Most developers don’t thoroughly enjoy engaging clients. That is just a fact of the demographic. That habit can really take a toll on their quality of work. Not how well they develop but how well they interact with their customers which plays a gigantic role in the overall quality of a web developer. It can maim their reputation if they don’t communicate enough to fully understand exactly what the client wants before delivering something that is deemed perfect by the wrong side of the partnership. The reason for this is really simple and it comes down to how quality is measured and perceived. The key thing to remember is communication. This is why web development agencies often hire someone specifically to handle client communication and coordination. In a way, this can be viewed as simply having good customer service.

Web Development: The Perception of Quality Through Communication

Every single company, team, or freelancer has to interact with clients to do business. The better the customer service, the higher chance they have of retaining the client for future projects and possibly even a reciprocal partnership could be formed for a long term mutually beneficial relationship. A major portion of web development teams use the agile methodology for their projects workflow due to the fact that needs and wants are rapidly changing and agile is an effective way to keep up with the trend. These needs and wants have to be communicated from the client to the web development team as frequently as they arise. Streamlined communication in that way will not only help the dev team stay up to date but the customer will have a better time working with a team that they know is consistently ensuring that they are working around the client’s needs. That is the perception of quality. To better show the difference check out the example below.

Dev Team A: “Rapid Fingers” is comprised of the best of the best developers. They can create a hefty single page web app in 3 days without a hitch. Their team consists of one front end developers, one back end developer, and a graphic designer.

Dev Team B: “Nice n’ Slow” is comprised of one front end developer, one full stack developer, and a UI designer. They are all mediocre at best but they always get the job done.

Rapid Fingers meets with their client and gets their initial thoughts down and goes back to start cranking out the project. They meet with the client for a final review before ending the contract. At the end the website looks beautiful and does most of what the client wanted but due to the lack of communication during web development there are a few very small things that didn’t get covered.

Nice n’ Slow meets with their client initially and has weekly calls with them to check in, run through recent changes, and ask if anything else had arose that they should be aware of. They end the contract once the website looks beautiful and does everything that the client asks for.

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Rapid Fingers gets a “Thank You” and never hears from their client again while Nice n’ Slow’s phone is blowing up from recommendations that were passed around by their client.

If Rapid Fingers has stronger developers, why did more clients perceive a better quality job by the slower and less skillful team? Communication is key. Nice n’ Slow made sure their client knew what was going on at all times and worked WITH them instead of FOR them. If you want a good perception of quality for your web development team you NEED to have great external communication.

During web development there are a ton of tools that you can use to ensure that the communication or collaboration between the development team and the client are streamlined and simple. Use Slack, DebugMe or even Trello to help customers perceive better quality during web development projects. Do this and they will be more actively involved in an organized and consistent manner.

So what are you waiting for? Start solidifying your fundamental necessities such as proper and frequent communication during web development to make your team start kicking butt left and right in terms of quality.

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