Thinking of upgrading your school website? Finding the right website designing and development company is a delicate task – one that needs some careful consideration. In recent years, more and more schools have started relying heavily on web-based communications, and thus, the need for a robust school website design and CMS has never been greater.
In this post, we’ve tried listing some of the basic and pertinent questions that you should be asking any web developer before roping their services for the job. This way, you can make sure that the service provider is thorough, reliable, attentive, and follows the industry’s best practices.
Easy questions you need answers
Here are a few simple questions that need answering.
- How long will it take to build the new website from scratch?
- How long have they been providing services to schools and other institutions?
- Are the websites they’ve crafted recently, mobile-friendly?
- How much would they charge for their services?
These are some of the easy questions that need answering. However, there’s more to it. Before zeroing in on a service provider, dig a little deeper and find out if the task at hand would pose a challenge to the service provider.
Hard but necessary questions that need answering (school website)
What is the customer retention rate?
- This question is mainly to figure out an agency’s reputation. The best way to figure out how good or bad someone is depends much on their existing clientele. Find out if they’ve worked with any major school in the recent past, and if the demographics match, reach out to their ex-clients to find out if they’ve been satisfied with the agency’s work. You may even ask about the last school or institution that no longer works with them. This gives them a chance to address their shortcomings as well.
What are the last three CMS advancements?
- School web communication is rapidly evolving and so. If you care about usability and appeal. Now is a great time to upgrade the school website design and CMS. Ask the agency about the various changes they’d be bringing in, to make the site better for all the stakeholders. The agency should be ready to adapt and add evolving features. Instead of relying on their strong suites and on their laurels. Also, find out if they simply use excessive jargon or are good at breaking down complex web tech into simpler forms to offer a better insight into their work.
What kind of uptime do they guarantee?
- If your agency tells you that your website would never face downtime, they’re lying. Let’s face it – accidents do happen and all sites face downtime at some point. So, get in touch with a professional agency and find out how much downtime the school website may face and whether or not the server would be able to handle the rush (in case of any). That is not all! Some agencies differentiate between hardware uptime and software uptime. But your audience would need both.
How accessible is their support team?
- A good and effective agency is one that not only does a great job but also provides quality customer service. At times, even some of the best web development companies fail to offer reliable customer service and thus they often do not live up to the expectations. What good is an agency if they don’t have anyone to address critical questions or provide assistance in case something goes wrong? Also, find out if they’d be providing training to the people handling some of the backend operations on the site.
Key takeaway (school website)
The need for a functional and feature-rich school website design and CMS is on the rise in recent years. So, find an agency that fits well into your digital communication plan. Make sure your agency understands your needs and works towards helping you achieve those goals.
