Was thinking about how I interact with car mechanics lately - since I’m due for another oil change. Most of the time, I decline their offers for additional services reflexively. This isn’t because I know that my vehicle doesn’t need the service - it’s just because I don’t trust their motivations and have been burned in the past. Being burned in the oil change business isn’t very expensive, I think the last time I got hooked, it was $129 for service I didn’t really need. I now second guess everything that those people say - often just long enough to say: No thanks.
The main reason I don’t trust mechanics is that I do not understand how it all works. It is a mystery to me - so that makes me skeptical of their suggestions.
That triggered a more recent understanding for me: That’s a lot like web design and programming for normal people - not web geeks like me. Since it’s not very well understood, that can create mistrust and skepticism that we need to work to correct.
We’ve been building websites as nonfiction studios inc. for 8 and a half years now. Many of our clients were with us when we started out of the ashes of another studio. We’ve kept most of them for this entire time and they’ve developed a trust in us that we’ve worked hard to keep.
When we do work with those clients - our long term partners - we are able to do much better work for them. We don’t have to fight about simple decisions - they trust we have their best interests in mind. And we trust that they know their business and that we don’t - we rely on them for information about their company and clients.
nonfiction wants to get all of our clients into that position - a position where they will trust us - and allow us to do our best work.
We have a large client that we do a ton of work for - from all sorts of departments. Some of those departments trust us - and we do our best work for them. They have a problem, we discuss the problem and then come up with solutions - they give input from their perspective as business experts - and we give input from a design and development perspective. In the end, we have a great product - delivered on time and on budget with minimal drama and maximum impact.
We have some other departments at that client that we don’t have the same trust dynamic with. We’re constantly being second guessed until the project is a barely recognizable shell of what we designed and planned for. We’re constantly having to re-do and re-work something that will never actually deliver because we didn’t work together as a team.
It all comes down to trust. We work hard to earn and develop our client’s trust- so that we can do better and make you look like a hero.
We think one way to improve that trust with clients, is to remove some of the mysteries around design and development. One of the purposes for this blog is to share some of the inner workings of our Studio’s process. We hope this can build even more trust with our fantastic clients. Trust is the foundation for great work.
What are some web mysteries that we can address with you? Let us know in the comments or via email.