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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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What do you think? - 11/8/2004 11:45:28
Many of you have maintenance agreements with some of your clients. There are many ways to do this. How do you?
I am considering selling "blocks" of hours, at a discounted price, and then clients can use them as they need to.
I have also had success with clients "retaining" my services monthly for an average amount of time.
What are your experiences? Can you share any pros and cons?
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d a v e
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RE: What do you think? - 11/8/2004 12:35:07
i maintain a personal site for a client and they just pay at the end of each month - they know after the first month roughly how much it costs (i gave an estimate first based on the kind of stufff they wanted updating) works for me - it's not a lot of money.
cons are that you never quite know how busy you're going to be and they always wabt lots of updates when you're busiest ;)
pros: flexible, bit of extra money coming in each month
it's a verbal agreement only, but then i know the guy as well, so not recommended for business without some sort of contract.
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David Prescott
Gekko web design
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powersitedesign
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From: Conway, Arkansas
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RE: What do you think? - 11/11/2004 6:59:33
Hey bnavis -
I have been doing this for a while and I have a couple of clients that will pay a maintenance retainer each month that will get them up to 8 hours a month should they need it. The clients that do not pay a standard hourly rate which is higher.
The clients that pay for the retainer are all larger clients are in more times than not we end up going over our 8 hours some months and do not bill them and then the very next month have nothing. It is a tradeoff. If you are looking for a possible means to increase cashflow, I would recommend soliciting Real Estate Companies that do high levels of updates and striking an arrangement w/ them that will work good for both of you.
One reason I mentioned Real Estate is because for a long time the Real Estate Companies all wanted a solution that allowed them to have their agents dynamically enter in their listings, they they figured out lately that the search engines aren't near as receptive to those type of solutions as they are sites that are still maintained by a firm or a skilled person in-house and they have been getting slammed by smaller companies on SEO. Average Monthly Real Estate Retainer for a small to medium based firm in Arkansas can run about $100 - $250 monthly. Also, there are other solutions you can integrate in for realtors such as SEO, and if they belong to an MLS, you can also provide or resell an IDX Solution that can bring in an addition couple of hundred dollars.
Hope this helps. :-)
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Cotton Rohrscheib
http://pleth.com
http://powersitedesign.com
http://cottonrohrscheib.com
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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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RE: What do you think? - 11/11/2004 10:21:14
quote:
and if they belong to an MLS, you can also provide or resell an IDX Solution that can bring in an addition couple of hundred dollars
Great ideas, but can you clarify the above for me? I am unfamiliar...
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Nicole
Posts: 2843
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RE: What do you think? - 11/11/2004 15:52:21
Hi,
I have a maintenance contract as an appendix to my overall contract, it’s optional of course, but as I’ve said in the “Content Seed” thread, I charge more if the client decides to update the site upon completion and somehow screws up and asks me to correct their mistakes. My hourly rate is also slightly cheaper for maintenance work.
The contract includes what the typical updates will be – new products or services, price updates, change of photos, update information, check of external links, search engine re-submit or check on their placement. I also stipulate how information will be given to me, floppy disk or CD, email, faxed or mailed and what forms I’ll accept information – printed document, what image types (jpg, gif etc), and what form the text will be in (.doc, .txt etc.) I also ask how often they think their site will need this maintenance – weekly, monthly etc.
I may have gone overboard, but it’s all there in black and white if ever a dispute arises, and of course it’s up to me if I bend those rules or accept them bending those rules. The other thing in my contract is a description of a typical web page and just how much a change of information will be accepted before the changes are deemed to be major, therefore constituting a new page within the site. (I can go into that in more detail in another post if you wish).
I only bill a client when the maintenance work reaches 2 hours and at present I have one client who has signed this maintenance agreement, they were having monthly maintenance, but due to my finding quicker and cheaper ways for them to have these updates made, they now only contact me when they need an update and I seem to be only billing them every 3 months or so.
This is where “Content Seed” would be very useful I feel, and the only changes I’ll be making to their site will be major changes or a site redesign in the future.
Hope this helps.
Nicole
p.s. As an incentive for my clients to give me "word of mouth" work, i encourage them to promote me by offering them a free one months maintenance for each client they find me who signs up for a new website. Not sure if others have something similar, but this free maintenance obviously only applies to those who have signed a maintenance agreement with me, and the free work only includes the maintenance work agreed to in that agreement.
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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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RE: What do you think? - 11/11/2004 22:03:32
Nicoleoz,
It has been nice to hear from you in so many different threads. Most of my clients have maintenance agreements. Some out of absolute necessity because they do not have someone with ability or interest in learning any skills, others view retaining my services as an easy way to get additional help, without putting the responsibility on an existing employee. I like the mind set, and it makes a lot of sense. I have monthly agreements that go from as little as 4 hours/month on up. IMHO that is where the money comes in...
This might sound funny, but I am cautiously investigating Content Seed because right now I have very few people who could even handle that (believe it or not).
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" To start, press any key. Where' s the ANY key?" Homer Simpson
www.NavisTechSolutions.com
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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 8:45:59
When they have the ability to update themselves, btu do NOT do it. I may also reflect poorly on the webmaster. How many of us have a portfolio page or a list of websites we just gave to a potential client. Once the client looks around and finds old, out of date content. It may reflect on us.
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powersitedesign
Posts: 117
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 8:57:36
Hey bnavis -
An MLS or Multi-List is an organization that real estate companies belong to that allows them to share their real estate listings ad to sell one other's listing. In most cases the MLS will have a central database that all of the realtors share that allows all of the other realtors to post one anothers listings on their websites. This list has to be updated on all realtors sites in 72hours. We have a Perl Script that goes out and pulls the new lisstings and purges the old listings that are in contract, etc. It runs itself, and has a pretty good mark up on it as a residual each month.. Thanks,
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Cotton Rohrscheib
http://pleth.com
http://powersitedesign.com
http://cottonrohrscheib.com
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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 9:21:29
Thanks, I learn something every day. I have a meeting next month with a realtor. Is this something any size realty company can have on their website if they belong to an MLS?
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" To start, press any key. Where' s the ANY key?" Homer Simpson
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Nicole
Posts: 2843
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 14:32:10
Hi Brad,
Oddly enough, this is in my contract too. If a client chooses to update their own site, and in the process somehow makes it look horrible and i don't want it in my portfolio, i'll remove it from my portfolio and also request that they remove my design credit byline from their site.
Nicole
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bnavis
Posts: 227
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From: Wisconsin USA
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 15:11:46
Great idea. I never considered documenting that in the contract.
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" To start, press any key. Where' s the ANY key?" Homer Simpson
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smcfarland
Posts: 684
From: Nashville, TN
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RE: What do you think? - 11/12/2004 15:52:16
I only put a designed by -link on sites that I maintain or charged lower fees. In the past, my maintenance fees have been $50 per month for two hours of work, or $35 per hour on an hourly basis without maintenance. I have gone lower, but those just don't work out.
Most clients do not seem to understand that anwering one liners and various questions takes time. I try to be very clear when maintaining someone's site to let them know they always need a subject on their email, they need to gather their thoughts, etc. before hand, and if possile email me a compiled list of changes and not a bunch "oh.. and" emails. I get over 1,000 emails on a daily basis right now, so I may be different than others.
It really helps to know the personality of your client. There are some that would be continually emailing me about grammatical changes, etc. on almost a daily basis, and then harrass me about not having the changes done. I think you really have to spell out what changes will be done and when. I can't drop what I am doing and spent 20 minutes opening and reading emails, gathering changes to make and 20 minutes doing them 5 times in a month for $50.
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