Getting primary information about a future project

Obtaining primary information about the project

Probably the most important question for the client and the contractor is the question of the cost of the project. In this case, often the customer turns to several companies at once to find out the order of prices and determines the contractor, so the question of time that he is ready to spend on communicating with one studio is extremely important for him.

Many companies use questionnaires (or questionnaires) to collect primary information about the project, whether it is website development or corporate identity. It turns out that all the necessary questions have already been asked in it and all that is required of the client is to fill it out and send it to the company, so that after analyzing this information, they will report the cost and terms.

At first glance, everything seems logical and simple. In practice, in most cases, everything turns out to be not so joyful. And the main problem is the questions that are asked in these profiles. The fact is that website development is a service that requires accuracy, and therefore a small detail in the project description or the client’s desire can ultimately turn out to be an extra week, or even a month of work. Keeping this in mind, the employees who compose such questionnaires try to ask as many questions as possible, which very often clients cannot or do not want to answer. So it turns out that the desire to get as complete information about the project as possible ultimately turns against the development companies .

What questions do not need to be asked?

You can conduct a small selection of such questionnaires and look at those questions that are asked to customers, as well as their number. For example, let's look at the issuance of two requests: “ Questionnaire for the development of the site ” and “ Questionnaire for the development of the site ” and, accordingly, those questionnaires that the company offers its customers. After counting and discarding the unnecessary, it turns out that the average number of questions that the client is asked to answer is 28. That is, if the client wants to determine the approximate cost of developing the project and compare prices in 5 companies, then he needs to answer ~ 140 questions. Even despite the fact that most of the questions in such questionnaires are repeated, it will take a lot of time and not every client will want to spend this time.

If you study such questionnaires in more detail, you can see that most of the questions in them should not have appeared there, because either the client, by definition, cannot know the answer, or the answer to such questions is obvious.

Examples:

Optimization for minimum screen resolution:

• 800 * 600
• 1024 * 768

Playback in browser:

• Internet explorer
• Netscape
• Opera

However, most of these issues. They practically do not play any role in assessing the future project, do not allow a better understanding of the goals and objectives of the project, but they take a lot of time and the client’s desire will turn to such a company.

What questions should I ask?

There are not many such questions, but it is very important not only to formulate them correctly, but also to ask in the right form.

To begin with, it is important to understand which company turned to you for the service. It is enough to find out the name of the company and the contact information of the person responsible for the project. Everything else is easy to find, including detailed information about the company, its type of activity, occupation , etc.

Secondly , it is necessary that the client tells you what the goal is for the future project. In this case, it is very desirable to leave the question open, and not give answers.

Thirdly , it is important to understand who the site is made for, i.e.which users will go to it. Any client should very well represent their customers, their target audience.

Fourth , it is necessary that the future project fits easily into the general positioning of the company in the market, that is, you need to imagine what kind of impression the final product should make on the target audience.

Fifth , there are situations when the customer has a very clear idea of ​​what structure the future site should have. Although it happens and vice versa. In any case, this question will not be redundant, and the answer obtained will greatly simplify the task.

Sixth , in addition to their customers, customers know their competitors very well. Therefore, it is important to ask them about it.

And  seventhIt’s nice to find out from the client about additional information on the project. From the main it is: the presence of a logo, corporate identity and brand book. As well as any comments and additions that the client considers important, he will mention.

The remaining questions for understanding what the client wants are not so important, therefore they can be safely left for “later”, the main thing is not to forget about them at all.

Final result

Following these main points, we prepared questionnaires for the following types of services:

1. to develop a logo and corporate identity ;
2. to create a site ;
3. and its promotion .

Separately, I would like to note the convenience of the format of the format we have chosen - .pdf, namely: its small size, the flexibility of giving the appearance, as well as the ease of subsequent work with it.