Communicating with Clients in Web Design

by

Valeria Stephens

Whether you are working for yourself as a freelancer or part of a company of web designers, one of the hardest parts of your job is not the coding or the artistic side of the business, but dealing with the needs and demands of the clients. Though it may not have been covered in your graphic and web design courses, not only does your paycheck depends on making the customer happy, but you ll also save your sanity if you don t let the client run over you rough shod.

You will need to walk a fine line between filling the customer with confidence with your abilities and helping them give you input on the final product they would like to see and making sure you do not get taken advantage of. One of the main problems you may encounter is clients who really don t understand the technology you are working with. Some of this is understandable, because you wouldn t be hired if they could do it themselves, but you also have to be careful of the problem of clients who think they understand everything, and ask you to create the next major social media platform on a shoe string budget, or they saw something on a television show that makes them think you can do things not graphic design course teaches.

You ll also want to watch out for tiny corrections and changes snowballing into massive amounts of hours the client did not agree you could bill for. Whether it ll be your boss breathing down your neck because the customer won t pay for the extra ten changes to their blog s logo that they asked for, or you fighting to juggle deadlines when the revisions balloon, you want to get things right in the least amount of time possible and only do what they paid you to do.

Some of the problem solving can be taken care of by documenting everything and clearly letting the client know what you can and cannot do. You don t need to give them free

web design courses

, but for more nervous clients, a quick outline saves you a headache later. Another thing you need to do is learn to practice active listening and other client friendly soft skills. If you re adrift, sales and

customer service programs

can get you on the right track, but basically certain techniques help clients feel reassured and that they re being listened to, so they ll tell you what they want better, and be less critical of the things you serve up. It ll also help you assert yourself on the subject of unpaid edits. Lastly, document absolutely everything. You will have something to point to, whether politely reminding a client that they need to pay if you change the shade of blue one more time, to avoiding having to repeat Internet 101 every time your client calls you.

Visit Academy of Learning College for more information on a graphic design course.

Valeria Stephens is a Copywriter at Higher Education Marketing, a leading Web marketing firm specializing in Google Analytics, Education Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Mobile SMS Alerts, Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing, among other Web marketing services and tools.

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