Every 2-3 years an OA customer gets a free redesign of the website. They can take request of it as early as 1-2months from their date with no additional cost. For a customer who wants a redesign before their eligible date, we will pro-rate their cost.
The customer does not have to take their redesign right away and they do not lose it after any given time. It is important to make the customer aware that we do this because over time websites tend to get cluttered as we continue to add more elements that become important to the client. These elements weren't part of the original design and sometimes giving the website a "Face Lift" helps declutter the homepage.
Any Customer Below Lite Class - Requires Approval & is an Additional Cost
These designs are preemptively built by our Graphics team with no feedback or interaction from the customer.
Send the customer the templated email with a link to the mockup and an attached screenshot.
Depending on the customer's response, move to one of the following steps:
If a customer requests a redesign, determine if the reason is:
Rebranding/Foundational Change: Make the customer aware this a more in-depth process and may require more time. Before you start the Redesign process, the customer must have the following:
'Face Lift'/Updated Look: Determine if the customer is ready and able to stay engaged or if they are just considering and looking around. Make the customer aware that the process can take 4-5 weeks minimum depending on how good communication is and how many changes they may have. If they are ready to get started, proceed to Step 2.
Establish that we are going to be building a Homepage design for them. That the Global Pages will have matching headers and footers but otherwise won't change.
Ask Customer if they are open to a new customer design, or if they have any specific input on what they would like the design to look like.
Ask them if there are any existing sites that they like from around the web (even those that are not our own). “Are there any sites that you’ve come across and said ‘Man, I wish I had a site like that.’” They might even like their competitors' website. Make them aware that we can build something similar but they do not want to copy their competitor's look.
Most people are not in that category. We need to give them some concrete examples. The next step would be to take them to the gallery on our website or our Pinterest to check out some of the sites that we have done.
Give them a day or two to look over the sites if they don’t say what they want right away. If they don’t seem like anything really sticks out to them, you can recommend a completely custom design for them.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions – The goal here is that they are proud of the end result and that it performs well.
Once you have all the notes (include any deadlines they may have) and resources (truck images, tech pics, etc) needed for Graphics to start, you can click the 'Schedule Redesign' Button. Find the ticket, usually under Sarah's or Graphic's Queue in Zoho, and copy all the notes and upload all the resouces.
Graphics now has the ticket with all the necessary information and images that are needed to start working on their mockup. A designer will reach out if they have any follow up questions or resources needed.
Determine if you can clarify any questions or concerns that Graphics may have. If not, reach out to the customer to get the rest of the information. Let Graphics know if the customer will require more time to get that information or resource.
If the customer has a deadline, confirm with Graphics if the deadline is feasible with their workload. This may require the other designer to take on the project, or a conversation with the customer to make them aware that there are other factors that may impact the deadline. (ex: the designer is out for half a week in the middle of the project. The customer may have changes but it will be a slightly longer turn-over time during that period)
Before you get the design back, the designer will send the design to Development for a UI audit and then to Products and Business Development for an SEO audit on the new content.
Once you get back a design, email them a link and screenshot (usually Design provides one) to the customer with an invite to schedule a time to go over it. If they don’t respond the same day via call or email, call next day.
Make notes of any changes, whether content or design
List what they DON'T like and WHY. While you can offer suggestions, it's more important to figure out WHY they don't like it. This allows for the designer to have more creative freedom when looking for a solution. Don't make any promises.
If they had any specific things that they had wanted on the site, mention where those things are incorporated. Ask them to look over the homepage and see if there is anything that needs to be tweaked or is incorrect. Keep in mind that the Foundation -> Bootstrap Mockups will not have the proper tags so they may have our reviews, phone number, name etc but that will all transfer over when they go live.
Make sure that they stick to the homepage at first. Let them know we will go over the other content later.
This is just a cleanup of the menu and pages they currently see on their website.
Ask them to bring up their website. At this point you will need to go over the menu and content with them to make sure the pages and information is relevant to their services and geographic location.
Remind them there is a difference in locked vs open content.
Disable or trash any content the customer doesn’t want on their site if you determine it holds little to no SEO value.
This cleanup involves looking over their page traffic stats and giving them a Menu Proposal
Pull up their OA Stats and go to the Page Stats. Make sure you are in Service Area Only.
Pull the top 50 pages and insert them into the Menu Cleanup Spreadsheet
Mark/color each of the pages as they fit and begin to determine what is irrelevent content, what pages can be combined, and what pages they might be lacking.
Start to put together the proposal in the next sheet called "Proposed Menu".
At the bottom are notes to reference which pages you might want to get rid of and why.
The "Temp" Sheet is to copy over the top 50 pages so you can format them better on "Current Page Traffic".
The last two sheets are copies to use as references.
Once step 6 is done, email the customer the mockup for final approval. When the customer approves, reach out to the Designer to schedule a date to go live. Do not give the customer a date without first scheduling it with the Designer. The Designer is responsible to get the new design live before noon of that scheduled day. Once a date as been established, comment in "@designer - Green light to go live on {insert date}" and send back to the designer to begin the prep work.
Let the customer know what day they will go live with the new design and make them aware that it can be a full day process. Especially if the design is going from Foundation to Bootstrap.
Once the website is live, the Designer will send you back the ticket, letting you know they are done. That is when you can begin the Final Checklist For Redesigns.
This Checklist depends on if the redesign is a conversion (Foundation to Bootstrap) or it is the same Framework. All the Hidden and Enabled pages should be checked regardless, but if it is a Converted Design, then you will have to go through each page and conver the code from Foundation to Bootstrap.
After all the checklists have been complete, you are now able to check off the project as finished.
Please do the following:
Whether the customer stopped responding or never responded to the first message, follow the schedule and document each attempt in the Redesign Ticket.
When cancelling a redesign, please take the following steps:
A customer is eligible for 3 custom designs before we charge for Graphic's time. If there was a preemptive design that was built by Graphics, this does not count towards the Custom Designs. It will be determined by the Redesign Coordinator and Graphic's Team if designers need to be swapped between designs. Make the customer aware that they need to give better specifics or details because if it goes further, it will be a pro-rated charge or another 2-3 year wait.