplished a lot!

5. Prepare some boilerplate materials that go into your final proposals. Mine include information about my company, the design process, business/design philosophy, additional considerations and my TOS. Then, I write, from scratch, a cover letter, a summary of the entire project's development in phases and an itemized quote.

That's all that comes to mind off-hand...

HTH!

Paul H

10% deposit
40% paid then mockups are delivered ( upto 2 changes allowed )
40% paid when html page delivered ( upto 1 change allowed )
final balance is paid and all pages and materials are sent to customer.
the rest is XX $ per hour

hope this helps

How much changes do you allow,if any, before you require your client to start paying for changes??(due to several changes made by clients i believe it has really slowed down development)

We do few changes when developing websites for clients. We don't get many fussy clients, so we do them free. However, if we feel it gets to a ridiculous point (prolonging development) then we start to charge before we do anymore.


How much percentage do you collect upfront??

35% - 40%. No less.


since alot of clients dont really know what they want what steps do you take to clerify things AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE in the beginning to prevent changes during development??


Draw mockups of the design, suggest pallete colours, make sure everything that is to be done is in the contract. We will not do more unless we are contracted to do so.

We do have a one client we run with no contracts, but they can be trusted.

From what I've seen, many web designers think what we're selling is a product, not a service, which brings them a world of troubles when dealing with situations like this.

First of all, you have to realise that what you sell is a service, and take into account everything that comes with that , get a book on Six Sigma and read up on it, but make sure the book is steered towards services (it'll usually state so on the cover, since there aren't many as most are devoted to products).

Second, and I'm sorry to say this, but if a client's changes are prolonging the process, then the prospect and contract weren't done correctly. Ask yourself how many meetings you had with the client before-hand and double that number, then ask yourself how long each meeting took and double that number. Then start making a list of questions to ask to fill in all that extra time you now have, I'll guarantee the next contract will be correctly drafted.

I've seen people actually spend ten minutes on the phone with someone and derive a prospect from that, enormous mistake. You should have at least two meetings with a client, one so he can tell you his ideas and you can ask questions; then you go back and set up a proposal; a second meeting so you can tell him your ideas and he can ask questions; only then can you draft a prospect and begin work.

It seems tedious at first, but when you realise that an extra hour on your first meeting with a client can save you a few phone calls and a number of hours worth of changing a design/code, you'll realise it's worth it.

I agree with hdezela. It's like that Chinese logo story that went something like this:

A Chinese designer agreed to create a rooster logo for a huge Western company. It's been a while so they're sending someone to check up on the logo designer. When he arrives at the Chinese man, the Chinese man didn't create the logo yet. He stands up, whips some paint on his paper and says 'done, that'll be $10.000'. The man sent by the company takes a look and really loves it, but he does ask how 1 minute of work can be worth $10.000. The Chinese man then points to piles of books about roosters, the company and so on.

I used to work as a web projects manager at web design company, so I was the one who was dealing with clients. It usually went about two or three meetings to get the feelng of what client wants as a design, features of the web site and so on. Then I sat for a day and wrote specs. We also had a date established, before which we had to deliver first draft. Then for some time we allowed the client to alter the draft, but once it's finalized - the client signs the printout of the draft and the draft becomes the very look of the site we want to achieve. After that all significant design changes must be paid for on hourly basis. Same goes for programming - once the list of features got finalized, client confirms it, any significant changes must be paid for. This usually protects us from clients who are "never happy", or take "one change at a time" approach. This also servers very well in order to get a little more formal with clients, because we got a lot of personal referrals and sometimes it was assumed (wrongfully) that personal referral will bring such a customer a longer edge of tolerance, then other's.

This might be a far reach, but can anyone show me a rough draft of what a contract should look like and contain??

My TOS - http://www.plhmedia.com/ex/Terms_of_Service.doc

My contract - http://www.plhmedia.com/ex/Contract.doc - everything get's laid out in the proposal and TOS.

If you want a look at boilerplate proposal stuff, I'd be happy to post it when I get a chance (probably later this afternoon).

I would really like to see the boilerplate proposal. thanks for the quick reply

Highly interesting thread. I would love to see one too. The TOS/Contract you showed is very different from what I saw in the company I used to work for.

Here's some of the materials that go into a typical proposal. I excluded:
1) Cover Letter, which always reflects previous discussions with the client,
2) Phases of Development, also highly individual, and
3) Quote page, for obvious reasons :)

http://www.plhmedia.com/ex/Boilerplate.pdf
Originally posted by Catbegemot
Highly interesting thread. I would love to see one too. The TOS/Contract you showed is very different from what I saw in the company I used to work for.
If you worked for a large design company, you probably saw much more formal, legal-sounding documentation. They may not be the best documents for everyone to use for themselves, but they work quite well for us, given our size (all three of us ;) ) and the typical size of our clients (small-medium sized businesses, non-profit organizations, individuals/consultants, etc.).

My documents are all in spanish, so translating them would be a big job, but here's the table of contents for my proposals:

1.- Cover Page (1 page)

2.- About my company (4 pages)
2.1.- Our design approach
2.2.- Our design team
2.3.- Examples of similar past projects

3.- Design Report (3-6 pages)
3.1.- Design requirements
3.2.- Design details
3.3.- Website structure
3.4.- Client requirements (i.e. what we need from them)

4.- Hosting Report (4 - 6 pages)
4.1.- Hosting requirements
4.2.- Sites with similar requirements / specifications
4.3.- Hosting details
4.4.- Hosting explanation
4.5.- Hosting terms glossary

5.- Cost Structure (1-3 pages)
5.1.- Domain name registration
5.2.- Web hosting
5.3.- Site maintenance
5.4.- Media requirements
5.5.- Marketing & Publicity

6.- Design Examples (6 pages)
6.1.- Mock layout 1
6.2.- Mock layout 2
6.3.- Mock layout 3

7.- FAQ (2 pages)
7.1.- What is a web design service?
7.2.- Why are price quotes so different?
7.3.- Why are time quotes so different?
7.4.- What is needed to maintain a website?
7.5.- Some statistics about Internet use
7.6.- How do I get listed on search engines?

8.- Proposal summary (2 pages)
8.1.- Design details
8.2.- Hosting details
8.3.- Marketing / Publicity details
8.4.- Cost structure

The whole document is usually 15 - 30 pages, depending on what the client has told us and how many examples and statistics we have related to their industry.

This is the base structure I use, and is the most detailed proposal we use, however, I modify it depending on what I feel the customer needs. For example, with someone who is obviously web saavy, I exclude some of the basic explanations and play around with the FAQ as needed. If the proposal turns out over 20 pages, I usually put section 8 at the beginning and re-label it "Executive Summary" (this also depends on who I present the proposal to).

This is another reason why face to face meetings are so important, it gives you an idea of what to present as a proposal to the person you talked to.

Another thing, in a meeting, don't be afraid to ask if that person has power of decision or not, it completely changes the dynamic of the meeting. If you're pitching to the decision maker, then you want to highlight the marketing and ROI benefits of the website; however, if you're pitching to some low-level flunky who'll then take it up to their boss, you want to arm this person with as much information as possible to make themselves look good, since that is their main goal.

Like I said, meetings are of prime importance, the proposal is just a rehash of what you talked about during them (or expanded meeting notes, if you will).

If you worked for a large design company, you probably saw much more formal, legal-sounding documentation. ...

On the contrary, I used to work for a small design company, with only 6 - 7 people working at a time. The documentation I saw was a derivative work from some contract freely available from the Internet. Assuming you, guys, aren't large either, I was amazed at the difference at approach. I like professionalism in every aspect of work, even when serving small to medium sized clients.