When it comes to marketing your business, trust is always a big one that most, if not all, of us try to get across. Some of us do a good job of communicating this, some of us don't. But one other aspect that's important and often lost in the communication shuffle is reliability.
It's easy to confuse the two but they are inherently different. Sure, you might trust your web designer to do a good job on your site's redesign. But are they reliable so that when something comes up (either a bug fix, glitch or simply a new feature you want to add to the site) they can get it done for you and not make you stress out?
What made me think of this (and made me use a web designer as an example) is that in the past 2 months alone, I've been contacted in some form by at least 4 prospects or peers whose web developers have either become so busy they can't respond in reasonable amount of time or they just don't respond at all.
From my perspective, and perhaps obviously, I'm more than happy for us to take on the work and form a new relationship with these folks who have, to some degree, lost faith in web designers / developers. More business, after all. But in my gut it pains me to hear these stories. And I've heard plenty of them. What these so-called professionals are doing is damaging the industry's reputation.
If you take a look around on the web it's clear that 1) there are a lot of web designers / developers out there (and I mean a lot), and 2) not all of them are flakes. It's those few that are flakes that make the rest of us look bad. And it flat out pisses me off. If you get so busy that it's becoming hard to keep up with the workload, good for you. But don't be a jerk and not communicate to your clients – especially those that have been with you for a while. And if you can't even respond to emails, you have some serious time management / productivity issues to work out.
Everyone knows the economy is crap right now. So why would anyone act this way toward their bread and butter when consumers are clamoring for a solid sense of trust and reliability after so much deceit and failure? It's beyond me.
Like I said though, if we're the right fit, we're more than happy to accommodate those clients who have gotten the shaft. And for those of you reading this who are web designers, here's my tip of the day: Treat your clients well (better than that even) and you'll reap the rewards in more ways than just financial. Otherwise, you're tarnishing your own reputation.
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