There is an interesting blog post at Smart Company on unprofessional web developer behavior.

“…needless to say, the design was messy, the e-commerce section (which we repeatedly said we did not want to go live yet) was incomplete as customers could not see prices next to items displayed, and to make matters worse, she held off removing inappropriate/incomplete material until we paid. We both felt that asking for the total of $9000 for a website that was incomplete and which we did not approve was not rational.”

It gets better:

“…I looked up our business name on Google and it led to her web design company and under our profile in her list of projects she states that the client (that would be us) “has been taken off line for their inability to pay their bills on time”.”

Unfortunately it’s an all to common occurrence for unprofessional web designers/developers to taint the online experience for the client. Many of the problems listed in the post could have been avoided by:

1. Agreeing on the scope of the project before work commences
2. Agreeing on the costs before work commences
3. The web developer behaving in a professional manner

I ordered a few hundred business cards for Phillips Design this week. I settled on VistaPrint after reading a few positive reviews in online forums. While I have yet to see the actual cards, the company has already left a bitter taste in my mouth from their in-your-face upselling techniques.

During the order process VistaPrint attemps to upsell various stationary with the customer’s logo plastered on it around 2-3 times, in some cases making the user scroll down an entire page with “special” and “limited time” offers. After skipping through these, a final attempt to sell the same thing at an even lower price was made.  After ordering the cards, an email order confirmation is sent with another dozen special offers.

In my opinion this kind of marketing poisons the entire user experience just to make a few extra dollars. It certainly made me think twice about referring any of my clients.

Upselling is an excellent way of giving the customer extra value and increasing business profit — just be careful not to overdo.

Welcome to the Phillips Design notebook!

This blog will be a journal of ideas relating to web design, business, marketing and anything else I think readers may be interested in. If you like the posts, please consider subscribing via the RSS feed.

Enjoy!

Andrew Phillips