SureFeedback’s Best Practics for Crafting a WordPress Feedback Process

Happy clients are the foundation of a healthy business. 

Nonetheless, getting WordPress feedback from clients can (at the worst of times) be frustrating, costly, and lead to poor results. Of course, at the best of times, the website feedback process is clear, concise, and leads to a far superior design as a result.

Because such communications are necessary to ensure you’re bringing your clients’ dream website into reality, it’s essential to arm yourself with a suite of best practices to keep both designers and their clients on track.

But the reality is that’s not how it all goes down. It’s certainly not ideal to do a big reveal and then realize that you’ve gotten it all wrong. 

A lack of a feedback process can be costly in terms of time and money.

Best practices for dealing with client feedback start with creating a foundation of understanding that continues through the design process and often doesn’t end until well after you’ve launched a website.

Establish Expectations

Does it feel like the last 20 percent of a project seems to nearly always take 80 percent of the total time to get done? You inevitably feel like you’re about to reach the finish line and then revision after revision comes tumbling in, making those last few feet feel like you’re walking through mud. 

The best way to minimize the amount of time you spend at the end of a project is by establishing a better understanding, upfront.

Unfortunately, most people don’t come into the website design process with total clarity regarding what they want. 

So, before you take on a new assignment, you should create a project scope document that clearly outlines what’s being included in the price you’re going to charge. 

The time you spend upfront documenting the business goals of the website and scope of the work, then developing sitemaps and wireframes, will make all the difference in the world when it comes to gathering useful WordPress feedback. 

Not only does this documentation give you more clarity about what your client wants — it also forces them to get clarity about what they want. Far too often, clients have ephemeral, intangible ideas that lead to lots of difficult feedback to navigate, which inevitably involves wasted time.

Most freelancers and firms have nightmares of clients going far beyond what they thought was agreed to as the scope of the project and included in the price.

Spending time upfront with a project scope document makes such fears unfounded. If the client wants something outside of the scope, you will be prepared with clear documentation that explains why it will cost a bit more to make that happen.

Clarify Channels of Communication for WordPress Feedback

For both clarity and your sanity, having the right channels of communication in place for your clients is an essential part of managing WordPress feedback.

It’s best to start with a face-to-face or video meeting. This will not only help you close a sale — it also helps to create the sort of trust and respect you need to manage feedback at the end of the project.

When thinking about which client communication channels to use, don’t forget this important fact: clients just want to communicate what they want and have it done.

Despite this, avoid the temptation of giving clients access to you 24/7. Specifically, don’t give clients access to you through instant messaging tools like Slack, text, or Facebook Messenger. 

Every time notifications interrupt your workflow with feedback or a question, they’re costing you money. It takes about 23 minutes to refocus after a distraction — imagine how much time you lose every time a client pings your device!

As long as you’re upfront with clients about the best ways to communicate feedback and when they can expect a response, there shouldn’t be any major issues. 

TL:DR; Give clients a way to provide feedback when it’s convenient for them but doesn’t interrupt your workflow.

In the beginning stages, email is a fine solution for getting the ball rolling. After you start to establish more efficient processes, you’ll need to find better tools for WordPress feedback.

Tool For Visual Client Communication

Having the right tools for managing WordPress feedback is vital. For visual projects (such as website design), it can be otherwise difficult to decipher client feedback. 

Clients often use layman terms or general descriptions for parts of a website or design elements that lack clarity. Of course, this isn’t their fault. After all, if they were fluent in website design terminology, they probably could build the site themselves.

Many established companies and freelancers have moved to project management tools to try to keep milestones in order and client feedback rolling in at the right time. However, unless your client is already using one of these management tools, it may seem too complicated and cumbersome to use properly. 

SureFeedback has solved the onboarding problem. Instead of a client trying to explain what they want via text alone, this visual overlay allows them to click on an exact website element and provide specific feedback about it.

There will always be a lot of changes to consider as you work with a client to dial in a project. By offering a clear feedback channel that allows both sides to communicate about exactly what needs to be done, you’ll save lots of time and frustration in the long run.

Final Thought: SureFeedback’s Best Practices for Crafting a WordPress Feedback Process

Design is part art and part science. Creating a client feedback process is critical — especially when you care not only about the client’s happiness but the beauty and functionality of the final project.

By spending more time upfront — properly documenting the scope of a project and ensuring you understand the business needs a design project must meet — you can minimize the amount of time it takes to adjust your design based on client feedback.

Try a demo to see how SureFeedback can help improve your WordPress feedback process.