Prodcast: Revisions Process Part 1

Ideally we would love to have the customer fall in love with their new site and want to publish right away, but the reality is that some minor touch-ups will most likely have to be done, so it’s best to have as few revisions as possible.

And one of the ways to make sure a project only needs a few revisions is to make sure the original sendup was as complete as possible.  While it’s easy to say “we’ll take care of that in revisions” the reality is the more content you leave out of the original sendup, the higher the likelihood the customer will be unhappy with the first draft, will submit a poor midway survey, and will be difficult to deal with from there on out.

So we want to make sure that we’re providing clear and concise instructions, which will avoid confusion and help reduce the number of clarifications and the overall turnaround time.

And one last thing, don’t forget that revisions is the only part of the website design process that doesn’t go through Prod, so there’s no oversight and no one there to check to see if you uploaded the correctly labeled revisions worksheet, uploaded all necessary files, and if the instructions are clear.  We usually get that feedback later, and it almost always causes a delay in the completion time frame.

And remember the ultimate goal:  Get the website published!

So what are some general best practices you should be mindful of?

If the customer sends in changes they would like to make to their site, be sure to rewrite the changes for our builders to understand.  Remember, what may make sense to you and the customer may not make sense to the builder since they were not privy to your conversation.  The builders are never going to assume anything so make sure the instructions are rewritten to be clear and concise.

Also remember that context always matters.  If you’re able to, explain the reasoning or the goal behind the change being requested.  Sometimes a change can make no sense to the builder, so explaining why will help them understand and make a change correctly.

Be as specific as you can.  Your notes should always give an instruction rather than pointing out an observation like “the customer thinks the text next to their photo is too small.”

It’s better to say something like, “Increase the text font size to match the height of their photo”.  You’ll also notice the snipping tool was used in this example.  Rather than having to guess or even in some cases sending it back as a clarification, the builder knows exactly what the customer wants and can easily and confidently make the changes.

Make sure you keep your notes organized.  Your notes should go page by page with changes, starting with sitewide changes at the top.  In this case, you would start with sitewide, then Home, then About, then the Services pages, and then the Contact page.

Also remind the customer that our builders are very experienced with hundreds of websites under their belt, so it’s better for them to have discretion, especially with the more complicated changes.

And the final topic we’ll be covering in part 1 of this video is the labeling of revisions worksheets.  Recently, Prod has been getting a bunch of revisions clarifications from the builders who are unsure which uploaded worksheet to use.  It is critical that the revisions worksheets are named properly to ensure that it is crystal clear to the builders as to which worksheet they should be using for the revisions.

There are only two ways you should be labeling the revisions worksheets:

One way is: Revisions1.businessname.docx

The other way is: Businessname.revisions1.docx

The reason for this is two-fold.  Not only does it help the builder more easily identify which worksheet to use, but by labeling it with the business name, it actually helps you so that you don’t accidentally upload the wrong worksheet to a project. Having seen the chaos that mistake causes with the customer, I promise it’s not something you’ll ever want to deal with.

Thank you for watching part one of the revisions process video.  In part 2 we’ll go into more detail into some of the more tricky processes to hopefully help you get your customers published sooner.  See you next time!