Why price should not be your primary decision factor. While I do agree that price has to play some part in your decision regarding which website design company will be the one to produce your new website or even your regular website maintenance, it should not be the ultimate reason you pick a company. Price, in the website design industry, can vary greatly. It is very dependent on what you tell each company that you talk to about your project and in many cases it is very difficult to compare apples to apples.
However, let me give you a scenario that just recently happened to me. While I understand that price is important, I don’t live in a bubble, and I know that our pricing can be high or low, depending on the other competitors that our prospective customer also contacted. I rarely know, in the beginning, who those companies are, and frankly it doesn’t really matter that much to me, as a web design company owner. My job is to solve your problem.
So when you choose to meet with me, I have determined one thing already, you want to work with us. Or, you at least know that we are on your short list. Otherwise, you wouldn’t take the time out of your busy schedule to meet with myself and my team, and you certainly wouldn’t bring 3 employees with you as well, if we were not on your short list of web design companies. This is exactly what occurred with a prospect in February 2011.
When I followed up on the quote for the client a few weeks later, I was told that they had chosen someone else to work with them on their website design. While disappointed in their decision, I understood, I can’t win every job, if I would, I would be Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, and I am not! I always ask why they chose someone else and sometimes I get answers, other times I don’t. This time, they were happy to tell me why. Price. They indicated that our price was three times that of the company that they chose. Now, just for the record, as I mentioned before, this is common in our industry that pricing varies and sometimes we are lower, sometimes we are higher, in this case we apparently were higher, and quite a bit so.
I followed up with, “is that the foremost reason that you chose them over us?”, the response was “Yes!”. So I continued… “Thank you for your honesty, May I ask who you chose?” They replied. I said sure, I have heard of them. Then the call ended, and I promptly went to the competitors website, to which I found that it would not load. Yep…the company that just chose another web firm over ours, chose to go with a company who’s website was down.
Be very mindful of who you choose to do business with, regardless of the industry. It’s important to do your homework, get references or Linkedin Recommendations, and understand what the makeup is of the company that you are choosing. Price should not be your sole reason.