Providing after sales service once a web design project is completed is an essential part of the web design business. Your web design client expects support once the web site is online and running. A successful online web design solution is more likely to fetch good business and growth if the web site is looked after and continuously improved. Most of your web design clients have neither the knowledge nor the time to tweak a web design. So one way or the other you need to provide a form of support, either to fix bugs or add to the web design content once it is up and running. Whilst any respectable web design company can price a web design project up and complete the assignment within budget, it can be tricky to plan and price an after sales support. How much do you charge? Is it a per hour cost or is it a periodic service agreement? What are the risks, both financial and commercial? Who does the aftersales within the organisation.

Although there is no absolute answers and figures, we can address some of the issues and factors that can guide your pricing and delivery policy for after sales web design service. The complexity of the web design project, the relationship you have with your web design client, the state of your business, the cost of your web design services are factors that will influence your web design after sales pricing policy.

The more complex a web design project, the more likely there will be a demand for tweaking, debugging and improvement after the web design project is handed over to the client. Likewise, your web design support needs to be robust and well organised to handle complex after sales processes. So you will need to have a well planned support structure in place to provide after sales. More than likely, the main web developer who has worked on the initial web design project will move on to new projects. In practice you want the same developer who has designed the original web site to intervene on after sales interventions. However, this is not always possible. In this case, you need to get a back up team to familiarise with the web design coding for an adequate intervention in case of problems.

The nature of your relationship with the web design client is an important factor that will influence your after sales. The better your business relationship with your web design client, the easier you can plan and intervene. Always talk to your client and leave a clear and open communication channel. The Internet and online structure is still a volatile environment. Whilst you should take every precaution to ensure security and reliability, things do go wrong and you have to be prepared to intervene and work with your web design client. A web design project is never over as soon as you publish online, so do not cut the communication channels with your client once the web site is online.

Pricing is tricky. Do you charge the same rate for after sales as you do for the initial web design work? It depends on the type of intervention and how often you are likely to intervene. Although there are very few bugs once you publish online, you will be expected to intervene under warranty for a limited period of time if technical problems occur like corrupt files. For additional work and amendments requested by the web design client, you will have to charge a rate per hour. For small web design projects where you expect very little intervention you may keep the same rate as the cost of after sales are likely to be low. However, for larger projects where the changes could take time, the client will find it hard to fork out large expenses after spending an already big budget on the initial web design. So here, you might need to factor down your rate to accommodate to keep the after sales web design business.

Whichever way you look at it, whatever your client's needs and size, there is no getting out of a good after sales web design service. So, make provisions for it in terms of time, money and human resources...it's the only way to build a strong web design company with repeat business and a sound reputation.

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Ralph Ramah is the webmaster of Discount Web Design, one of the leading web design company in the UK offering quality web site design and SEO services